By C1 you already control the two everyday Danish passives — the -s passive (bilen sælges "the car is being sold") and the blive-passive (bilen bliver solgt). This page covers the constructions that separate fluent from merely correct: the impersonal passive of intransitive verbs, the få-passive/causative, and the man-paraphrase that Danish reaches for where English would use a plain passive. Mastering these is largely about register and emphasis — choosing the construction that puts the right element in focus and strikes the right tone.
The impersonal passive of intransitives
English can only passivise verbs with an object — there is no passive of "to dance," because there is nothing to become the subject. Danish has no such restriction. It forms an impersonal passive from intransitive verbs, using the placeholder der as a dummy subject and leaving the clause with no logical subject at all. The result describes an activity as simply happening, with the agent suppressed entirely:
Der blev danset hele natten.
There was dancing all night. (lit. it-was danced all night)
Der bliver arbejdet hårdt på fabrikken.
People work hard at the factory. / Hard work goes on at the factory.
Der må ikke ryges her.
No smoking here. (lit. there may not be smoked here)
This is one of the most idiomatic corners of Danish. Der må ikke ryges is the standard wording on a no-smoking sign — far more natural than any agent-based phrasing. The impersonal passive foregrounds the activity while deleting the doer, which is exactly what signs, rules, and reports of generic goings-on want. English has nothing structurally equivalent and must paraphrase with "there is/was [V-ing]" or "people."
The få-passive and få-causative
Danish uses få ("get") plus a past participle for a construction English speakers know well as the "get my car repaired" causative. Two related readings exist.
Causative — "have/get something done" (you cause an action, performed by someone else):
Vi fik repareret bilen i sidste uge.
We got the car repaired last week.
Jeg skal have klippet håret inden festen.
I need to get my hair cut before the party.
Recipient-passive — "have something done to one" / come to possess a result:
Hun fik stjålet sin cykel uden for stationen.
She had her bike stolen outside the station.
The structure is få + object + past participle, with the participle agreeing as an adjectival predicate normally would in the relevant context (in practice the supine-like neuter form repareret, klippet, stjålet is used). The crucial point for English speakers is the word order: object before participle (fik bilen repareret) or, very commonly, participle before object (fik repareret bilen). Both orders occur; the participle-first order is extremely common in speech.
The man-paraphrase as a passive alternative
Where English reaches for a short agentless passive — "English is spoken here," "you can't park here" — Danish very often prefers an active clause with the generic pronoun man ("one / people / you"). Man lets you keep an active verb while leaving the agent generic, and in many contexts it is the more natural choice than a true passive:
Her taler man dansk.
Danish is spoken here. (lit. here one speaks Danish)
Man må ikke parkere her.
You can't park here. / Parking is not allowed here.
I Danmark spiser man meget rugbrød.
In Denmark people eat a lot of rye bread.
The man-paraphrase competes directly with both the -s passive and the impersonal passive. Man må ikke parkere her and Der må ikke parkeres her are both correct; the man version is slightly more conversational, the impersonal-passive version slightly more official. English speakers systematically under-use man because English has no comfortable generic pronoun ("one" is stiff, "you" is informal), so they default to a passive that, while grammatical, often sounds less idiomatic than the man-clause.
Choosing among -s, blive, være and man
The four options are not interchangeable; each carries a different register and aspectual flavour.
| Construction | Typical use | Register / nuance |
|---|---|---|
| -s passive (sælges) | general truths, rules, recurring or habitual events, instructions | more formal/written; favoured in notices, recipes, manuals |
| blive-passive (bliver solgt) | a specific, dynamic event — something happening at a point in time | neutral, conversational; the default spoken passive |
| være-passive (er solgt) | a resulting state — the action is complete and its result holds | stative; "is (now) sold" not "is being sold" |
| man-clause (man sælger) | generic agent, active verb retained | conversational; idiomatic where English uses a short passive |
The være-vs-blive distinction is the one English collapses. English "the door is closed" is ambiguous between an event and a state; Danish forces a choice:
Døren bliver lukket klokken seks.
The door is closed (= gets closed) at six o'clock. (event)
Døren er lukket — vi kan ikke komme ind.
The door is closed (= in a closed state). We can't get in.
The -s passive, meanwhile, gravitates to rules and timeless statements: Cyklerne fjernes hver fredag ("The bikes are removed every Friday" — a standing rule) versus Cyklerne bliver fjernet i morgen ("The bikes will be removed tomorrow" — a specific event).
Common Mistakes
❌ Blev danset hele natten.
Incorrect — the impersonal passive needs the dummy subject der.
✅ Der blev danset hele natten.
There was dancing all night.
❌ Det taler dansk her.
Incorrect — English-style dummy subject; Danish uses man or the impersonal passive.
✅ Her taler man dansk.
Danish is spoken here.
❌ Vi fik bilen at reparere i sidste uge.
Incorrect — the få-causative takes a past participle, not an infinitive.
✅ Vi fik repareret bilen i sidste uge.
We got the car repaired last week.
❌ Døren bliver lukket, så vi kan ikke komme ind nu.
Wrong aspect — a present resulting state needs være, not blive.
✅ Døren er lukket, så vi kan ikke komme ind nu.
The door is closed, so we can't get in now.
The deepest transfer error is reaching for a literal passive where Danish prefers man. "You're not allowed to smoke here" comes out as a clumsy passive when the idiomatic Danish is Man må ikke ryge her or, on a sign, Der må ikke ryges her. When you catch yourself building a long agentless passive, ask whether a man-clause or an impersonal der-passive would sound more native — it usually will.
Key Takeaways
- The impersonal passive (der blev danset) passivises intransitives, foregrounding the activity and deleting the agent; it needs the dummy subject der.
- The få-passive/causative (få repareret bilen) keeps you in the clause as the one who arranges or undergoes a result; it takes a past participle, not an infinitive.
- The man-paraphrase retains an active verb with a generic agent and is often more idiomatic than a true passive — English speakers under-use it.
- Choose between -s (rules, habitual), blive (specific event), være (resulting state), and man (generic active) for the right register and aspect.
Now practice Danish
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Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- The -s PassiveB1 — The synthetic -s passive — formed by adding -s to the verb (taler → tales) — is the natural Danish passive for general truths, instructions, notices, recipes, and modal constructions. Here is how to build and use it.
- The Blive PassiveB1 — The blive-passive (blive + past participle) is Danish's everyday passive for a single, concrete, dynamic event — and the key contrast it forces is blive (the action happening) vs være (the state that results).
- Complex Grammar: An OverviewB2 — A map of the advanced syntactic territory of Danish — the full sentence schema, embedded clauses, object shift, extraposition, reported speech, complex passives, and information structure.
- Nominalisation and Written StyleC1 — How formal and administrative Danish compresses clauses into noun phrases — the heavy nominal style (kancellistil), how to read it, and why a verb is usually clearer.