Danish questions are far simpler to build than English ones, and the single most important thing to learn is something Danish does not do. English needs a helper verb — do/does/did — to ask most questions: Do you eat fish? Does she live here? Did they leave? Danish has no such helper. To ask a question, Danish just moves the verb to the front. That one fact will save you from the most persistent error English speakers make.
The big picture: Danish inverts, English helps
Where English inserts do, Danish simply puts the finite (conjugated) verb before the subject. Compare:
Spiser du fisk?
Do you eat fish? (literally: 'Eat you fish?')
Bor hun her?
Does she live here? (literally: 'Lives she here?')
In the statement Du spiser fisk ("You eat fish"), the order is subject–verb. To turn it into a question, you swap them: verb–subject. That swap is called inversion, and it is the engine behind almost every Danish question.
Type 1: Yes/no questions
A yes/no question expects ja or nej as an answer. You build it by fronting the finite verb so it sits in first position, with the subject right behind it.
Har du tid?
Do you have time?
Kommer han i aften?
Is he coming tonight?
Er det rigtigt?
Is that right?
Notice there is no rising auxiliary, no do, nothing extra — the verb itself jumps to the front. Intonation rises at the end in speech, and a question mark marks it in writing. Yes/no questions get their own dedicated page, including the special answer word jo, which you use to contradict a negative question.
Type 2: Wh-questions (hv-questions)
A wh-question asks for specific information — who, what, where, when, why, how. In Danish these question words almost all begin with hv-: hvem (who), hvad (what), hvor (where), hvornår (when), hvorfor (why), hvordan (how). The h is silent in all of them — hvad sounds roughly like "va," hvem like "vem."
The pattern is: the hv-word takes the very first slot in the sentence (a slot Danish grammarians call the fundament, the "foundation"), and the verb follows immediately, still ahead of the subject. So you still get inversion — it just happens after the question word.
Hvad spiser du?
What are you eating?
Hvor bor hun?
Where does she live?
Hvornår kommer toget?
When does the train come?
Look at Hvad spiser du? The order is: question word, then verb (spiser), then subject (du). English would say "What do you eat?" — but again, no do in Danish. The verb is right there in second position doing the work itself.
This is actually the famous V2 rule ("verb-second"): in a Danish main clause, the finite verb is always the second element. In Hvad spiser du?, hvad is the first element and spiser is the second. In Spiser du fisk?, the verb is first because the question has no fundament filled — the verb itself opens the sentence.
A preview of two extras
Danish has two small features worth meeting now, even though they each get fuller treatment elsewhere.
Tag questions. Like English "...isn't it?" or "...right?", Danish tacks a short tag onto a statement. The most common are ...ikke? ("...no?/...right?") and ...vel? (used after a negative or to seek gentle agreement).
Du kommer i morgen, ikke?
You're coming tomorrow, aren't you?
Du er ikke vred, vel?
You're not angry, are you?
The particle mon. Danish has a lovely little word, mon, that signals "I wonder..." — a question you are partly asking yourself. It softens a question into musing.
Mon han kommer?
I wonder if he's coming?
Hvad mon hun mener?
What might she mean, I wonder?
There is no clean one-word English equivalent for mon; you render it with "I wonder" or "might." It is one of the small words that make you sound genuinely Danish.
Why this matters: one rule replaces a whole English system
English question-formation is a tangle: you add do for most verbs (Do you know?), but not for be (Are you ready?), not for modals (Can you swim?), and not for have in British English (Have you any cash?). Learners of English struggle for months with when to use do. Danish sidesteps the entire problem: there is exactly one mechanism — inversion — and it applies to every verb without exception. Once you stop reaching for a translation of do, Danish questions become almost automatic.
Common Mistakes
The errors below are nearly all the same mistake in different clothes: importing the English do/does/did.
❌ Gør du spise fisk?
Incorrect — invented 'do'-support; this means literally 'Do you do-eat fish?'
✅ Spiser du fisk?
Do you eat fish?
❌ Gør hun bor her?
Incorrect — there is no Danish 'does' to insert.
✅ Bor hun her?
Does she live here?
❌ Hvad gør du spise?
Incorrect — 'gøre' (to do) is being misused as English do-support.
✅ Hvad spiser du?
What are you eating?
❌ Du spiser fisk? (as the normal way to ask)
Not wrong, but this is statement word order — it only works as a surprised 'echo' question, not a neutral one.
✅ Spiser du fisk?
Do you eat fish? (the neutral question form)
The trap in that last pair is subtle: leaving the words in statement order (Du spiser fisk?) and just raising your voice does exist in Danish, but only as an incredulous echo ("You eat fish?!"). For a plain, neutral question you must invert.
Key Takeaways
- Danish has no do-support. Never translate the do/does/did of an English question.
- Yes/no questions: front the finite verb (Kommer du?).
- Wh-questions: put the hv-word first, then invert the verb (Hvor bor du?). The h in hv- is silent.
- The underlying principle is V2: the finite verb is the second element of a main clause — or the first, when nothing precedes it.
- Meet ...ikke?/...vel? (tags) and mon ("I wonder...") now; they get fuller pages later.
Now practice Danish
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- Yes/No QuestionsA1 — Form yes/no questions by fronting the finite verb, and answer them with ja, nej — or the special jo that contradicts a negative.
- Wh-Questions (Hv-spørgsmål)A1 — Danish question words all start with hv- (silent h): hvem, hvad, hvor, hvornår, hvorfor, hvordan, hvilken, hvis — and how hvor + adjective means 'how big/old/many'.
- Tag Questions and MonB1 — Danish has one invariant tag pair — ikke? / vel? — instead of English's dozens, plus the speculative particle mon for 'I wonder'.
- Inversion After a Fronted ElementA1 — Whenever a non-subject opens a Danish main clause — an adverb, object, prepositional phrase, or subordinate clause — the verb stays second and the subject moves behind it.
- The V2 Rule: Verb SecondA1 — The core rule of Danish main clauses: the finite verb stands in second position, with exactly one constituent before it — and the subject inverts when anything else is fronted.
- Hvor + Adjective and Compound Question WordsA2 — The full hvor-family — hvor (where), hvor + adjective for 'how X' (hvor gammel, hvor mange, hvor længe), the directional hvorhen and hvorfra, plus hvornår, hvorfor and hvordan.