Leve ('to live') is the verb of being alive and of how you live — your way of life, what you live on, what you live up to. It is not the verb for where you reside: that is bo. English collapses both into "live" ("I live in Copenhagen" / "she lived a long life"), so English speakers reach for leve in the residence sense and produce the single most common error with this verb. Master the leve / bo split and you've mastered leve.
Principal parts
| Infinitive | Present | Past | Past participle | Imperative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (at) leve | lever | levede | levet | lev! |
Leve is a regular weak verb of the -ede class: the past is levede and the participle levet. (For the full pattern, see verbs/past-weak-ede.) The imperative lev! drops the final -e of the infinitive.
Present: lever
Begge mine bedsteforældre lever stadig.
Both my grandparents are still alive.
Hun lever et roligt liv på landet.
She lives a quiet life in the countryside.
Vi lever i en mærkelig tid.
We're living in a strange time.
Past: levede
Han levede til han blev 97.
He lived until he was 97.
De levede lykkeligt til deres dages ende.
They lived happily ever after. (the standard Danish fairy-tale closing)
Present perfect: har levet
Leve takes the auxiliary have — har levet — because it describes an activity (the living of a life), not a change of state or movement to a goal.
Jeg har levet i udlandet i mange år.
I've lived abroad for many years. (lived = spent my life there, not merely resided)
Hun har levet et langt og godt liv.
She has lived a long and good life.
Imperative: lev!
Lev livet, mens du kan!
Live life while you can!
Lev sundt og motionér.
Live healthily and exercise. (advice register)
The key split: leve vs bo
This is the heart of the page. English "live" covers two ideas that Danish keeps strictly apart:
- bo — to reside, to have your home in a place. Answers "where do you live?".
- leve — to be alive, or to lead a life of a certain kind. Answers "are you alive?" or "how do you live?".
So Jeg bor i København = "I live in Copenhagen" (that's my address), while Jeg lever sundt = "I live healthily" (that's my way of life). You cannot swap them: leve i København would mean something closer to "survive in Copenhagen" and sounds wrong for residence.
Jeg bor i København, men jeg lever som om jeg var på landet.
I live (reside) in Copenhagen, but I live (lead my life) as if I were in the countryside.
Min farmor bor i Aalborg, og heldigvis lever hun stadig.
My grandmother lives (resides) in Aalborg, and luckily she's still alive.
For a full side-by-side treatment with more edge cases, see choosing/bo-vs-leve; for the residence verb itself, bo. The partner "be" verb for the alive/state sense is være.
Key expressions with leve
leve af — to live on / off, make a living from
Hun lever af at skrive bøger.
She makes a living from writing books.
Vi lever af kartofler og kål om vinteren.
We live on potatoes and cabbage in winter.
leve op til — to live up to
Filmen levede ikke op til mine forventninger.
The film didn't live up to my expectations.
leve med — to live with / accept
Det må jeg lære at leve med.
I'll have to learn to live with that.
Længe leve! — Long live!
A fixed exclamatory phrase using the bare infinitive/optative — a toast or cheer, the Danish equivalent of "long live...!" or "...hip hip hurra".
Længe leve brudeparret!
Long live the happy couple! (a toast at weddings)
i levende live — alive, in the flesh
The present participle levende ("living, alive") shows up in this set phrase meaning "while still alive / in person".
Jeg har aldrig set en hval i levende live.
I've never seen a whale alive / in the flesh.
A short dialogue
— Bor din morfar stadig i Skagen? — Nej, han bor hos os nu. Men han lever da i bedste velgående — han er 92 og cykler hver dag!
— Does your grandad still live in Skagen? — No, he lives with us now. But he's alive and well — he's 92 and cycles every day!
Notice both verbs in play: bor twice for residence, lever for being alive and thriving.
Common Mistakes
1. Using leve for where you reside. The classic English-speaker error: "I live in X" → leve instead of bo.
❌ Jeg lever i København.
Wrong for residence — this reads as 'I survive/get by in Copenhagen'.
✅ Jeg bor i København.
I live in Copenhagen. (residence = bo)
2. Using bo for being alive or for a way of life. The mirror error.
❌ Min oldefar bor stadig — han er 99.
Wrong — 'bo' is residence; for 'still alive' you need 'lever'.
✅ Min oldefar lever stadig — han er 99.
My great-grandfather is still alive — he's 99.
3. Wrong auxiliary in the perfect. Leve takes have, not være.
❌ Jeg er levet her i ti år.
Wrong auxiliary.
✅ Jeg har boet her i ti år.
I've lived (resided) here for ten years. (and note: residence → bo!)
4. Regularising nothing, but dropping the -de. Leve is weak; the past is levede, not lev or levte.
❌ Han levte et langt liv.
Wrong past form.
✅ Han levede et langt liv.
He lived a long life.
5. Forgetting af in 'live on/off'. "Live on X" requires leve af, not a bare object.
❌ Hun lever at skrive bøger.
Missing 'af' — incomplete.
✅ Hun lever af at skrive bøger.
She makes a living from writing books.
Key Takeaways
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Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- BoA2 — How to use the Danish verb bo (to live, reside) — conjugation, the bo-vs-leve split, and common collocations.
- Bo vs Leve: Two Ways to LiveA2 — When to use bo ('reside, dwell at a place') versus leve ('be alive, lead a life') for English 'live' in Danish.
- Weak Past: The -ede ClassA1 — The largest, productive class of Danish regular verbs — past in -ede, participle in -et — and the safe default for any verb you don't recognise.
- VæreA1 — Full reference for være ('to be') — principal parts, all core tenses in natural sentences, der er existentials, and the single non-agreeing form er.