The particle nok is one of the most useful words in spoken Danish. As a modal particle it means roughly "probably / I expect / surely it'll work out" — it is how a Dane expresses a confident-but-not-certain prediction, and how they reassure. It is also a trap, because the same spelling nok is an everyday adverb meaning "enough". These are two different words that happen to look identical, and keeping them apart is the first thing to nail. This page covers the particle nok: its meaning, its precise confidence level, the indispensable reassurance idiom Det skal nok gå, its position, and how it contrasts with its near-neighbour vist.
Two words spelled nok
Start by separating them cleanly, because conflating them is the classic learner error.
| nok = "enough" | nok = particle "probably" | |
|---|---|---|
| Word class | quantity adverb / quantifier | modal particle |
| Stressed? | yes, carries stress | no, unstressed |
| Meaning | a sufficient amount | speaker's probability estimate |
| Example | Det er nok! ("That's enough!") | Han kommer nok. ("He'll probably come.") |
Vi har penge nok til hele turen.
We have enough money for the whole trip. — 'nok' = enough, stressed, follows the noun.
Det er nok! Hold så op.
That's enough! Stop it now. — 'nok' = enough; a complete exclamation.
Han kommer nok lidt for sent, som han plejer.
He'll probably come a bit late, as he usually does. — 'nok' = particle, unstressed, in the adverbial slot.
The particle: a confident prediction
As a particle, nok expresses the speaker's estimate that something is likely true or will likely happen. It is not a hedge of weakness — it conveys a fair degree of confidence, often with a reassuring or matter-of-fact tone. English reaches for "probably," "I expect," "I'm sure," or "surely" depending on context.
Han kommer nok. Han er bare forsinket.
He'll probably come. He's just delayed. — a confident prediction, not real doubt.
Du finder nok ud af det.
You'll figure it out, I'm sure. — reassurance: the speaker is confident on the listener's behalf.
Det bliver nok regnvejr i morgen.
It'll probably rain tomorrow. — an everyday likely-forecast.
Hun har nok glemt det. Jeg ringer lige.
She's probably forgotten. I'll just call. — a confident inference from circumstances.
Note that nok is the speaker's own judgement of likelihood, drawn from their reasoning or experience. This is the key contrast with vist (next section), which attributes the information to an outside source.
The reassurance idiom: Det skal nok gå
One construction with nok is so common and so culturally Danish that it deserves its own heading: Det skal nok gå — literally "it shall nok go," meaning "It'll be all right / Don't worry, it'll work out." Here skal + nok together form a reassurance that the good outcome is, in the speaker's confident view, assured.
Bare rolig, det skal nok gå.
Don't worry, it'll be all right. — the standard Danish phrase for comforting someone.
Det skal nok gå alt sammen. Du har forberedt dig godt.
It'll all work out. You've prepared well. — reassuring before an exam or interview.
Jeg skal nok huske mælk på vejen hjem.
I'll be sure to remember milk on the way home. — 'skal nok' as a firm promise: I'll definitely do it.
That last example shows the other face of skal nok: with a first-person subject it becomes a promise — "I'll definitely / be sure to." Jeg skal nok = "I promise I will." So skal nok carries either reassurance (it'll be fine) or commitment (I'll definitely), depending on the subject. Both share the underlying sense: a confident guarantee.
How confident is nok? The probability scale
Learners need a feel for where on the certainty scale nok sits, so they don't over- or under-claim. Roughly, from least to most certain:
| Expression | Confidence | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| måske | ~50% | maybe (genuinely open either way) |
| vist | fairly likely, but second-hand | apparently / I gather (someone said) |
| nok | quite likely, speaker's own judgement | probably / I expect |
| sikkert | very likely | surely / almost certainly |
| helt sikkert | ~100% | definitely / for certain |
Måske kommer han, måske gør han ikke — jeg ved det ikke.
Maybe he'll come, maybe he won't — I don't know. — 'måske' is genuinely fifty-fifty.
Han kommer nok, men helt sikker er jeg ikke.
He'll probably come, but I'm not completely sure. — 'nok' is confident, yet leaves a margin.
So nok is distinctly more confident than måske ("maybe") and a step below helt sikkert ("definitely"). It is the comfortable middle: you genuinely expect the outcome, but you are not staking your life on it.
nok vs. vist: own judgement vs. hearsay
This contrast is worth its own section because the two are easy to swap and the difference is real.
- nok = the speaker's own inference or expectation. "I reckon, based on what I know."
- vist = information the speaker has from somewhere else and is not fully vouching for. "I gather, apparently, they say."
Han kommer nok i morgen.
He'll probably come tomorrow. — my own expectation.
Han kommer vist i morgen.
He's coming tomorrow, apparently / I gather. — I heard this; I'm passing it on, slightly hedged.
Use nok when the confidence is yours; use vist when you are relaying second-hand or vaguely-remembered information. A Dane who says Hun bor vist i Aarhus is signalling "I think that's right, but I had it from someone else." One who says Hun bor nok i Aarhus is making their own educated guess. The full treatment of hearsay-vist is on Vist: Hearsay and Uncertainty.
Position
As a modal particle, nok sits in the sentence-adverbial slot: in a main clause, after the finite verb and subject; in a subordinate clause, before the finite verb (the ikke-slot).
Du kan nok godt nå toget, hvis du skynder dig.
You can probably still make the train if you hurry. — main clause: 'nok' after the modal verb 'kan'.
Jeg tror, at hun nok kommer alligevel.
I think she'll probably come after all. — subordinate clause: 'nok' before the verb 'kommer'.
For nok's relationship to the wider family of certainty adverbs (sikkert, vel, måske, formentlig), see Modal Adverbs; for how nok orders when it stacks with other particles, see Particle Clusters.
Common Mistakes
❌ Han kommer enough. / Confusing the two: 'Det er nok' to mean 'it's probably'.
Incorrect — 'Det er nok' (stressed) means 'that's enough', not 'it's probable'.
✅ Han kommer nok. ('he'll probably come') vs. Det er nok! ('that's enough!')
Two different words: unstressed particle 'probably' vs. stressed quantifier 'enough'.
❌ Han kommer vist — using 'vist' for your own confident prediction.
Mismatched — 'vist' signals hearsay; for your own expectation use 'nok'.
✅ Han kommer nok.
He'll probably come — 'nok' for the speaker's own judgement.
❌ Nok han kommer i morgen.
Incorrect placement — the particle can't open the clause.
✅ Han kommer nok i morgen.
He'll probably come tomorrow — particle in the adverbial slot after verb+subject.
❌ Det skal gå nok. / Det går nok skal.
Incorrect word order — the reassurance idiom is fixed as 'Det skal nok gå'.
✅ Det skal nok gå.
It'll be all right — memorise the idiom in this fixed order.
❌ Jeg er nok sikker. (intending 'I'm fairly sure')
Awkward — to express your own probability, attach 'nok' to the prediction, not to 'sikker'.
✅ Det er nok rigtigt. / Jeg er ret sikker.
That's probably right / I'm fairly sure — natural ways to scale your confidence.
Key Takeaways
- Two words spelled nok: the stressed quantifier "enough" (Det er nok!) and the unstressed particle "probably / I expect."
- The particle nok is the speaker's own confident prediction — more sure than måske, less than helt sikkert.
- Det skal nok gå is the core reassurance idiom ("it'll be all right"); with a first-person subject skal nok becomes a firm promise.
- nok = own judgement; vist = hearsay. Pick by the source of your confidence.
- Position: the sentence-adverbial slot — after verb+subject in a main clause, before the verb in a subordinate clause.
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Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- Vist: Hearsay and UncertaintyC1 — The modal particle vist signals that the speaker isn't fully certain or is relaying second-hand information — 'apparently', 'I think', 'I believe'.
- Modal and Stance AdverbsB2 — Danish adverbs that signal how likely or how regrettable a statement is — and the V2 inversion they trigger when fronted.
- Combining ParticlesC1 — How Danish modal particles stack in a rigid fixed order — jo nok, da vel, jo bare, jo nok ikke — to layer shared knowledge, probability, and negation into a single nuanced stance.