Indefinite pronouns are the words for someone, something, anyone, anything, no one, nothing, everyone, everything — the ones that point at people or things without naming them. Danish builds them on a clean common-gender / neuter split: a -n form for common-gender referents (people, en-words) and a -t form for neuter referents and "things" (et-words). The one feature that genuinely surprises English speakers is that the negative pronouns ingen and intet already contain the negation — so you must not add a separate ikke ("not"). Get that, and the rest is bookkeeping.
Nogen / noget — someone, something, anyone, anything
Nogen (common gender) and noget (neuter) cover both the positive ("someone/something") and the questioning/conditional ("anyone/anything") senses, depending on the clause. Nogen points at a person or an en-word; noget points at a thing, an et-word, or an uncountable.
Der er nogen ved døren.
There's someone at the door.
Har du noget imod, at jeg åbner vinduet?
Do you mind (have anything against) my opening the window?
Jeg skal lige spørge nogen om vej.
I just need to ask someone for directions.
Vil du have noget at drikke?
Would you like something to drink?
A crucial distinction lives next door: the plural "some" (a few of countable things) is nogle, pronounced identically to nogen but spelled differently and meaning "some / a few". Nogen = someone/anyone (singular indefinite); nogle = some/a few (plural). That spelling trap gets its own page — see choosing/nogen-vs-nogle.
Ingen / intet — no one, nothing (negation built in)
Here is the heart of the page. Ingen (no one / none, common gender) and intet (nothing, neuter) are negative by themselves. They are historically i- (ikke) + nogen fused into one word, so they carry the "not" inside them. You therefore never combine them with a separate ikke.
Jeg har ingen penge.
I have no money. / I don't have any money.
Ingen vidste, hvad der var sket.
No one knew what had happened.
Der er intet at gøre nu.
There's nothing to be done now.
Intet kunne stoppe ham.
Nothing could stop him.
Because the negation is already inside ingen/intet, a sentence with one of them is complete — adding ikke would create a double negative, which standard Danish does not allow (unlike Spanish or some English dialects).
The ingen ↔ ikke nogen alternation
For most everyday sentences you have two equivalent ways to say the same negative idea:
- ingen (the fused negative pronoun), or
- ikke nogen (the separate negation ikke
- the plain pronoun nogen).
| With ingen / intet | = With ikke nogen / ikke noget | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Jeg har ingen penge. | Jeg har ikke nogen penge. | I have no money. |
| Hun sagde intet. | Hun sagde ikke noget. | She said nothing. |
| Ingen kom. | (Der kom ikke nogen.) | No one came. |
The two are interchangeable in meaning, but you pick one or the other — never both. Ingen contains the ikke; ikke nogen spells it out separately. There is no third option that uses ikke and ingen together.
Jeg har ikke nogen idé om, hvor han er.
I have no idea where he is.
Der var ikke noget tilbage i køleskabet.
There was nothing left in the fridge.
Register and rhythm guide the choice. Intet is noticeably formal/literary — you'll meet it in writing, headlines, and elevated speech (Intet nyt fra Vestfronten — "All Quiet on the Western Front"), while everyday spoken Danish prefers ikke noget. Ingen (for people/common gender) is neutral and used everywhere. As subject of a clause, the fused form is usually smoother: Ingen kom sounds more natural than the der-construction.
Enhver / ethvert — each, every, anyone
Enhver (common gender) and ethvert (neuter) mean "each / every / any" with a distributive flavour — they pick out every individual member, one at a time. Enhver can also stand alone as a pronoun meaning "anyone / everyone (you like)".
Enhver kan lære at svømme — det kræver bare tålmodighed.
Anyone can learn to swim — it just takes patience.
Ethvert barn har ret til skolegang.
Every child has the right to schooling.
Du er velkommen til enhver tid.
You're welcome at any time.
Enhver/ethvert is slightly formal; in casual speech alle ("everyone") or hver ("each") often does the same job. The closely related determiner hver/hvert ("each") and the enhver split are detailed in determiners/hver-enhver.
Alle / alt — everyone, everything
Alle means "everyone / all (the people)" and is grammatically plural; alt means "everything" and is neuter singular.
Alle var enige om, at festen var en succes.
Everyone agreed the party was a success.
Alt er klart til i morgen.
Everything is ready for tomorrow.
Tak for alt, hvad du har gjort.
Thank you for everything you've done.
Keep alle (people, plural) apart from alt (things, singular): Alle kom = "Everyone came"; Alt gik godt = "Everything went well." Using alt for people or alle for an uncountable mass is a common slip.
Man — the generic "one / you / they"
The generic-person pronoun man ("one / you / people / they") deserves its own treatment because of its case forms (man → en → ens). It's the Danish way of making impersonal statements — Man kan ikke vide alt ("One can't know everything"). Full coverage is in pronouns/man-generic; just note here that it slots into the indefinite-pronoun family.
Man skal vaske hænder, før man spiser.
You should wash your hands before you eat.
Common Mistakes
❌ Jeg har ikke ingen penge.
Incorrect — double negation; ingen already means 'no/not any'
✅ Jeg har ingen penge. / Jeg har ikke nogen penge.
I have no money.
This is the cardinal error, and it comes straight from English non-standard dialects ("I don't have no money") and from Spanish, where double negation is grammatical (no tengo ningún dinero). Standard Danish forbids it: ingen is the negation. Either use ingen alone, or break it into ikke nogen — never stack ikke on top of ingen.
❌ Der kom ikke ingen til mødet.
Incorrect — ikke + ingen is a double negative
✅ Der kom ingen til mødet. / Der kom ikke nogen til mødet.
No one came to the meeting.
❌ Har du nogle imod, at jeg ryger?
Incorrect — this needs the singular pronoun noget, not the plural quantifier nogle
✅ Har du noget imod, at jeg ryger?
Do you mind if I smoke?
❌ Alt var glade for gaven.
Incorrect — for people use alle (plural), not alt
✅ Alle var glade for gaven.
Everyone was happy with the gift.
❌ Hun sagde ikke intet.
Incorrect — intet already contains the negation
✅ Hun sagde intet. / Hun sagde ikke noget.
She said nothing.
Key Takeaways
- Common gender vs neuter: nogen/ingen/enhver/alle (people, en-words) versus noget/intet/ethvert/alt (things, et-words).
- Ingen and intet contain the negation — never add ikke to them.
- ingen = ikke nogen and intet = ikke noget; pick one form, never both. Intet is formal/literary; ikke noget is the spoken default.
- The fused form is smoothest as a subject (Ingen kom); either form works as an object.
- Don't confuse the pronoun nogen (someone/anyone) with the plural quantifier nogle (some/a few) — see choosing/nogen-vs-nogle.
- For full negation patterns see negation/ingen-intet; for the generic man see pronouns/man-generic.
Now practice Danish
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Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- The Generic Pronoun ManA2 — Danish man means generic 'one / you / they / people' and is far more natural than English 'one'; learn its oblique forms en (object) and ens (possessive), and when to use it instead of du or the passive.
- Nogen vs Nogle vs NogetB1 — How to choose between the homophone trio nogen, nogle and noget — some/any/somebody/something — by number, polarity and noun type.
- Ingen, Intet and Negative QuantifiersB1 — Danish's incorporated negatives — ingen, intet, ingenting, ingen steder, aldrig — and why they already contain the negation, so ikke must never be added.
- Hver, Enhver and DistributivesB1 — How to use hver, hvert, enhver and ethvert to mean 'each' and 'every' — distributive quantifiers that take a bare singular noun, plus the time expressions built on them.