There are two fundamentally different ways to express the same content in Danish. One is verb-driven: actions are carried by finite verbs, agents appear as subjects, and the sentence unfolds as a sequence of events. The other is noun-driven: actions are frozen into nouns, packed into long noun phrases, and stacked into dense, agent-less constructions. The second is the hallmark of formal, administrative, academic, and journalistic Danish — and at its most extreme it becomes kancellistil, the "chancery style" of officialdom. Learning to read it is essential for handling Danish institutions, newspapers, and academic texts. Learning when not to write it is just as important.
What nominalisation is
Nominalisation (Danish nominalisering or substantivering) is turning a verb (or adjective) into a noun. The action stays the same; its grammatical packaging changes:
| Verb | Derived noun | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| at undersøge | en undersøgelse | to investigate → an investigation |
| at beslutte | en beslutning | to decide → a decision |
| at gennemføre | en gennemførelse | to carry out → a carrying-out |
| at vurdere | en vurdering | to assess → an assessment |
| at ansøge | en ansøgning | to apply → an application |
| at behandle | en behandling | to treat/process → a treatment/processing |
The most productive deverbal suffix is -(n)ing/-else, which turns almost any action verb into an action noun. Both endings are common; -ning tends to attach to native verbs (behandling, betaling), -else often to verbs of perception or judgement (oplevelse, vurdering is -ing, but bedømmelse, forståelse are -else). There is no fully reliable rule for which suffix a given verb takes — it must be learned per verb.
Sagsbehandlingen tager normalt op til seks uger.
The processing of the case normally takes up to six weeks.
Bestyrelsens beslutning blev offentliggjort i går.
The board's decision was made public yesterday.
Compressing a clause into a noun phrase
The real power — and the real danger — of nominal style is that a whole clause can be folded into a single noun phrase. The agent becomes a genitive or a af-phrase; the action becomes the head noun; the object becomes another af-phrase or a compound. Watch a verbal clause collapse:
- Verbal: efter at projektet var blevet gennemført ("after the project had been carried out")
- Nominal: efter gennemførelsen af projektet ("after the carrying-out of the project")
Efter gennemførelsen af projektet blev medarbejderne evalueret.
After the carrying-out of the project, the staff were evaluated.
Kommunens vurdering af ansøgningen forventes færdig i næste uge.
The municipality's assessment of the application is expected to be finished next week.
Notice what has happened: the tense, the agent's exact role, and the relation between events are all compressed into the noun phrase. Gennemførelsen af projektet tells you the project was carried out but says nothing about by whom, when finished, or in what manner. The nominal style packs information densely but obscures agents and time. That is exactly why bureaucracies favour it — and exactly why it is criticised.
The same content, two styles
The clearest way to feel the difference is to rewrite one sentence in both registers.
Verb-driven (spoken, plain):
Vi har undersøgt sagen, og vi har besluttet at afvise klagen.
We have investigated the matter, and we have decided to reject the complaint.
Noun-driven (administrative):
Efter en undersøgelse af sagen er der truffet beslutning om afvisning af klagen.
Following an investigation of the matter, a decision has been taken regarding rejection of the complaint.
The second sentence is denser, more impersonal, and — crucially — has no visible agent. Der er truffet beslutning (the der-passive) hides who decided. This anonymity is a feature for an institution issuing a ruling and a bug for a reader trying to find out who is responsible. The plain version answers "who did what"; the nominal version answers "what was done" while quietly deleting the "who."
Now the reverse — unpacking nominal style back into clear prose is a skill in itself:
Behandlingen af ansøgningen afventer en afgørelse fra ministeriet.
The processing of the application awaits a decision from the ministry.
unpacks to the far more transparent:
Vi kan ikke behandle din ansøgning, før ministeriet har afgjort sagen.
We cannot process your application until the ministry has decided the matter.
Why a verb is usually clearer
English speakers meet the identical phenomenon at home — "the implementation of the policy resulted in the reduction of costs" versus "we cut costs by implementing the policy." The advice is the same in both languages: where a verb will do, prefer the verb. Nominal style:
- deletes the agent (no subject for the buried action),
- deletes tense and aspect (a noun has no past/present),
- forces light verbs (foretage, gennemføre, foranledige) that carry no meaning, and
- stacks af-phrases that the reader must mentally re-expand into clauses.
A reader can process two or three nominalisations in a sentence; beyond that, comprehension drops sharply. Danish style guides and the public-sector klarsprog ("plain language") movement actively campaign against kancellistil for exactly this reason.
Common Mistakes
❌ Jeg vil gerne foretage en ansøgning om optagelse på studiet.
Over-nominalised — bureaucratic where a plain verb is clearer.
✅ Jeg vil gerne søge ind på studiet.
I would like to apply for the programme.
❌ Der skal ske en forbedring af situationen.
Empty nominal style — vague light verb plus action noun.
✅ Vi skal forbedre situationen.
We must improve the situation.
❌ Efter modtagelsen af din betaling af regningen sender vi varen.
A pile-up of af-phrases that the reader must unpack.
✅ Når vi har modtaget din betaling, sender vi varen.
When we have received your payment, we'll send the item.
❌ Beslutningen om afvisningen af klagen blev taget af udvalget.
Three stacked nominalisations obscure who did what.
✅ Udvalget besluttede at afvise klagen.
The committee decided to reject the complaint.
The shared thread in every error is the same: a light verb (foretage, ske, blive taget) plus an action noun where a single real verb would say it more clearly. The fix is always to find the verb hiding inside the noun and let it run the sentence. Nominalisation is a tool for compression and formal register — not a default mode of writing.
Key Takeaways
- Nominalisation turns verbs into action nouns, mostly via -(n)ing and -else.
- Clauses compress into noun phrases linked by af and genitives — dense, but agent- and tense-free.
- Heavy nominal style (kancellistil) is right for legal, academic, and headline register; wrong for clear communication with a reader.
- When unsure, recover the verb: it restores the agent, the tense, and the meaning the noun chain hid.
Now practice Danish
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Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- Noun-forming SuffixesC1 — Danish suffixes that build nouns — -hed, -ning, -else, -er, -skab, -dom, -eri, -tion — and the gender each one reliably predicts.
- Spoken vs Written DanishB2 — The systematic grammatical gap between how Danes speak and how they write — and how to avoid sounding like a textbook in chat or like a teenager in an essay.
- Register and Style: An OverviewB2 — An orientation to Danish register — the formal–informal cline, what marks each end, and how spoken and written Danish differ.
- Extraposition and Heavy ClausesC1 — How Danish moves a heavy clausal subject or object to the end of the sentence and fills its slot with the placeholder det — when this is obligatory, when it is optional, and why.