Sælge means to sell. It is the everyday partner of købe (to buy), and you will use the two together constantly — at markets, online, when talking about houses, cars, and tickets. The catch is that sælge is a mixed (irregular) verb: its past tense is solgte, with both a vowel change and a dental ending. Its tidy antonym købe is perfectly regular (købte), so learning the pair side by side makes the irregularity stand out and stick.
Principal parts
Sælge is a mixed verb: it changes its stem vowel like a strong verb (æ → o) but takes a dental ending -te like a weak verb. This combination is why it has to be memorised.
| Infinitive | Present | Past | Past participle | Imperative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (at) sælge | sælger | solgte | solgt | sælg! |
Watch the vowel: present sælger keeps the æ, but the past solgte and participle solgt switch to o. The imperative drops the infinitive's -e to give sælg!
Present: sælger
The present covers what someone sells as a job or right now, and habitual selling. With no separate progressive form, sælger also translates "am selling."
Bageren sælger friskt brød hver morgen.
The baker sells fresh bread every morning.
Sælger du din gamle cykel?
Are you selling your old bike?
Den her bog sælger rigtig godt for tiden.
This book is selling really well at the moment.
That last sentence shows a very Danish idiom: det sælger godt — "it sells well." The thing sold is the subject, exactly as in English "the book sells well."
Past: solgte
The past is the irregular solgte. There is no rule that will generate this from the infinitive — you simply have to know it, just as English speakers know sell → sold rather than "selled."
Vi solgte huset sidste sommer.
We sold the house last summer.
Han solgte sin bil og købte en elcykel i stedet.
He sold his car and bought an electric bike instead.
Notice købte in the same sentence — the regular antonym, formed simply as køb + te. The contrast is the whole point: købte you could have predicted; solgte you had to learn.
Present perfect: har solgt
The present perfect uses har plus the participle solgt. Sælge describes an activity affecting an object, so it always takes har, never er.
Jeg har solgt alle billetterne.
I've sold all the tickets.
Har I allerede solgt jeres lejlighed?
Have you already sold your flat?
sælge against its regular twin købe
The cleanest way to fix sælge in your memory is to set it beside købe (to buy), the verb you will use in the very same sentences. Købe is fully regular: it follows the -te pattern with no vowel change at all. Sælge deviates only in the past and the participle, where the æ flips to o. Seeing the two paradigms together makes the single point of irregularity obvious.
| sælge (to sell) | købe (to buy) | |
|---|---|---|
| Present | sælger | køber |
| Past | solgte | købte |
| Past participle | solgt | købt |
| Imperative | sælg! | køb! |
Read across each row: present is regular for both (-er), the imperative is regular for both, and købe stays regular all the way down. Only sælge's past solgte and participle solgt break the pattern — that single vowel switch is the entire memory burden. English speakers already carry exactly this burden for buy → bought and sell → sold, so the irregularity should feel familiar rather than foreign. See købe for the buyer's side of every transaction.
Vi købte huset i 2015 og solgte det igen sidste år.
We bought the house in 2015 and sold it again last year.
Collocations
| Danish | English |
|---|---|
| sælge ud | to sell out / clear out (also "sell out" a principle) |
| et udsalg | a sale (the noun — the shop's "sales" period) |
| være udsolgt | to be sold out |
| sælge til en god pris | to sell at a good price |
| det sælger godt | it sells well |
Butikken sælger ud af alt vintertøjet nu.
The shop is clearing out all the winter clothes now.
Der er stort udsalg i januar.
There's a big sale on in January.
Koncerten var udsolgt på en time.
The concert was sold out within an hour.
Keep two words apart: udsalg is the noun (a "sale" event in a shop), while at sælge ud is the verb phrase (to sell out / clear out). And udsolgt is the adjective meaning "sold out."
A short dialogue
— Solgte I huset til sidst? — Ja, vi solgte det i marts. Vi havde sat det til salg i et halvt år. — Til en god pris? — Helt fin pris, ja. Boligmarkedet er godt lige nu.
— Did you sell the house in the end? — Yes, we sold it in March. We'd had it up for sale for six months. — At a good price? — A perfectly good price, yes. The housing market's good right now.
Common mistakes
❌ Vi sælgede huset sidste år.
Wrong: sælge is a mixed verb, not a regular -ede verb.
✅ Vi solgte huset sidste år.
Correct: the past is the irregular solgte.
❌ Jeg har sælgt min bil.
Wrong: the participle is not built from the present stem.
✅ Jeg har solgt min bil.
Correct: the participle is solgt, with the same o as the past.
❌ Hun sælgr blomster på torvet.
Wrong: the present keeps its -e before the -r.
✅ Hun sælger blomster på torvet.
Correct: present is sælger.
❌ Butikken solger ud i denne uge.
Wrong: present tense should be sælger, not the past stem.
✅ Butikken sælger ud i denne uge.
Correct: present tense of the phrasal verb sælge ud.
❌ Jeg vil sælg mit hus.
Wrong: after a modal you need the full infinitive, not the imperative.
✅ Jeg vil sælge mit hus.
Correct: modal + infinitive sælge.
Now practice Danish
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- KøbeA1 — Full reference for købe ('to buy') — principal parts, all core tenses in natural sentences, the regular -te weak pattern, shopping collocations, and the contrast with its irregular antonym sælge ('to sell').
- Mixed and Irregular VerbsB1 — Danish verbs that change their vowel and add a dental ending — plus the wholly irregular core verbs every learner must memorise.
- The Present TenseA1 — How to form the Danish present (add -r) and why one present form covers English's simple present, present continuous, and 'going to' future.
- The Present PerfectA2 — How Danish builds the present perfect with have (or være) plus the past participle — and the one rule English speakers need: definite past time takes the simple past, not the perfect.
- Datid vs Perfektum: Choosing the PastB1 — When to use the simple past (datid) and when to use the present perfect (perfektum) — with the one clean test that decides it: a definite past-time adverbial forces datid and blocks the perfect.