Interrogative Pronouns: Hvem, Hvad, Hvilken

Interrogative pronouns are the words you put at the front of a question to ask who?, what?, which?, and whose?. Danish has a tidy set — hvem, hvad, hvilken, hvis — and they behave more simply than their English equivalents in one big way: hvem never changes for case. Where English agonises over "who" versus "whom", Danish uses hvem for everything, even after a preposition. The complications that do exist are about agreement (hvilken tracks gender and number) and word order (every question pronoun forces inversion). This page covers all of it.

Hvem — who / whom, one form for all

Hvem asks about people and has a single form whether it's the subject, the object, or the object of a preposition. English splits this into "who" (subject) and "whom" (object); Danish does not bother.

The most striking case for English speakers is the preposition. English can pull the preposition to the front in formal style ("With whom are you talking?") — Danish leaves the preposition stranded at the end of the clause, and still just uses hvem:

There is one extra wrinkle: when hvem is the subject and you want to add information about it, Danish often uses hvem der in embedded clauses (Jeg ved ikke, hvem der ringede — "I don't know who called"). That belongs to indirect questions and is treated under wh-questions.

Hvad — what

Hvad asks about things, actions, and ideas. Like hvem, it has one form and strands its preposition.

Hvad also forms set expressions: Hvad hedder du? ("What's your name?", literally "What are you called?") and Hvad koster den? ("What does it cost?"). Memorise these as wholes — the verb choice is fixed and not always what English predicts.

Hvilken / hvilket / hvilke — which (it agrees)

Hvilken means "which" and, unlike hvem and hvad, it agrees with the noun in gender and number — because it stands as a determiner in front of (or in place of) that noun. This is the one interrogative that forces you to know the noun's gender.

The agreement is the same pattern as adjectives and the al/alt/alle set: bare form for common, -t for neuter, -e for plural. If you can pick the right en/et gender for the noun, you can pick the right hvilken.

Hvad for en / et / nogle — the spoken "which"

In everyday speech, Danes very often replace hvilken with hvad for en / et / nogle ("what for a/an/some"). It means exactly the same thing — "which" — and the en/et/nogle part agrees just as hvilken/hvilket/hvilke does. Hvilken feels slightly more written or formal; hvad for en is the default in casual conversation.

Hvis — whose

Hvis asks about possession. It comes before the noun it modifies and does not change form. (Don't confuse it with the conjunction hvis meaning "if" — same spelling, different word, sorted out by context.)

Word order: questions front the pronoun and invert

Every interrogative pronoun lands in the first slot of the clause, and because Danish obeys the V2 rule — the finite verb must be the second element — the subject and verb invert. So Du laver hvad? becomes Hvad laver du?: the pronoun takes slot one, the verb stays in slot two, and the subject slides to slot three.

This is automatic once you internalise V2: put the question word first, the verb second, everything else after. The fuller question-formation rules live on the wh-questions page.

Common Mistakes

1. Importing English "whom" or fronting the preposition.

2. Wrong gender agreement on hvilken.

3. Using hvilke (plural) with a singular noun.

4. Forgetting inversion after the question word.

5. Using hvad to mean "which one of these" instead of hvilken.

Key Takeaways

• Hvem and hvad have one form each — no case change — and strand their prepositions at the end.
• Hvilken / hvilket / hvilke agree in gender and number, like adjectives.
• Hvad for en / et / nogle is the spoken equivalent of hvilken; hvis asks "whose".
• All question pronouns sit first and trigger V2 inversion: question word, then verb, then subject.