Prepositions are where word-for-word translation goes to die, and af, med and om are three of the worst offenders in Danish. Each one covers a spread of English meanings that don't line up neatly, and each one is locked into verb collocations you simply have to learn — bestå af (consist of), tale med (talk to), bede om (ask for). The single biggest mistake English speakers make is reaching for af every time they see English of — but Danish of is usually expressed with no preposition at all, or with a different one. This page sorts out the three words and arms you with the collocations that matter most.
Af — of / from / by / off
Af is the trickiest of the three because English of tempts you to overuse it. Here are its genuine jobs:
The agent in a passive sentence (English by). When something is done by someone, Danish uses af. This is the construction you meet in the passive (see verbs/passive-blive).
Billedet blev malet af en ung kunstner.
The painting was painted by a young artist.
Bogen er skrevet af en dansk forfatter.
The book was written by a Danish author.
Material — what something is made of/from.
Bordet er lavet af træ.
The table is made of wood.
Consisting of — bestå af.
Holdet består af fem spillere.
The team consists of five players.
Fondness — holde af (be fond of). A core idiom: holde af literally "hold of," meaning to be fond of or love (gently).
Jeg holder meget af min mormor.
I'm very fond of my grandmother.
Set phrase — af og til (now and then).
Vi ses af og til, men ikke så tit.
We see each other now and then, but not so often.
Med — with / by (means)
Med maps onto English with fairly well, plus the "by means of" use for transport and instruments.
Accompaniment / having — with.
Jeg tager med min søster i byen.
I'm going into town with my sister.
Means of transport — by (bus, train, etc.). Here English says by, but Danish keeps med.
Vi kører med bus til lufthavnen.
We're going by bus to the airport.
Det er hurtigst at tage med toget.
It's fastest to take the train.
Manner — with.
Hun hjalp os med glæde.
She helped us gladly (with pleasure).
Joining in — være med (to join, to be in on it). A very common idiom: være/komme med means to come along or take part.
Vil du være med til festen?
Do you want to come to the party?
Talking to someone — tale/snakke med. Crucially, Danish "talk with" is the normal way to say "talk to." English speakers expect til here, but it's med.
Jeg vil gerne tale med chefen.
I'd like to talk to the boss.
Om — about / around / in (future time)
Om has three big zones: topic ("about"), spatial ("around"), and — the one English speakers miss — future time ("in X time").
Topic — about. Used both alone and in handle om (be about), tænke på — careful, "think about" is tænke på, not om; see the mistakes section.
Filmen handler om to brødre i Jylland.
The film is about two brothers in Jutland.
Vi talte om dig i går.
We talked about you yesterday.
Asking for — bede om. "Ask for / request" is bede om. (Just bede without om means "pray.")
Må jeg bede om regningen?
May I have the bill, please?
Future time — in X time. This is the signature use. Om en time = "in an hour"; om sommeren = "in (the) summer." Where English future "in" appears, Danish uses om.
Toget kommer om ti minutter.
The train comes in ten minutes.
Om sommeren tager vi altid til Bornholm.
In summer we always go to Bornholm.
Around / re-doing — gå om, om. Spatially, om can mean "around," and with some verbs "(do) over again": gå om (walk around / repeat a school year), tage om (redo).
Vi måtte gå hele vejen om.
We had to walk all the way around.
High-frequency collocations to memorise
| Danish | English | Note |
|---|---|---|
| bestå af | consist of | af, not "of" |
| holde af | be fond of | idiom |
| lavet af | made of | material |
| tale / snakke med | talk to | med, not til |
| være med | join, take part | idiom |
| handle om | be about (a topic) | — |
| bede om | ask for | without om = "pray" |
| tænke på | think about | på, NOT om |
| om en time / om sommeren | in an hour / in summer | future/seasonal "in" |
A broader catalogue of these traps lives at mistakes/preposition-transfer; the full set of core prepositions is at prepositions/overview.
Common Mistakes
1. Using af for English possessive/partitive "of." This is the headline error. A cup of coffee has no af.
❌ en kop af kaffe
Incorrect — no 'af' in partitives.
✅ en kop kaffe
a cup of coffee
2. Using til for "talk to." Danish wants med.
❌ Jeg vil tale til dig om det.
Incorrect for normal conversation — tale til = address/lecture at.
✅ Jeg vil tale med dig om det.
I want to talk to you about it.
3. Using om for "think about." "Think about" is tænke på, not tænke om.
❌ Jeg tænker tit om dig.
Incorrect — wrong preposition.
✅ Jeg tænker tit på dig.
I often think about you.
4. Using i instead of om for future time. English "in an hour" is not i en time (that means "for an hour," a duration).
❌ Jeg ringer i en time.
Incorrect for 'in an hour' — i en time means 'for an hour'.
✅ Jeg ringer om en time.
I'll call in an hour.
5. Dropping om from bede om. Without it, you've said "pray."
❌ Jeg vil bede en kop kaffe.
Incorrect — sounds like 'pray a cup of coffee'.
✅ Jeg vil bede om en kop kaffe.
I'd like to ask for a cup of coffee.
Key takeaways
- af = "by" (passive agent), "made of," "consist of," "fond of" — not the default English "of." Possessive "of" is usually a bare juxtaposition or the genitive -s.
- med = "with" and "by (transport/means)"; note tale med = "talk to" and være med = "join in."
- om = "about" (topic), "around," and the signature future "in" (om en time, om sommeren).
- The collocations are not optional decoration — bestå af, bede om, tænke på, tale med must be learned as fixed units, because their prepositions don't follow from English.
Now practice Danish
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Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- 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.
- Literal Preposition TransferB1 — Translating English prepositions one-for-one into Danish — 'wait for', 'good at', 'think about' — produces the wrong word; the cure is to memorise the preposition together with its verb or adjective as a single unit.
- The Blive PassiveB1 — The blive-passive (blive + past participle) is Danish's everyday passive for a single, concrete, dynamic event — and the key contrast it forces is blive (the action happening) vs være (the state that results).
- Danish Adverbs: An OverviewA1 — The four kinds of Danish adverb — manner adverbs in -t, the direction/position doublets, sentence adverbs, and degree adverbs — and how to tell the adverbial -t from the neuter adjective -t.