This page is about producing sentences that pin an action to a time — yesterday, at eight o'clock, in the morning, when I was a child. Danish has a few moving parts here that English does not: a hard split between two words for when, and a word-order rule that kicks in the moment you put the time first. Master both and your sentences will sound native rather than translated.
Time adverbials: the building blocks
A time adverbial is simply a word or phrase that answers when?. You can drop one into almost any sentence. The most common ones are worth memorising as fixed chunks.
Jeg så hende i går.
I saw her yesterday.
Vi mødes klokken otte.
We're meeting at eight o'clock.
Han løber altid om morgenen.
He always runs in the morning.
Notice the small prepositions: i går (yesterday), i morgen (tomorrow), i aften (tonight), but om morgenen / om aftenen (in the morning / in the evening) for habitual times of day, and klokken + number for clock times. These prepositions are not predictable from English, so learn each phrase whole.
| Danish | English |
|---|---|
| i går | yesterday |
| i dag | today |
| i morgen | tomorrow |
| i aften | tonight / this evening |
| om morgenen | in the morning (habitually) |
| om sommeren | in summer |
| klokken ti | at ten o'clock |
| på mandag | on Monday (next Monday) |
| om en time | in an hour |
Telling the clock and the date
For the clock you say klokken (often shortened to kl. in writing) plus the number. Half past is expressed as half to the next hour: halv otte literally means half eight but means 7:30 — half an hour before eight. This trips up English speakers badly, so handle it consciously.
Mødet starter klokken halv ni.
The meeting starts at half past eight (8:30).
Hvad er klokken? Den er kvart over tre.
What time is it? It's quarter past three.
For dates, use den + ordinal + month: den fjerde maj (the fourth of May). Days of the week take på: på onsdag (on Wednesday).
Min fødselsdag er den tredje juni.
My birthday is the third of June.
Da versus når: the two words for "when"
English has one when; Danish splits it. The rule is clean and worth burning in:
- da = when for a single, completed event in the past.
- når = when for the future or for something repeated / habitual (any tense).
So a one-off memory from the past takes da; a recurring routine or anything in the future takes når.
Da jeg var barn, boede vi i Aarhus.
When I was a child, we lived in Aarhus. (single past stretch)
Når jeg var syg som barn, lavede min mor suppe.
When(ever) I was ill as a child, my mum made soup. (repeated past)
Ring til mig, når du er færdig.
Call me when you're finished. (future)
Both da and når are subordinating conjunctions: they open a subordinate clause, and when that clause comes first, the main clause that follows inverts (verb before subject). More on that in a moment.
Fronting the time + V2 inversion
This is the heart of the page. Danish obeys the V2 rule: the finite verb must be the second element in a main clause. So the moment you open a sentence with a time element instead of the subject, the subject is pushed to after the verb. This is called inversion.
Compare:
Vi tager afsted i morgen.
We're leaving tomorrow. (subject first — normal order)
I morgen tager vi afsted.
Tomorrow we're leaving. (time first — verb before subject)
In the second sentence, I morgen fills the first slot, so the verb tager comes second and the subject vi slides in after it. English does not do this — we say Tomorrow we are leaving, keeping subject before verb. In Danish that order would be wrong.
I går mødte jeg en gammel ven.
Yesterday I met an old friend.
Klokken syv står hun altid op.
At seven o'clock she always gets up.
The same inversion happens when a whole da/når clause comes first — the clause counts as the single first element, so the main verb follows immediately:
Når solen skinner, går vi en tur.
When the sun is shining, we go for a walk.
Read it as: [Når solen skinner] is element one → går is the verb (element two) → vi is the subject. The comma marks the boundary, and the verb leaps in right after it.
Fill the slot
Build your own time-first sentences by keeping the inversion skeleton — [Time] [verb] [subject] ... — and swapping the bold slots.
| Time (slot 1) | Verb (slot 2) | Subject | Rest |
|---|---|---|---|
| I morgen | tager | vi | til Odense |
| I aften | laver | jeg | aftensmad |
| På mandag | starter | kurset | klokken ni |
| Om sommeren | bor | de | i sommerhuset |
| Klokken otte | spiser | vi | morgenmad |
Reading the first row: I morgen tager vi til Odense (Tomorrow we're going to Odense). The verb is always glued to the time element in slot two — that is the part to drill.
Common Mistakes
❌ I morgen vi tager afsted.
Incorrect — no inversion after a fronted time element.
✅ I morgen tager vi afsted.
Tomorrow we're leaving.
This is the signature mistake. English keeps subject-before-verb after a fronted time word, but Danish demands the verb in second position, so vi must move behind tager.
❌ Når jeg var barn, boede vi i Aarhus.
Incorrect — a single past memory needs da, not når.
✅ Da jeg var barn, boede vi i Aarhus.
When I was a child, we lived in Aarhus.
Being a child is one continuous past stretch, not a repeated event, so it takes da. Save når for the future and for whenever-type repetition.
❌ Ring til mig, da du er færdig.
Incorrect — a future 'when' needs når, not da.
✅ Ring til mig, når du er færdig.
Call me when you're finished.
Anything that has not happened yet uses når. Da only ever points backward to a single completed event.
❌ Mødet starter klokken halv otte og betyder otte tredive.
Incorrect assumption — halv otte means 7:30, not 8:30.
✅ Halv otte betyder syv tredive.
'Halv otte' means 7:30.
Danish counts half toward the coming hour: halv otte is halfway to eight, i.e. 7:30. Translate it consciously until it becomes automatic.
Key Takeaways
- Learn time phrases as fixed chunks: i går, i morgen, om morgenen, klokken otte, på mandag.
- da = single past event; når = future or repeated.
- halv otte = 7:30 (half toward eight).
- Front a time element and the verb jumps to second position — the subject follows it (I morgen tager vi ...).
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
- Da vs Når: Choosing 'When'A2 — How to choose between da and når for 'when' — da for a single past event, når for habitual or future ones.
- 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.
- Adverbs of Time and FrequencyA2 — Danish time and frequency adverbs — nu, så, altid, aldrig, ofte, snart — and the tricky stadig (still) vs endnu (yet) vs allerede (already) split.
- Simple StatementsA1 — How to build basic Danish declaratives — subject-first SVO, the obligatory subject, and the core verbs er and har — with model sentences and a substitution table to generate your own.