Pleje | Danish Grammar

Pleje is a verb English speakers need but never quite have. In its commonest use, pleje at + infinitive means "usually do, be in the habit of," and in the past, plejede at is Danish's dedicated way of saying "used to." English has no single verb for the present habit and no clean present tense for it at all — which is exactly why learners under- and mis-use pleje. It also carries a second, unrelated meaning, "to care for, to nurse," with the same conjugation. Both are worth owning.

Principal parts

Form	Danish	English
Infinitive	(at) pleje	to be in the habit of / to care for
Present	plejer	usually do(es) / care(s) for
Past	plejede	used to / cared for
Past participle	plejet	used to / cared for
Imperative	plej! (care-for sense only)	tend!, look after!

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Pleje is a regular -ede weak verb. One form per tense, no person agreement: plejer for jeg, du, han, vi, I, de alike; plejede for every subject in the past. The perfect is har plejet — both senses take har, never er.

Sense 1: the habitual — pleje at + infinitive

This is the high-frequency use. Plejer at + infinitive states what someone usually, normally, customarily does. Crucially, the infinitive is always introduced by at — and English gives you nothing to translate it word-for-word.

Jeg plejer at stå op klokken syv.

I usually get up at seven. (lit. 'I'm-in-the-habit-of to get up...')

Vi plejer at spise tidligt om søndagen.

We usually eat early on Sundays.

Han plejer ikke at drikke kaffe så sent.

He doesn't usually drink coffee this late.

There is no English verb "to usually" — so to render plejer at you fall back on an adverb (usually, normally, tend to). Going the other way, when English uses usually / normally / tend to about a habit, Danish very often prefers plejer at. Treat them as translation partners.

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The present plejer is the one form learners forget exists, because there is no single English present that matches it. Whenever you would say "I usually..." or "I tend to..." in English, ask whether Danish wants jeg plejer at... — it usually does.

Sense 1, past: plejede at = "used to"

In the past, plejede at is Danish's "used to" — a past habit that is no longer current. This is the cleanest single equivalent of the English construction, and it is the natural way to mark a discontinued routine.

Vi plejede at tage på stranden hver sommer, da jeg var barn.

We used to go to the beach every summer when I was a kid.

Hun plejede at ryge, men hun stoppede for to år siden.

She used to smoke, but she quit two years ago.

Der plejede at ligge en lille boghandel på hjørnet.

There used to be a little bookshop on the corner.

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plejede at is the past-habitual of Danish. It says the habit held in the past and no longer does — exactly the discontinued sense English wraps into "used to." A plain past (tog, røg, lå) would just narrate a single past event; plejede at marks the routine.

Present perfect: har plejet

The perfect is less common with the habitual sense but does occur, often with altid ("always"):

Sådan har vi altid plejet at gøre det her i familien.

That's how we've always tended to do it in this family.

Sense 2: pleje = to care for, to nurse, to tend

The same verb, with no at-infinitive after it, means "to look after, nurse, tend" — a person, a relationship, a garden. Here it takes a plain direct object.

Hun plejede sin syge mor i mange år.

She cared for her sick mother for many years.

Man skal pleje sine venskaber, ellers visner de.

You have to nurture your friendships, or they wither.

Han plejer haven hver weekend.

He tends the garden every weekend.

Notice the structural cue that tells the two senses apart: pleje at + verb = habit; pleje + noun (no at) = care for. The word pleje also lives on as a noun — pleje ("care, nursing"), as in plejehjem (nursing home), hudpleje (skincare), plejebarn (foster child).

A natural exchange

— Plejer I ikke at holde jul hos din mor? — Jo, det plejede vi, men sidste år gjorde vi det selv. — Hvorfor det? — Hun er blevet ældre, og nu er det hende, vi plejer.

— Don't you usually spend Christmas at your mum's? — Yes, we used to, but last year we did it ourselves. — Why's that? — She's got older, and now she's the one we look after.

This little dialogue shows all three uses in one breath: present habit (plejer I), discontinued past habit (det plejede vi), and the care-for sense (hende, vi plejer).

Common mistakes

❌ Jeg plejer gå i seng tidligt.

Missing at — the habitual sense always takes pleje AT + infinitive.

✅ Jeg plejer at gå i seng tidligt.

I usually go to bed early.

❌ Vi brugte at bo i København.

English 'used to' calque — Danish has no 'bruge at' for habits. Use plejede at.

✅ Vi plejede at bo i København.

We used to live in Copenhagen.

❌ Hun plejede sin mor at lave mad.

Mixing the two senses — care-for takes a plain object; you can't slot in an at-infinitive. Drop the extra clause or rephrase.

✅ Hun plejede sin mor og lavede mad til hende.

She looked after her mother and cooked for her.

❌ Jeg er plejet at træne om morgenen.

Wrong auxiliary — pleje takes har in the perfect, never er: har plejet.

✅ Jeg plejer at træne om morgenen.

I usually work out in the morning.

❌ Plejer du at like spicy mad? Nej, jeg plejer ikke.

Stranded plejer — when you answer, keep the at-infinitive or drop the verb entirely: 'det gør jeg ikke' or 'ikke rigtig'.

✅ Plejer du at spise stærk mad? — Nej, det gør jeg ikke.

Do you usually eat spicy food? — No, I don't.

For how habitual and one-off pasts trade off in connected text, see tense and aspect in storytelling; for why the habit sense always needs at, see uses of the infinitive; for the past-vs-perfect choice that plejede interacts with, see datid vs perfektum; and for the regular class it belongs to, see the -ede past tense.

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