Bære is a strong verb meaning carry, bear, or wear (clothing). It is the direct cousin of English bear, and like its English relative it lives a double life: a plain physical sense (carrying a bag) and a cluster of figurative senses (bearing a burden, bearing fruit, bearing a resemblance). The strong vowel shift it undergoes — bære → bar → båret — is the same ablaut pattern you already know from English bear → bore → borne, which makes it one of the easier strong verbs for an English speaker to fix in memory.
Principal parts
| Infinitive | Present | Past | Past participle | Imperative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (at) bære | bærer | bar | båret | bær |
The perfect is formed with har: jeg har båret (I have carried). Bære describes an action you perform, not a change you undergo, so it never takes være in the perfect.
Note the vowels carefully. The infinitive and present keep æ (bære, bærer), the past drops to a plain a (bar), and the participle rises to å (båret). Three different vowels across the three principal parts — this is the heart of what "strong" means.
The physical sense: carry
Kan du bære den her kasse ind for mig?
Can you carry this box in for me?
Han bar barnet hele vejen hjem, fordi hun var faldet i søvn.
He carried the child the whole way home because she had fallen asleep.
Jeg har båret på den taske hele dagen, og nu gør min skulder ondt.
I've been carrying that bag all day, and now my shoulder hurts.
The figurative senses
Like English bear, bære carries (so to speak) weight, responsibility, traces, and consequences.
Hun bærer et stort ansvar for hele afdelingen.
She bears a great responsibility for the entire department.
Hele kvarteret bar præg af mange års forsømmelse.
The whole neighbourhood bore the mark of many years of neglect.
The fixed expression bære præg af (literally bear the stamp of) means to show signs of or to bear the mark of. It is common in journalism and formal description.
Bære frugt — bear fruit
The phrase bære frugt works exactly like its English equivalent, both literally and figuratively.
Æbletræet begyndte endelig at bære frugt efter fem år.
The apple tree finally began to bear fruit after five years.
Mange års tålmodigt arbejde bar til sidst frugt.
Many years of patient work finally bore fruit.
Bære over med — be patient with
Bære over med nogen means to be patient with someone, to make allowances for them. There is no clean word-for-word English version; the closest is bear with, but the Danish idiom carries a stronger sense of tolerating someone's flaws.
Du må bære over med ham — han har haft en hård uge.
You'll have to be patient with him — he's had a rough week.
Bære sig ad — behave, go about something
Bære sig ad is reflexive and means to behave or to go about doing something. It is one of the most useful idioms built on this verb.
Hvordan bærer man sig ad med at skifte et dæk?
How do you go about changing a tyre?
Han bar sig forfærdeligt ad til festen i går.
He behaved terribly at the party yesterday.
Bære vs have på — wearing clothes
This is the contrast English speakers most need. Both verbs can describe wearing clothing, but they are not interchangeable in everyday speech.
- Have på (literally have on) is the ordinary, everyday way to say wear. This is what you reach for in conversation.
- Bære for clothing is more formal, literary, or marked — it suggests carrying the garment as a deliberate display, or appears in elevated written style.
Hun havde en rød kjole på til brylluppet.
She wore a red dress to the wedding.
Dronningen bar en kjole syet af en kendt designer.
The Queen wore a gown sewn by a famous designer. (literary/formal)
Common Mistakes
❌ Han bærede kassen ind.
Incorrect — bære is strong, not weak; there is no -ede past.
✅ Han bar kassen ind.
He carried the box in.
English speakers default to the regular -ede past because most Danish verbs are weak. Bære is strong: the past is bar, never bærede.
❌ Jeg har baret tasken hele dagen.
Incorrect — the participle has å, not a.
✅ Jeg har båret tasken hele dagen.
I've carried the bag all day.
The participle is båret with å. Dropping the ring above the a is an orthographic error, not a typo — baret would be read as a different (non-existent) form.
❌ Jeg bærer en blå skjorte i dag.
Awkward — sounds formal/literary for everyday clothing.
✅ Jeg har en blå skjorte på i dag.
I'm wearing a blue shirt today.
For routine clothing in conversation, use have på. Using bære here is not ungrammatical, but it sounds stilted to a native ear.
❌ Hvordan bærer man det med at lave dej?
Incorrect — the idiom requires the reflexive sig.
✅ Hvordan bærer man sig ad med at lave dej?
How do you go about making dough?
The "go about / behave" idiom is bære sig ad. Drop the reflexive sig or the particle ad and the meaning collapses.
Key Takeaways
- Principal parts: bære – bar – båret, perfect with har. Three vowels: æ, a, å.
- Same ablaut as English bear – bore – borne; lean on the cognate.
- Everyday wear is have på; bære for clothes is formal/literary.
- High-value idioms: bære præg af, bære over med, bære sig ad, bære frugt.
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Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- Strong Verbs: Ablaut PatternsA2 — Danish strong verbs form their past by changing the stem vowel — learn the major ablaut series as families to turn memorisation into pattern recognition.
- TageA2 — Full reference for the strong verb tage ('to take'), the silent -g, and its central role in talking about transport.
- Idioms with Body PartsB2 — Danish body-part idioms — holde hovedet koldt, få kolde fødder, trække på skuldrene, bide tænderne sammen — each with its literal gloss, real meaning, a natural usage sentence, and the false friends that trip up English speakers.