You cannot make a plan, tell a story, or answer "when?" without time words, and Danish has a neat, compact set of them. The trickiest part for English speakers is not the vocabulary but a single fork in the road: past distance uses for ... siden, future distance uses om ..., and the little word i does something different again. This page lays out the everyday expressions grouped by function, shows the past/future split clearly, and ends with a dialogue that strings them together.
The "today" family: i + a time word
A core set of single-word answers to "when?" all begin with i here functioning not as "in" but as a fixed time-marker. Learn them as units.
| Danish | Literal | Idiomatic |
|---|---|---|
| i dag | in day | today |
| i går | in yesterday | yesterday |
| i morgen | in morning | tomorrow |
| i forgårs | in fore-yesterday | the day before yesterday |
| i overmorgen | in over-tomorrow | the day after tomorrow |
| i aften | in evening | tonight / this evening |
| i nat | in night | tonight (the night) / last night |
| i morges | in this-morning | this morning (earlier today) |
Jeg så hende i går, og vi mødes igen i morgen.
I saw her yesterday, and we're meeting again tomorrow.
Vi rejser i overmorgen, ikke i morgen.
We're leaving the day after tomorrow, not tomorrow.
Watch the spelling subtlety: i morgen (two words) means tomorrow, but i morges means earlier this morning. And i morgen tidlig is the set phrase for tomorrow morning.
"Soon" and "a moment ago"
For short, vague stretches around now:
| Danish | Idiomatic |
|---|---|
| om lidt | in a little while / soon |
| lige om lidt | in just a moment |
| lige nu | right now |
| for lidt siden | a little while ago |
| lige før | just before / a moment ago |
| med det samme | right away / immediately |
Jeg er færdig om lidt — vent lige.
I'll be done soon — hang on a sec.
Han ringede for lidt siden.
He called a little while ago.
The big one: past for ... siden vs future om ...
This is where most English speakers stumble. To say how far in the past something was, Danish wraps the time span in for ... siden (literally "for ... since/ago"). To say how far in the future something will be, it uses om ... ("in").
| Direction | Pattern | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Past | for [span] siden | for to dage siden | two days ago |
| Future | om [span] | om to dage | in two days (from now) |
Vi flyttede hertil for tre år siden.
We moved here three years ago.
Bussen kommer om ti minutter.
The bus is coming in ten minutes.
Jeg så filmen for en uge siden, men premieren er først om en måned i mit land.
I saw the film a week ago, but the premiere isn't until a month from now in my country.
The English trap is the word in: English uses "in two days" for the future but never for the past. Danish keeps the two directions strictly separate — om can only point forward, for ... siden only backward.
The i vs om duration trap
There is a second, sneakier use of i and om that confuses learners. Compare:
Jeg har boet her i to år.
I've lived here for two years. (duration so far)
Jeg er tilbage om to år.
I'll be back in two years. (point in the future)
Here i to år means for a span of two years (duration), while om to år means two years from now (a future point). English "in two days" only ever means the future point — but Danish i to dage means the duration, "for two days". Mixing these up changes your meaning completely.
Weeks, days, and recurring time
| Danish | Idiomatic |
|---|---|
| i denne uge / i denne weekend | this week / this weekend |
| sidste uge | last week |
| næste uge | next week |
| hver dag | every day |
| hver anden dag | every other day |
| om ugen / om dagen | per week / per day |
Vi ses næste uge, ikke i denne uge.
We'll see each other next week, not this week.
Jeg træner tre gange om ugen.
I work out three times a week.
Note the last one: om ugen means "per week" here — yet another job for the busy little word om.
A short dialogue
— Hvornår kom du hjem?
— When did you get home?
— For to dage siden. Og jeg rejser igen om en uge.
— Two days ago. And I'm leaving again in a week.
— Så ses vi i morgen? Eller i overmorgen?
— So we'll meet tomorrow? Or the day after tomorrow?
— I morgen er bedst. Jeg ringer lige om lidt.
— Tomorrow's best. I'll call in just a moment.
Common Mistakes
1. Using om for the past. English "in" tempts learners to say om to dage when they mean "two days ago". For the past you must use for ... siden.
❌ Jeg kom hjem om tre dage.
Incorrect — this means 'in three days', i.e. the future.
✅ Jeg kom hjem for tre dage siden.
I came home three days ago.
2. Confusing duration i with future om. I to dage is "for two days"; om to dage is "in two days from now".
❌ Jeg er tilbage i to dage. (intending: in two days from now)
Incorrect — this means 'I'm back for two days'.
✅ Jeg er tilbage om to dage.
I'll be back in two days (from now).
3. Forgetting the closing siden. The past pattern is a sandwich: for ... siden. Dropping siden leaves it incomplete.
❌ Vi mødtes for to uger.
Incorrect — missing 'siden'.
✅ Vi mødtes for to uger siden.
We met two weeks ago.
4. Writing i morgen as one word or confusing it with i morges. I morgen (two words) = tomorrow; i morges = earlier this morning.
❌ Jeg ringer imorgen.
Incorrect — should be two words.
✅ Jeg ringer i morgen.
I'll call tomorrow.
Key Takeaways
- The i-family (i dag, i går, i morgen, i forgårs, i overmorgen) gives one-word answers to "when?"; i forgårs and i overmorgen are gifts English lacks.
- Past distance = for ... siden (sandwich both words around the span); future distance = om ....
- Om points only forward and never means "ago".
- Duration uses i (i to dage = for two days), so don't confuse it with future om.
Now practice Danish
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- Dates, Time and MoneyA2 — Telling the time in Danish (including the half-hour trap where halv ti means 9:30), reading dates with ordinals, saying years, and handling kroner and øre.
- Danish Prepositions: An OverviewA1 — Why Danish prepositions are easy grammatically but hard to choose — and how to learn them by Danish logic instead of English glosses.
- Weather ExpressionsA2 — How Danes talk about the weather — det regner, solen skinner, hvordan er vejret — and why weather verbs always need the dummy subject det.
- Inversion After a Fronted ElementA1 — Whenever a non-subject opens a Danish main clause — an adverb, object, prepositional phrase, or subordinate clause — the verb stays second and the subject moves behind it.