Exact numbers are only half of real speech. Most of the time people say "about twenty," "a couple of beers," "dozens of emails," "just over a hundred." Danish has its own toolkit for this — some of it familiar (cirka = "approximately"), some of it idiomatic in ways that catch English speakers out (et par is tighter than "a couple"), and some of it a living fossil of Denmark's old base-20 counting system (en snes = a score of twenty). This page covers approximation, collective units, the precise godt/knap pair, and how to talk about decades.
"About" — cirka, omkring, omtrent
The everyday word for "approximately" is cirka, almost always written and even spoken in its abbreviation ca.
Der kommer cirka tyve gæster til festen.
About twenty guests are coming to the party.
Turen tager ca. to timer.
The trip takes about two hours.
Omkring ("around") works the same way and is slightly more conversational, especially with round numbers and ages:
Han er omkring de fyrre.
He's around forty (literally: around the forty).
Omtrent ("roughly, just about") is a near-synonym, a touch more formal/written. All three — cirka, omkring, omtrent — go before the number, exactly like English "about." The error to avoid is calquing English "around twenty people around" word order or doubling the marker; one approximator is enough.
"Just over / just under" — godt and knap
Danish has a neat, precise pair that English handles clumsily. Godt before a number means "a good / a bit more than"; knap means "barely / a bit less than." They pin the approximation to one side of the number.
Der var godt hundrede mennesker til koncerten.
There were a good hundred / just over a hundred people at the concert.
Det tog knap en time.
It took just under an hour / barely an hour.
Vi var der i godt en uge.
We were there for a good week / a week and a bit.
"A couple" and "a few" — mind the gap with English
Here is a quiet false friend. Danish et par literally means "a pair" and denotes two, or two-to-three at most. English "a couple" has drifted to mean "a few, several" in casual use — but et par stays close to two. If you mean genuinely several, you need a different word.
Jeg skal lige ordne et par ting, så er jeg klar.
I just need to sort out a couple of things, then I'm ready (≈ two, maybe three).
Kan jeg få et par øl?
Can I have a couple of beers? (expect about two)
For "a few / several" — vaguer, more than a couple — use nogle stykker ("some pieces/some of them") or et par stykker:
Der er nogle stykker tilbage, hvis du vil have en.
There are a few left, if you'd like one.
For "a lot of," the idiomatic phrases are en masse and (more formal) en mængde:
Hun har en masse venner i København.
She has a lot of friends in Copenhagen.
Collective units — snes, dusin, and the -vis suffix
Danish keeps a few old collective counting units. Et dusin is "a dozen" (12), familiar from English. En snes is "a score" — twenty — and it survives in everyday use, especially with eggs and round counts.
Vi købte et dusin æg og en snes boller.
We bought a dozen eggs and a score of (twenty) buns.
The phrase en halv snes ("half a score") therefore means about ten — a handy way to say "ten or so":
Der var en halv snes mennesker i lokalet.
There were about ten people in the room.
The suffix -vis turns a number into "in multiples of / -fuls of," giving the equivalent of English "dozens of," "hundreds of":
Hun fik hundredvis af beskeder efter udsendelsen.
She got hundreds of messages after the broadcast.
Der lå snesevis af cykler foran stationen.
There were dozens of bikes (scores of bikes) in front of the station.
So snesevis af = "dozens/scores of," hundredvis af = "hundreds of," tusindvis af = "thousands of." Note that these always take af before the noun: hundredvis *af beskeder*.
Round numbers and the collective hundred/thousand
When counting in big round amounts, et hundrede (a hundred) and et tusind(e) (a thousand) behave like collective nouns and can take af when vague:
Der var flere hundrede til demonstrationen.
There were several hundred at the demonstration.
Det koster et par tusind kroner.
It costs a couple of thousand kroner.
Decades — i 90'erne and the apostrophe
To talk about a decade, Danish takes the round number and adds -erne (the definite plural ending). The 1990s are halvfemserne; spoken and written informally, this is shortened to the digits plus an apostrophe and -erne: 90'erne.
Musikken i 90'erne var noget helt særligt.
The music in the 90s was something really special.
Hun er født i 80'erne.
She was born in the 80s.
The apostrophe matters: it is 90'erne, 80'erne, 70'erne — the apostrophe sits between the digits and the -erne ending. Writing 90erne without the apostrophe, or 90'serne, is a spelling error. (In full words: halvfjerdserne = the 70s, firserne = the 80s, halvfemserne = the 90s.)
Common Mistakes
❌ Jeg har et par hundrede venner — altså rigtig mange.
Misleading — 'et par' means about two, so 'a couple of hundred' = ~200, not 'loads'.
✅ Jeg har en masse venner. / Jeg har hundredvis af venner.
I have a lot of / hundreds of friends.
English "a couple" has loosened to mean "several," but Danish et par still means roughly two. If you mean "loads," use en masse or hundredvis af — et par will be heard literally.
❌ Der var rundt tyve mennesker.
Incorrect — 'rundt' (round) is a literal calque of English 'around' here.
✅ Der var cirka / omkring tyve mennesker.
There were about twenty people.
Don't translate "around" with rundt (which means physically "round/around" in space). The approximators are cirka, omkring, omtrent.
❌ Musikken i 90erne var god.
Incorrect — the decade form needs an apostrophe before -erne.
✅ Musikken i 90'erne var god.
The music in the 90s was good.
The apostrophe in 90'erne separates the digits from the -erne ending. Omitting it is a genuine spelling mistake.
❌ Der var godt og knap hundrede mennesker.
Incorrect — godt and knap point in opposite directions; you can't use both.
✅ Der var godt hundrede mennesker. / Der var knap hundrede mennesker.
There were just over / just under a hundred people.
Godt (a bit more) and knap (a bit less) are mutually exclusive — pick the side of the number you mean.
❌ Hun fik hundredvis beskeder.
Incorrect — '-vis' quantities need 'af' before the noun.
✅ Hun fik hundredvis af beskeder.
She got hundreds of messages.
Snesevis, hundredvis, tusindvis always take af: hundredvis *af beskeder*.
Key takeaways
- "About" = cirka (ca.) / omkring / omtrent, placed before the number; don't use rundt.
- Godt = just over, knap = just under — precise, one-sided, and mutually exclusive.
- Et par ≈ two (not the loose English "a couple"); use nogle stykker for "a few," en masse for "a lot."
- En snes = 20 (a score, from the old base-20 system); et dusin = 12; en halv snes ≈ 10.
- -vis af = "dozens/hundreds of" (always with af); decades = digits + 'erne (90'erne), apostrophe included.
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