Suggestions and Invitations

Inviting someone to do something — "Shall we get coffee?", "Let's go!", "How about a walk?", "Want to come along?" — is the social glue of everyday Danish, and there are four go-to patterns that cover almost every situation. They're easy to learn and they make you sound friendly and natural rather than stiff. The one thing to watch is Lad os... ("Let's..."), which takes a bare infinitive with no at — the most common slip English speakers make. This page gives you each pattern with model sentences and a template to build your own.

Skal vi...?: "Shall we...? / Should we...?"

The most common way to propose a joint activity is Skal vi...? — literally "Shall we...?". You've already met skal as "have to"; in a vi-question it softens into a friendly suggestion. It takes a bare infinitive (no at), and the verb fronts to make the question.

This is the warm, default invitation. Notice it's a genuine question — you're checking whether the other person is up for it — so it always inverts (Skal vi...?) and always ends with a rising, inviting tone. It's the Danish equivalent of "Shall we...?" / "Should we...?" / "Do you want to...?" all at once.

Lad os...: "Let's..." (bare infinitive, no at)

When you want the firmer, more rallying "Let's...!" — not asking, but proposing as decided — Danish uses Lad os... ("Let us..."). The critical rule: the verb after lad os is a bare infinitive with no at. This mirrors English "Let's go" (not "Let's to go"), but English speakers still insert a stray at out of habit, so drill this.

Lad is the imperative of lade ("to let"), so lad os literally means "let us" — and just as in English, the following verb stands bare. Lad os is more decisive than Skal vi...?: it assumes everyone's on board and moves the group forward, whereas Skal vi...? checks first. Use Lad os... among friends to get things going, and connect to the imperative, since lad is itself a command form.

Hvad med at...?: "How about...?"

To float an idea more tentatively — "How about...?" — use Hvad med at...? ("What about...?"). Unlike the two patterns above, this one does take at + infinitive, because med is a preposition and prepositions in Danish take at before a verb. You can also follow hvad med with a plain noun.

The contrast is worth noticing: after med (a preposition) you say at tage, at invitere — with the at. After skal and lad os (a modal and an imperative) you drop it. So the at isn't random; it tracks whether the preceding word is a preposition or a verb form. Hvad med...? is gentler and more open-ended than Lad os... — it invites the other person to react to your idea.

Vil du med?: "Do you want to come along?"

Danish has a wonderfully compact invitation: Vil du med? — literally "Will you with?" — meaning "Do you want to come along?". The little adverb med ("along/with") does the work of a whole verb, so no infinitive is needed at all. You can expand it: Vil du med i biografen? ("Do you want to come to the cinema?").

That floating med is very Danish: tage med = "come along," gå med = "go along," and you'll hear med tacked onto invitations constantly. Vil du med? on its own is a complete, friendly "wanna come?"

Build your own: the substitution table

Choose how committed you want to sound — checking (Skal vi...?), rallying (Lad os...), floating an idea (Hvad med at...?), or inviting along (Vil du med...?) — and slot in the activity. Watch the at column: only Hvad med takes it.

Common Mistakes

The flagship error is putting at after Lad os. There is no at — the infinitive is bare, just like English "Let's go."

The mirror-image error is dropping at in Hvad med at...?, where it's required because med is a preposition.

A third mistake is translating "Let's" word-for-word as Lad os os or trying to use a "let us" with an object pronoun the English way. Lad os already contains "us"; don't double it.

A fourth mistake is forgetting to invert in Skal vi...?. It's a question, so the verb leads.

(For why the verb moves to the front in questions, see the V2 rule.)

Key Takeaways

• Skal vi...? = "Shall we...?" — friendly, checking; bare infinitive, verb fronted.
• Lad os... = "Let's...!" — decisive; bare infinitive, never at.
• Hvad med at...? = "How about...?" — tentative; at + infinitive (because med is a preposition).
• Vil du med? = "Want to come along?" — the floating med replaces a whole verb.
• The at/no-at split isn't random: prepositions (med) take at; modals and lad don't.