Dialogue: Renting an Apartment

Renting a flat is one of the first real-world transactions a learner faces in Denmark, and it comes with its own dense vocabulary: husleje, depositum, indflytning. The dialogue below is a viewing (en fremvisning) where a prospective tenant meets a landlord. Grammatically it is a showcase of two B1 staples — conditional hvis-clauses and the polite modals skulle and kunne — wrapped around the practical questions you actually need to ask. This page gives the dialogue, a translation, and a commentary that pulls out both the vocabulary and the structures.

The dialogue

Udlejer: Velkommen. Det er lejligheden — den er på 65 kvadratmeter. Lejer: Den er rigtig fin. Hvor meget er huslejen om måneden? Udlejer: Huslejen er 8.500 kroner om måneden. Lejer: Er varme og vand inkluderet i prisen? Udlejer: Varme er inkluderet, men du betaler selv for el. Lejer: Hvor stort er depositummet? Udlejer: Tre måneders husleje. Du skal også betale forudbetalt leje. Lejer: Hvornår kan jeg flytte ind? Udlejer: Indflytning kan ske den første i næste måned. Lejer: Hvis jeg siger ja i dag, kan jeg så få lov til at male væggene? Udlejer: Ja, hvis du maler dem hvide igen, når du flytter ud. Lejer: Det lyder godt. Skal vi underskrive kontrakten? Udlejer: Det skal vi. Jeg sender den til dig i morgen.

Translation

Landlord: Welcome. This is the flat — it's 65 square metres. Tenant: It's really nice. How much is the rent per month? Landlord: The rent is 8,500 kroner per month. Tenant: Are heating and water included in the price? Landlord: Heating is included, but you pay for electricity yourself. Tenant: How big is the deposit? Landlord: Three months' rent. You also have to pay rent in advance. Tenant: When can I move in? Landlord: Move-in can happen on the first of next month. Tenant: If I say yes today, can I then get permission to paint the walls? Landlord: Yes, if you paint them white again when you move out. Tenant: That sounds good. Shall we sign the contract? Landlord: Yes, let's. I'll send it to you tomorrow.

Line by line

En lejlighed and the renting word-family

The core noun is en lejlighed ("a flat/apartment"), with definite form lejligheden. The whole transaction shares the root leje ("rent/to rent"):

Hvor meget er huslejen? — asking the price

Hvor meget...? ("how much...?") is the standard question for amounts. Huslejen is the definite form ("the rent"). Note om måneden — "per month", literally "in the month", the fixed Danish way to express a rate.

Notice the number: Danish writes thousands with a period, so 8.500 is eight thousand five hundred, not a decimal. (More on this in the punctuation conventions.)

Er varme inkluderet? — utilities and the -et past participle

At inkludere gives the participle inkluderet ("included"). The question Er varme og vand inkluderet? is a yes/no question, so the verb er comes first. Varme = heating, vand = water, el (short for elektricitet) = electricity. Knowing whether these are inkluderet is the single most important thing to ask.

The word selv ("yourself") after betaler stresses that this cost is the tenant's own responsibility — a very common use of selv to mean "on your own / personally".

Hvor stort er depositummet? — the deposit

Depositum is a Latin loanword; its definite form is the slightly awkward depositummet. A standard Danish deposit is three months' rent (tre måneders husleje) — note the genitive -s on måneder: måneders = "months'". Forudbetalt leje ("prepaid rent") is often charged on top.

Du skal også betale — skulle as obligation

The modal at skulle ("shall/must/be to") expresses obligation here: du skal betale = "you have to pay". Skulle is one of the workhorse Danish modals; in this dialogue it does triple duty — obligation (du skal betale), a suggestion (Skal vi underskrive...?), and agreement (Det skal vi = "yes, we shall").

Hvornår kan jeg flytte ind? — kunne and the separable verb

Hvornår...? = "when?". The modal at kunne ("can/be able to") frames the polite question Hvornår kan jeg flytte ind?. The verb at flytte ind ("to move in") is separable: the particle ind stays at the end of the clause, after the main verb or, with a modal, in final position. Its opposite is at flytte ud ("to move out").

Dates use den første ("the first"), an ordinal — see the dates-and-time page for the full set.

Hvis jeg siger ja... — the conditional hvis-clause

Hvis = "if". A hvis-clause is a subordinate clause, so it has special word order: the subject comes right after hvis, and crucially, when the hvis-clause comes first, the main clause that follows inverts (verb before subject). Watch the linking word så ("then"):

Here få lov til at is the fixed expression "to get permission to / be allowed to" — lov literally "permission". Notice til at before the infinitive male.

Mis-transfer alert

The conditional trips English speakers up in two ways. First, do not use the future "will" inside the hvis-clause — Danish uses the plain present: Hvis jeg siger ja ("if I say yes"), never hvis jeg vil sige. Second, English keeps subject-verb order after a fronted "if": "If I say yes, I can...". Danish inverts: "Hvis jeg siger ja, kan jeg...". Forgetting the inversion is the single most common B1 error here.

Structures recap

• Renting vocabulary: en lejlighed, husleje(n), depositum(met), at leje / udleje, indflytning, forudbetalt leje.
• Price and utility questions: Hvor meget er huslejen om måneden?, Er varme inkluderet?
• Modals: skulle (obligation, suggestion, agreement) and kunne (ability, polite question).
• Separable verbs: flytte ind / flytte ud, particle in final position.
• Conditional hvis: present tense inside the condition; inversion in the main clause when hvis comes first; the connector så.
• Fixed phrase: få lov til at
  • infinitive ("be allowed to").