Additive connectives are how you pile one idea on top of another: and what's more, also, besides, in addition. Danish has a graded set of them, from the everyday også to the formal ydermere, and the trickiest of all is også itself — not because it's hard to translate (it just means "also/too") but because where you put it changes what it adds. This page gives you the full toolkit with positions, registers, and the placement logic English doesn't have.
også — the workhorse "also/too"
Også is by far the most common additive word, and the first thing to learn is that it is not normally clause-initial. Unlike English "also," which happily starts a sentence ("Also, I brought wine"), Danish også sits inside the clause, right after the verb or next to the specific element it is adding to.
Jeg vil også med.
I want to come too.
Hun spiller også klaver.
She also plays the piano.
Here is the part that rewards close attention: også attaches to the element it scopes over, and moving it changes the meaning. Compare:
Også Peter kom til festen.
Peter, too, came to the party. (Peter, in addition to others)
Peter kom også til festen.
Peter also came to the party. (he came, among other things he did)
Peter kom til festen også.
Peter came to the party too. (the party, in addition to other places)
In the first, også sits before Peter, so it adds Peter to a set of people. In the second, after the verb, the neutral reading adds the act of coming. In the third, trailing at the end (common in speech), it adds the party to a list of events. English handles this entirely with stress and intonation; Danish does it with position.
When også itself is fronted for emphasis (as in Også Peter kom), normal V2 applies and the verb stays second — but note that here Også Peter together fill the first slot, so kom still comes before nothing odd. Fronting a bare også alone is awkward and best avoided; see the Common Mistakes below.
The formal additives: desuden, derudover, ydermere
When you want a connective that genuinely starts a new sentence and adds a fresh point, you move to the adverbial additives. These are clause-initial, and because they are adverbs in the first slot, they trigger V2 inversion (verb before subject) — see syntax/v2-rule.
| Word | Meaning | Register |
|---|---|---|
| desuden | besides, moreover | neutral–formal |
| derudover | in addition, on top of that | neutral–formal |
| ydermere | furthermore | formal / written |
| tilmed / oven i købet | on top of that, what's more | informal–neutral |
Lejligheden er lille. Desuden er den dyr.
The flat is small. Besides, it's expensive.
Vi mangler tid. Derudover har vi ikke pengene.
We're short on time. On top of that, we don't have the money.
Forslaget er dyrt. Ydermere strider det mod loven.
The proposal is expensive. Furthermore, it conflicts with the law.
Watch the inversion in each: Desuden er den, Derudover har vi, Ydermere strider det — verb second, subject third. An English speaker's instinct is to write Desuden den er dyr, which is wrong.
samt — the written "as well as"
Samt means "and also / as well as" and is used to tack a final item onto a list, especially in formal or written Danish (recipes, official lists, contracts). It is heavier than plain og and signals "and additionally."
Medbring pas, billet samt en udskrift af bekræftelsen.
Bring your passport, ticket, as well as a printout of the confirmation.
In everyday speech you would simply say og here; samt belongs to lists and documents.
både...og — the paired "both...and"
The correlative både...og frames two items as a matched pair, emphasizing that both hold, not just one. It is fully neutral in register and very common in speech.
Hun taler både tysk og fransk.
She speaks both German and French.
Det er både billigt og hurtigt.
It's both cheap and fast.
Putting several together
Here is a short connected stretch using the family. Notice how the inverting adverbs structure the build-up:
Kurset er godt. Underviseren er dygtig, og materialet er gratis. Desuden ligger skolen tæt på. Derudover får man et diplom til sidst.
The course is good. The teacher is skilled, and the material is free. Besides, the school is nearby. In addition, you get a diploma at the end.
The plain og links within a sentence; desuden and derudover open new sentences and each invert their verb.
Common Mistakes
1. Fronting a bare også to start a sentence (English-speaker transfer from "Also,...").
❌ Også jeg vil med.
Incorrect — sounds like 'me too among others'; not a neutral 'Also, I want to come.'
✅ Jeg vil også med.
I want to come too.
✅ Desuden vil jeg med.
Besides, I want to come. (proper sentence-initial additive)
If you mean "Also, ..." as a fresh added point, use desuden or derudover, not fronted også.
2. Forgetting inversion after a fronted formal additive.
❌ Desuden den er dyr.
Incorrect — adverb is fronted, so verb must come second.
✅ Desuden er den dyr.
Besides, it's expensive.
3. Putting også in the wrong scope position and accidentally changing the meaning.
❌ Også han købte en kaffe. (meaning he, among others, when you meant he bought coffee among other things)
Incorrect scope — adds 'he' to a set of people, not the act to his actions.
✅ Han købte også en kaffe.
He also bought a coffee. (in addition to whatever else he did)
4. Using samt in casual speech, where it sounds stiff and bureaucratic.
❌ Jeg købte mælk samt brød. (in a casual chat)
Overly formal for everyday speech.
✅ Jeg købte mælk og brød.
I bought milk and bread.
Key takeaways
- Også lives inside the clause, usually right after the verb, and its position fixes its scope — move it and you change what it adds.
- For a sentence-initial "also/besides," use the adverbs desuden, derudover, ydermere — and remember they invert the verb.
- Samt and både...og handle list-addition; samt is formal/written, både...og is neutral.
- For contrast instead of addition, see discourse/adversative; for the placement of sentence adverbs generally, see adverbs/sentence-adverbs.
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Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- Discourse Markers: An OverviewB1 — How Danish connectives structure text and argument — and the crucial word-order split between adverbs, coordinators, and subordinators.
- Adversative ConnectivesB1 — Danish words for contrast and concession — men, dog, alligevel, derimod — and the crucial split between the coordinator men and contrast adverbs that trigger inversion.
- Causal and Result ConnectivesB1 — Danish words that mark cause and consequence — derfor, således, dermed, derved, af den grund — all adverbs that trigger V2 inversion, unlike the subordinator fordi.
- Sentence Adverbs and Their Effect on Word OrderB1 — The class of adverbs that comment on the whole clause — ikke, jo, nok, vel, da, måske, heldigvis — and the precise slot they occupy in main vs subordinate clauses.
- The V2 Rule: Verb SecondA1 — The core rule of Danish main clauses: the finite verb stands in second position, with exactly one constituent before it — and the subject inverts when anything else is fronted.