English uses "all" for two ideas that Danish keeps strictly apart: all the food (the entire quantity, considered as a mass or a set) and the whole day (one single thing taken in its entirety). Danish expresses the first with al / alt / alle and the second with hel / helt / hele. They are not interchangeable, and the classic learner error — *al dagen for "the whole day" — comes from collapsing the two the way English lets you. This page sorts out which form to use, how each agrees for gender and number, and the handy idiom det hele.
The core distinction
- al / alt / alle = "all" — every part of a mass, or every member of a set.
- hel / helt / hele = "whole, entire" — one single thing, considered complete and undivided.
The test: if you can replace English "all" with "every member / the entire quantity of," use al(le). If you mean "one whole X, from start to finish," use hel(e).
Jeg har spist al maden.
I've eaten all the food. (the entire quantity of food)
Jeg har læst hele bogen.
I've read the whole book. (one book, cover to cover)
Al / alt / alle: agreement by gender and number
al is a quantity word that agrees with its noun exactly like an adjective: common-gender singular, neuter singular, and plural each have their own form.
| Form | Used with | Example | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| al | common-gender mass noun | al maden, al kaffen | all the food, all the coffee |
| alt | neuter mass noun | alt vandet, alt brødet | all the water, all the bread |
| alle | plural (count nouns) | alle børnene, alle husene | all the children, all the houses |
So the choice between al and alt is just gender agreement on a singular mass noun, and alle is the plural for countable things:
Hun drak al mælken op.
She drank up all the milk. (mælk is common gender → al)
Vi brugte alt vandet i flasken.
We used all the water in the bottle. (vand is neuter → alt)
Alle gæsterne var kommet til tiden.
All the guests had arrived on time. (plural → alle)
Note the suffix on the noun: after al/alt/alle the noun normally appears in its definite form (maden, vandet, børnene) when you mean a specific quantity — all THE food. With alle + a generic plural you can also drop the definite suffix for "all (in general)": alle mennesker er lige ("all people are equal").
Alt as a standalone pronoun
alt on its own (no noun) means "everything," and alle on its own means "everyone":
Alt er klart til festen.
Everything is ready for the party.
Alle ved, at han har ret.
Everyone knows he's right.
Hel / helt / hele: whole, entire
hel behaves like an ordinary adjective and so follows adjective agreement. The crucial fact is that with a definite noun it takes the definite (e-)form hele, and the noun keeps its definite suffix — giving the very common hele + definite noun pattern:
| Form | Used with | Example | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| hel | indefinite common gender | en hel dag | a whole day |
| helt | indefinite neuter | et helt år | a whole year |
| hele | definite (any gender/number) or plural | hele dagen, hele året, hele familien | the whole day/year/family |
Vi ventede en hel time på bussen.
We waited a whole hour for the bus.
Det regnede hele dagen.
It rained all day / the whole day.
Hele familien kommer til jul.
The whole family is coming for Christmas.
This is exactly where English misleads you. "It rained all day" uses "all," but the meaning is "the entire single day" — so Danish demands hele dagen, not *al dagen. Whenever English "all + time unit" means "the entire stretch," translate it with hele.
Det hele: "the whole thing / all of it"
A high-frequency idiom worth memorising is det hele, meaning "the whole lot / all of it" as a single chunk:
Bare tag det hele med hjem.
Just take the whole lot home.
Han spiste det hele på fem minutter.
He ate all of it in five minutes.
Compare alt ("everything," all the separate things) with det hele ("the whole thing," one undivided mass): alt counts up the items, det hele sweeps them into one.
Position with definite nouns
A useful pattern to internalise: al(le) and hele sit in front of a noun that still carries its enclitic definite suffix — there is no separate free article den/det/de:
Alle husene på vejen er gamle.
All the houses on the street are old. (alle + definite plural husene)
Hele huset var fyldt med røg.
The whole house was full of smoke. (hele + definite singular huset)
This contrasts with most other Danish definite phrases that use a free den/det/de article, and it is one of the small irregularities of the quantifier system — covered more fully on the definiteness-with-quantifiers page.
Common Mistakes
❌ Al børnene legede i haven.
Incorrect — plural count noun needs alle, not al.
✅ Alle børnene legede i haven.
All the children were playing in the garden.
❌ Det regnede al dagen.
Incorrect — 'all day' here means the entire day → hele, not al.
✅ Det regnede hele dagen.
It rained all day.
❌ Vi brugte al vandet.
Incorrect — vand is neuter, so the singular mass form is alt.
✅ Vi brugte alt vandet.
We used all the water.
❌ Jeg læste hel bogen.
Incorrect — with a definite noun, hel takes the e-form hele.
✅ Jeg læste hele bogen.
I read the whole book.
❌ Tag al med hjem.
Incorrect — for 'the whole lot' as one chunk, use the idiom det hele.
✅ Tag det hele med hjem.
Take the whole lot home.
Key Takeaways
- al / alt / alle = "all" (every bit of a mass, or every member of a set); agree by gender (al common, alt neuter) and number (alle plural).
- hel / helt / hele = "whole, entire" (one single complete thing); hele before a definite noun.
- English "all day / all year" almost always means hele dagen / hele året — the entire single stretch — not al.
- alt = "everything" (separate things counted); det hele = "the whole thing" (one undivided lot).
- After al(le) and hele, the noun keeps its enclitic definite suffix with no free den/det/de article.
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Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- Quantifiers: Mange, Meget, Få, Al, HeleA2 — How Danish quantifiers split by countability — mange/få for countable nouns, meget/lidt for mass nouns — plus the agreeing forms of al/alt/alle, hel/helt/hele, and hver/hvert.
- Definiteness with Quantifiers and DemonstrativesB1 — When the Danish enclitic definite suffix appears with quantifiers and demonstratives — bare noun after denne/hver/mange, but the definite form after begge, hele and alle.
- Quantity and Indefinite AdjectivesB1 — Which Danish quantity words inflect (al/alt/alle, megen/meget, mange, få) and which never do (samme, næste, forrige) — and how to stop over-applying agreement.
- Indefinite Adjective Agreement: -Ø, -t, -eA1 — The Danish indefinite (strong) adjective paradigm: base form for common singular, -t for neuter singular, -e for plural — plus the full set of spelling rules for when -t is and isn't added, and consonant doubling before -e.
- Double Definiteness: With an AdjectiveA2 — When a definite noun has an adjective, Danish drops the suffix and uses a free article instead — bilen but den røde bil.