Yes/No Questions | Danish Grammar

A yes/no question is one you can answer with "yes" or "no": Are you coming? Do you have time? Isn't it cold? In Danish these are the easiest questions to build — you take a statement and move the finite verb to the front. There is no helper word to add and nothing to conjugate differently. The only genuinely new thing for an English speaker is on the answering side: Danish has three answer words where English has two, and the third one, jo, is essential.

Forming the question: front the verb

Start from a statement and swap the subject and the finite (conjugated) verb so the verb lands in first position and the subject sits right behind it.

Statement	Question
Du kommer. (You're coming.)	Kommer du? (Are you coming?)
Du har tid. (You have time.)	Har du tid? (Do you have time?)
Det er rigtigt. (That's right.)	Er det rigtigt? (Is that right?)

Kommer du?

Are you coming?

Har du tid i morgen?

Do you have time tomorrow?

Er det rigtigt?

Is that right?

Bor I i København?

Do you (plural) live in Copenhagen?

Crucially, there is no do/does/did to translate. English asks "Do you have time?" with a helper verb; Danish puts the real verb har at the front and stops there. This is the cardinal point for English speakers — see the Common Mistakes section.

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To turn any statement into a yes/no question, move the conjugated verb to the front. That's the whole rule. Never add a word for English do.

When the verb is a modal (vil, skal, kan, må), the modal is the finite verb, so the modal goes to the front and the main verb stays in its infinitive form at the end. These are extremely common for invitations and offers.

Vil du have en kop kaffe?

Would you like a cup of coffee?

Skal vi gå nu?

Shall we go now? / Should we leave now?

Kan du svømme?

Can you swim?

Må jeg komme ind?

May I come in?

Note Skal vi...? — it is the standard way to make a suggestion ("Shall we...? / Let's..."), used far more freely than the slightly stiff English "Shall we." And Vil du have...? ("Would you like...?") is how you offer someone something at the dinner table.

Answering: ja, nej — and jo

Here is the feature that has no English equivalent. Danish has three answer words:

ja — yes (answering a positively phrased question)
nej — no
jo — yes, contradicting a negatively phrased question

Use ja and nej the way you'd expect, after a normal positive question:

Kommer du? — Ja, jeg kommer.

Are you coming? — Yes, I'm coming.

Har du tid? — Nej, desværre.

Do you have time? — No, unfortunately not.

But when the question contains a negative — ikke ("not"), aldrig ("never"), etc. — and you want to say "yes, actually I do / it is," you must use jo, not ja. Using ja there sounds wrong to Danish ears.

Kan du ikke svømme? — Jo, det kan jeg godt!

Can't you swim? — Yes (I can), actually!

Er du ikke sulten? — Jo, jeg er meget sulten.

Aren't you hungry? — Yes, I'm very hungry.

Har du aldrig været i Danmark? — Jo, mange gange.

Have you never been to Denmark? — Yes (I have), many times.

If instead you want to confirm the negative — "no, you're right, I can't" — you use nej:

Kan du ikke svømme? — Nej, det kan jeg ikke.

Can't you swim? — No, I can't.

So a negative question splits two ways in Danish: jo overturns it ("yes I can!"), nej confirms it ("no, I can't"). English muddles this — "Can't you swim? — No" is famously ambiguous about whether you can or can't. Danish is crystal clear.

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jo is "yes, and you're wrong to assume otherwise." It only appears after a negative question or statement. If there is no negative to push back against, you cannot use jo — use ja.

Why jo is worth the effort

English speakers find jo baffling at first because English has no dedicated word for it; we patch over the gap with whole sentences ("Yes I do!", "Yes I am!") and still end up ambiguous. Danish (like German doch and French si) gives you one crisp word that means "I'm contradicting the negative you just put in the air." Once you have it, answering negative questions stops being a guessing game. It also makes you sound natural instantly — nothing flags a learner faster than answering Er du ikke træt? with ja instead of jo.

Common Mistakes

❌ Gør du komme i aften?

Incorrect — invented do-support; 'gøre' (to do) cannot be used as a question helper.

✅ Kommer du i aften?

Are you coming tonight?

❌ Gør du have tid?

Incorrect — again, no Danish equivalent of 'do you...'.

✅ Har du tid?

Do you have time?

❌ Kan du ikke svømme? — Ja, det kan jeg.

Incorrect — after a negative question, the contradicting 'yes' must be 'jo', not 'ja'.

✅ Kan du ikke svømme? — Jo, det kan jeg.

Can't you swim? — Yes, I can.

❌ Vil du have en kop kaffe?

Correct! — but learners often add 'at': ❌ 'Vil du at have...'. Modals take a bare infinitive.

✅ Vil du have en kop kaffe?

Would you like a cup of coffee? (no 'at' after a modal)

That last pair flags a related slip: after a modal verb, the following verb is a bare infinitive with no at ("to"). Say Vil du have..., never Vil du at have....

Key Takeaways

Build a yes/no question by fronting the finite verb; never translate English do/does/did.
With modals, the modal goes first and the main verb stays as a bare infinitive at the end (Vil du have...?, no at).
Answer positive questions with ja / nej.
After a negative question, use jo to say "yes (I do/it is)" and nej to confirm the negative. Jo has no English equivalent and must be learned.

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