Danish grammar: a friendly overview
Danish grammar is smaller than people fear. Verbs do not change for I, you, she, there are no cases, and the tenses look a lot like English. The hard parts are three: en and et, the verb in second place, and where ikke goes. This page puts the rules in the order you meet them as a learner, with examples you can hear.
How to use this page. Read one section, say the examples out loud, then practise that rule before you read the next one. Grammar you have only read is gone in a week. Grammar you have said twenty times stays.
What are the basic Danish grammar rules?
If you only learn five things, learn these. Everything else is detail on top of them.
- Every noun is an en-word or an et-word. en bil (a car), et hus (a house). Most nouns are en-words.
- “The” goes on the end of the word. bilen (the car), huset (the house).
- The verb is the same for everybody. jeg taler, du taler, hun taler. No -s for she, nothing to learn.
- The verb stands in second place. I dag arbejder jeg hjemme: today works I at home.
- There is no “do”. Questions start with the verb: Taler du dansk?
En or et: the first rule you meet
There is no reliable rule that tells you whether a noun is an en-word or an et-word. Learn the word with its en or et, always, the way you learn its spelling. The little word changes other words too: an adjective gets a -t with et-words.
- en stor bila big car
- et stort husa big house
- to store husetwo big houses
Plural and “the”
Most plurals end in -er or -e, and some do not change at all. “The” in the plural is -ne on the end.
| a | the | more than one | the (plural) |
|---|---|---|---|
| en bil | bilen | biler | bilerne |
| et hus | huset | huse | husene |
The verb in second place
This is the rule that makes you sound Danish, and the one my students break longest. In a main sentence, the verb is always the second thing. If you start with a time or a place, the subject moves behind the verb.
- Jeg spiser morgenmad klokken syv.I eat breakfast at seven.
- Klokken syv spiser jeg morgenmad.At seven I eat breakfast (word for word: at seven eat I).
Ikke (not) comes after the verb in a main sentence: Jeg taler ikke dansk. After fordi and at it moves in front of the verb: fordi jeg ikke har tid, because I don’t have time.
The tenses
Danish has the same everyday tenses as English, and they are made in a similar way.
- Jeg laver mad.I cook / I am cooking (present).
- Jeg lavede mad i går.I cooked yesterday (past).
- Jeg har lavet mad.I have cooked (present perfect).
- Jeg skal lave mad i aften.I am going to cook tonight (future).
Two traps: Danish uses the present for “I am cooking”, there is no -ing form, and vil means “want to”, not “will”.
Are there Danish grammar exercises?
Yes. The free course has an exercise for every rule on this page: build the sentence word by word, choose en or et, put the verb in the right tense. When you make a mistake, you get a hint about where the mistake is, not the answer, so you fix it yourself. The lessons follow the same order as the language schools, so they also prepare you for the module 1 test.
If you want the Danish grammar words in Danish, the ones your teacher at the language school uses (navneord, udsagnsord, tillægsord), look them up in our grammar book in easy Danish.
Questions people ask
Is Danish grammar hard?
No, not compared with German, French or Russian. There are no cases and no verb endings for each person. Pronunciation is the hard part of Danish, not the grammar.
Is Danish grammar like English?
In many ways, yes: the same tenses, similar word order in simple sentences, and many shared words. The big differences are en and et, “the” on the end of the word, and the verb in second place.
What should I learn first?
En and et with every noun, and the verb in second place. Those two you use in every sentence.
Updated 19 October 2026