Dialogue: Small Talk About the Weather

Weather is the safest small talk in Denmark, and it teaches you one of the most useful structures in the language: the impersonal det that fills the subject slot when nobody is really doing anything — det regner, det er koldt. This annotated dialogue between two neighbours also shows you the tag question ...ikke? and the exclamation Hvor er det koldt!, both of which sound instantly native once you have them.

The dialogue

Two neighbours, Bo (B) and Lis (L), meet at the front door.

Line-by-line commentary

"Sikke et vejr, hvad?"

• Sikke et vejr! = "What weather!" — an exclamation of the Sikke (et)... type, "What a...!" Note vejr is neuter (et vejr), so it takes et, not en. Danish vejr means "weather" and has no plural in this sense.
• hvad? tacked on the end works like English "eh?" or "huh?", inviting agreement.

"det regner hele tiden"

Here is the page's central structure: the impersonal det with a weather verb.

When nobody and nothing is really the subject — it's just raining — Danish fills the empty subject slot with det ("it"):

• Det regner. = "It's raining."
• Det sner. = "It's snowing."
• Det blæser. = "It's windy / blowing."
• Det tordner. = "It's thundering."

This det doesn't refer to anything; it's a placeholder, exactly like the "it" in English "it's raining". Danish, like English, can't leave the subject slot empty, so det steps in. The difference is that Danish uses det (the neuter "it"), never den.

Other pieces here:

• hele tiden = "all the time" (literally "the whole time"); for tiden = "these days / at the moment". Both are fixed time phrases with the definite tiden.

"Det er virkelig trist." / "det er også blevet koldt"

The same impersonal det appears with er + adjective to describe conditions:

• Det er koldt. = "It's cold."
• Det er varmt. = "It's warm."
• Det er trist. = "It's dreary."

The adjective is in its neuter form (because the empty det counts as neuter): koldt, varmt, trist (already ending in a consonant cluster). That final -t on koldt and varmt is the neuter agreement and must not be dropped.

er ... blevet koldt = "has turned/become cold", the perfect of blive ("to become"). The fronted Og så triggers V2: Og så *er det blevet koldt*.

"Hvor er det koldt i dag!"

A beautiful little exclamation pattern: Hvor + er + det + adjective! = "How [adjective] it is!"

• Hvor er det koldt! = "How cold it is!"
• Hvor er det varmt! = "How warm it is!"
• Hvor er du dygtig! = "How clever you are!"

Here hvor does not mean "where" — in an exclamation it means "how" (to what a degree). Because hvor is fronted, the verb er comes second (V2), then the subject det. English keeps the subject first ("how cold it is"); Danish inverts ("how cold is it"-order), which feels backwards until you remember the V2 rule. The exclamation mark and intonation carry the emotion.

"Man fryser, så snart man går ud."

• Man = the generic "you / one", used for general statements. Man fryser = "you/one freeze(s)".
• fryse = "to freeze / be cold". Danes say Jeg fryser ("I'm cold") far more readily than Jeg er kold (which can sound like "I'm a cold person").
• så snart = "as soon as / the moment". It's a subordinating conjunction, so man går ud is a subordinate clause: så snart man går ud = "the moment you go out". (Don't reach for med det samme here — that means "right away" as an adverb, not "as soon as".)

"Vejret bliver vel bedre til weekenden, ikke?"

Two things here. First, vejret is the noun "weather" in its definite form: vejr (neuter) + -et = vejret. Now we have a real subject, so the verb bliver ("becomes/gets") agrees with it normally — and any adjective describing vejret would take neuter agreement, e.g. Vejret er dårligt ("The weather is bad").

Second, the tag question ikke? A statement plus a comma plus ikke? turns it into "..., right? / ..., isn't it?":

• Det er koldt, ikke? = "It's cold, isn't it?"
• Du kommer i morgen, ikke? = "You're coming tomorrow, right?"

English has to match the auxiliary and polarity ("isn't it?", "don't you?", "won't it?"), a notorious headache. Danish just slaps on a single invariant ikke? every time. (You may also hear the fuller ...ikke også?) vel in the same sentence is a softening particle, "presumably / I suppose".

"De siger, at solen kommer frem på lørdag."

• De siger, at... = "They say that...", the generic "they" (de) for hearsay, like English "they say".
• solen = "the sun" (sol, common gender, + -en). kommer frem = "comes out/forward". Present tense kommer with på lørdag gives the future.
• After at ("that") this is a subordinate clause; you'll meet its special word order elsewhere, but the verb here stays simple.

"Så kan vi endelig komme ud i haven igen."

• Fronted Så → V2: Så *kan vi... *endelig = "finally". komme ud i haven = "get out into the garden", with haven the definite of have (common gender, "garden").

"i dag bliver jeg inde, hvor der er varmt"

• Fronted i dag → V2: i dag *bliver jeg inde. *blive inde = "stay in".
• hvor der er varmt = "where it's warm". Note the der here is the expletive/existential filler ("where there's warmth"), and the adjective varmt takes its neuter form.

"Vi ses, når solen skinner." / "Hav det godt!"

• Vi ses = "See you" (the reciprocal -s form of se). når solen skinner = "when the sun shines".
• Hav det godt! = "Take care! / Be well!" — the imperative hav
  • the have det godt frame you met in the doctor dialogue.

Watch out: the English mis-transfer

The classic error is dropping the empty det or using den, because English speakers don't always register that "it" in "it's raining" is a placeholder:

A second error is reading Hvor as "where" in the exclamation, or forgetting to invert the verb:

A third: trying to build an English-style matching tag instead of the all-purpose ikke?:

Structures in this dialogue

• Impersonal det with weather verbs and adjectives — det regner, det sner, det er koldt. See weather expressions and the distinction between den, det and 'it'.
• The exclamation Hvor er det koldt! where hvor = "how" and the verb inverts — see wh-questions for the hvor word and the V2 rule for the inversion.
• The invariant tag question ...ikke? turning a statement into a yes/no check — see yes/no questions.
• Neuter agreement on vejret and the predicate adjectives koldt, varmt, blevet koldt — see den, det and 'it'.