When you relay what someone told you — He said that he was tired — you are reporting speech indirectly. In Danish the workhorses are sige at ("say that") and fortælle at ("tell that"). Three things change as you move from the original words to the report: the tense backshifts, the pronouns shift, and the reported clause becomes a subordinate at-clause with its own word order. This page gives you graded models to copy, a slot table, and the one rule English speakers break most: inside the at-clause, sentence adverbs come before the verb.
The basic frame: sige/fortælle + at + clause
Start with what was actually said (direct speech), then embed it under a reporting verb and at ("that").
| Direct speech | Reported statement |
|---|---|
| "Jeg er træt." | Han sagde, at han var træt. |
| "Vi bor i Aarhus." | De fortalte, at de boede i Aarhus. |
Han sagde, at han var træt.
He said that he was tired.
Unlike English, where "that" is freely dropped, Danish at is normally kept in careful speech and writing, though it too can be omitted in casual conversation. The verbs themselves are covered on sige and fortælle; note that fortælle usually takes a listener (fortælle mig at..., "tell me that...").
Backshift: the tense steps back
When the reporting verb is in the past (sagde, fortalte), the tense inside the at-clause steps one notch into the past — exactly like English. Present becomes past; past/perfect becomes pluperfect; vil becomes ville.
| Direct | Reported (after a past verb) |
|---|---|
| present: er, bor, kommer | past: var, boede, kom |
| past/perfect: var, har set | pluperfect: havde været, havde set |
| future: vil, skal | ville, skulle |
Hun fortalte mig, at hun havde set filmen før.
She told me that she had seen the film before.
De sagde, at de ville komme til middag.
They said that they would come to dinner.
Pronoun shift: change the point of view
Pronouns move from the original speaker's perspective to yours. The original jeg ("I") usually becomes han/hun ("he/she"), and du ("you") becomes whoever was being addressed.
Peter sagde: »Jeg elsker dig.« → Peter sagde, at han elskede mig.
Peter said, 'I love you.' → Peter said that he loved me.
Hun sagde, at hun selv ville ordne det.
She said that she would sort it out herself.
Word order: the at-clause is subordinate
This is the rule to drill. The clause after at is subordinate, so it does not follow the V2 main-clause pattern. Instead, sentence adverbs — ikke, aldrig, altid, allerede — come before the finite verb, not after it.
| Main clause (V2) | Reported at-clause (subordinate) |
|---|---|
| Han kommer ikke. | Hun sagde, at han ikke kom. |
| De er altid sene. | Jeg hørte, at de altid var sene. |
Han sagde, at han ikke kunne nå det i dag.
He said that he couldn't make it today.
In at han ikke kunne, the adverb ikke sits before the verb kunne. In an English-style main clause it would follow ("he could not"), which is why learners wrongly write at han kunne ikke. For the full subordinate template and a deeper treatment, see reported speech.
Build-your-own: the substitution table
Frame: [Reporting verb, past] + at + [subject] + (adverb) + [backshifted verb] + ...
| Reporting verb | at + subject | (adverb) + verb + rest |
|---|---|---|
| Han sagde, | at han | var syg. |
| Hun fortalte, | at hun | ikke kom til festen. |
| De sagde, | at de | havde glemt nøglerne. |
| Læreren sagde, | at vi | skulle aflevere i morgen. |
| Min mor fortalte mig, | at hun | altid havde boet her. |
Læreren sagde, at vi skulle aflevere opgaven inden fredag.
The teacher said that we were to hand in the assignment by Friday.
Reporting a negative and a modal
Two patterns worth a model each: a negative statement, and one with a modal verb.
Han fortalte, at han ikke havde tid til at hjælpe.
He told me that he didn't have time to help.
Hun sagde, at vi godt måtte låne bilen.
She said that we were allowed to borrow the car.
Common Mistakes
❌ Han sagde, at han er træt.
Incorrect — no backshift; after the past sagde, er should become var.
✅ Han sagde, at han var træt.
He said that he was tired.
❌ Hun sagde, at han kom ikke.
Incorrect — main-clause order in a subordinate clause; ikke must precede the verb.
✅ Hun sagde, at han ikke kom.
She said that he didn't come.
❌ De sagde, at de vil komme i morgen.
Incorrect — future vil must backshift to ville after the past reporting verb.
✅ De sagde, at de ville komme dagen efter.
They said that they would come the next day.
❌ Peter sagde, at jeg elsker dig.
Incorrect — no pronoun shift; the reported jeg should become han, and dig becomes mig.
✅ Peter sagde, at han elskede mig.
Peter said that he loved me.
❌ Hun sagde at altid hun var sen.
Incorrect — wrong adverb slot and a missing letter; in the at-clause the subject precedes altid: hun altid var sen.
✅ Hun sagde, at hun altid var sen.
She said that she was always late.
Key Takeaways
- Frame: sige/fortælle + at + clause; keep at in careful Danish.
- Backshift after a past reporting verb: present → past, perfect → pluperfect, vil → ville.
- Shift pronouns to your point of view (jeg → han/hun, du → mig etc.).
- The at-clause is subordinate: sentence adverbs (ikke, altid) go before the finite verb.
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
- Reported Speech and BackshiftB2 — How Danish turns direct quotes into indirect speech — the complementiser at, tense backshift, pronoun and deictic shifts, reported questions with om and hv-words, and modal backshift.
- SigeA1 — Full reference for sige ('to say') — principal parts, all core tenses in natural sentences, its job as a reporting verb (han siger, at...), the idiom det vil sige, and how it differs from fortælle, tale and snakke.
- FortælleB1 — Full reference for fortælle ('to tell, to narrate') — principal parts with the mixed past fortalte, all core tenses in natural sentences, the listener-as-object pattern fortælle nogen noget, fortælle om, the noun en fortælling, and how fortælle differs from sige (say) and tale/snakke (speak/talk).