Simple Statements

A simple statement — "I'm tired," "She has a dog," "We live in Aarhus" — is the most common sentence you will ever make, and Danish builds it almost exactly like English. This page is about producing these sentences: the pattern to follow, the two verbs you'll lean on most, and a substitution table so you can generate dozens of your own from a single template. Everything here is A1, and everything here is the home base you'll return to as the grammar gets more complex.

The basic pattern: subject first, then verb

A neutral Danish statement is subject – verb – (rest), the same order as English. Start with who or what the sentence is about, put the verb second, and add the rest.

Subject, verb, then the rest — nothing here will surprise an English speaker. The crucial thing to notice is that the verb is in second position, which here means right after the subject. That position matters because the moment you front something else, the verb stays put and the subject moves — but as long as you start your statement with the subject, you never have to think about it. That is why subject-first statements are the safe foundation.

Every statement needs a subject

Danish does not allow you to drop the subject. Even when there's no real "doer," you must fill the subject slot — with det ("it") or der ("there").

Your two workhorse verbs: er and har

Two verbs carry an enormous share of everyday statements, and learning them first gives you immediate range. At være ("to be") has the present form er, and at have ("to have") has the present form har. Notice that Danish verbs have no person agreement — er is the same for jeg, du, han, vi, de; there is no "am / is / are" split to worry about.

One form each, across every subject. Use er for identity, states, and location; use har for possession.

For the full picture of these two verbs, see være and have.

Building from simplest to fuller

Statements grow by adding pieces to the end — first an object, then time, then place — without disturbing the subject-verb opening. Watch one statement expand:

Each step adds material after the verb. The subject-verb core (vi spiser) never moves. This is the cleanest way to build longer sentences while staying safe.

Making a statement negative

To negate a simple statement, add ikke ("not") after the finite verb. There is no "do" — Danish does not use do-support, so you never translate "I do not."

The placement of ikke has a logic of its own, especially in longer sentences and subordinate clauses — that's covered on Ikke: Placement and Scope.

Turning a statement into a yes/no question

For completeness: to ask the yes/no version, simply move the verb to the front and the subject behind it. Again, no "do."

A substitution table: generate your own statements

Here is a slot frame. Pick one item from each column and you have a grammatical Danish statement. Mix and match to drill the pattern.

For example, mixing across rows: Vi har en hund ("We have a dog"), Hun bor i København ("She lives in Copenhagen"), Jeg drikker kaffe ("I drink coffee"). The word order on the underlying diagram — subject, verb, rest — is shown in full on The Diderichsen Sentence Schema.

Common mistakes

The two errors below are the predictable English-speaker pitfalls at this level: leaving out a required subject, and importing English "do" into negatives.

Key takeaways

• A simple statement is subject – verb – rest, the same order as English.
• Always name a subject; use det or der when there's no real one.
• Lean on er ("am/is/are") and har ("have/has") — one form each, no agreement.
• Grow a statement by adding material after the verb; the subject-verb core stays put.
• Negate by adding ikke after the verb — and never with a translated "do."