Smage is the Danish verb for to taste, and it works in two directions at once: food can taste a certain way (det smager godt — "it tastes good"), and a person can taste food (smag på suppen — "taste the soup"). It is one of the core perception verbs you will use at the dinner table every day, and it pairs with the preposition af in a way that trips up almost every English speaker.
Principal parts
Danish verbs have one form per tense — there is no person agreement at all. Jeg smager, du smager, vi smager, de smager: the verb never changes for the subject. This is the single biggest relief for English speakers, who only have to remember the third-person -s in their own language; in Danish there is not even that.
| Form | Danish | English |
|---|---|---|
| Infinitive | (at) smage | to taste |
| Present | smager | taste(s) |
| Past | smagte | tasted |
| Past participle | smagt | tasted |
| Imperative | smag! | taste! |
Smage is a regular weak verb of the -te class (sometimes called group 2): the past tense ends in -te and the participle in -t, with no extra vowel. Compare this with the -ede class (like lugte, past lugtede). There is no rule that reliably predicts which class a verb falls into — you memorise it with the verb — but verbs whose stem ends in a voiceless consonant or a long vowel tend toward the -te class, as here.
Present tense
The present form smager does double duty. With a subject like det ("it"), it describes how something tastes; with a personal subject, it describes the act of tasting.
Maden smager rigtig godt i dag.
The food tastes really good today.
Jeg smager altid på saucen, før jeg serverer den.
I always taste the sauce before I serve it.
Smager det for salt?
Does it taste too salty?
Danish has no separate progressive tense, so smager also covers the English "am tasting": Jeg smager på vinen means both "I taste the wine" and "I am tasting the wine," with context deciding.
Past tense
The past is smagte — stem plus -te. It is invariable across all subjects.
Suppen smagte af for lidt salt, så jeg tilsatte mere.
The soup tasted of too little salt, so I added more.
Vi smagte på alle ostene på markedet.
We tasted all the cheeses at the market.
Perfect tense
The perfect is formed with the auxiliary har ("have") plus the participle smagt. Smage describes a state or an activity rather than a change of location or condition, so it takes har, never er. (Danish uses er only with a small set of verbs of motion and transition, like gå, komme, blive.)
Har du smagt den nye is? Den er fantastisk.
Have you tasted the new ice cream? It's fantastic.
Jeg har aldrig smagt noget så stærkt før.
I've never tasted anything so spicy before.
The key construction: smage AF
This is where English and Danish diverge sharply. To say something tastes of a flavour, Danish uses smage af + noun — never smage som ("taste like"). English speakers instinctively reach for "like," but in Danish som would mean a comparison of resemblance, not flavour, and it sounds wrong.
Det her smager af fisk.
This tastes of fish.
Teen smager af mynte og citron.
The tea tastes of mint and lemon.
To say something has no taste, you say it ikke smager af noget — literally "doesn't taste of anything."
Agurken smager nærmest ikke af noget.
The cucumber tastes of almost nothing.
The other key construction: smage PÅ
While smage af is about the flavour something has, smage på is about a person sampling something — taking a taste to find out. It is the natural way to offer or describe trying a bite or a sip.
Vil du smage på min kaffe? Jeg tror, den er for stærk.
Do you want to taste my coffee? I think it's too strong.
Smag lige på det her og sig, hvad du synes.
Just taste this and tell me what you think.
Note the contrast in one breath: Smag på saucen ("taste the sauce" — you, the action) versus Saucen smager af hvidløg ("the sauce tastes of garlic" — the flavour it has).
Adjectives and collocations
When you describe how something tastes, you use smage plus an adverb or adjective — most often godt ("good") or dårligt ("bad"). Note that Danish uses the adverb form godt, not the adjective god, after this verb.
| Danish | English |
|---|---|
| smage godt | to taste good |
| smage dårligt | to taste bad |
| smage af noget / af ingenting | to taste of something / of nothing |
| smage til | to season to taste |
| en smag | a taste / flavour |
The related noun is en smag ("a taste, a flavour"), and the adjective velsmagende means "tasty, delicious" (literary or in food writing). The phrase smage til is what a recipe tells you to do at the end: smag til med salt og peber ("season to taste with salt and pepper").
A short dialogue
— Vil du smage på gryderetten? Jeg er ikke sikker på krydderierne.
— Do you want to taste the stew? I'm not sure about the spices.
— Mmm. Den smager rigtig godt, men den smager lidt for meget af chili.
— Mmm. It tastes really good, but it tastes a bit too much of chili.
— Okay, så smager jeg den til med lidt fløde.
— Okay, then I'll season it with a little cream.
Common mistakes
❌ Det smager som fisk.
Incorrect — 'taste like' translated word-for-word; som compares resemblance, not flavour.
✅ Det smager af fisk.
It tastes of fish.
❌ Vil du smage min kaffe?
Incorrect — when a person samples something, you need the preposition på.
✅ Vil du smage på min kaffe?
Do you want to taste my coffee?
❌ Maden smager god.
Incorrect — after smage you need the adverb godt, not the adjective god.
✅ Maden smager godt.
The food tastes good.
❌ Jeg har smagte den nye ret.
Incorrect — the perfect uses the participle smagt, not the past tense smagte.
✅ Jeg har smagt den nye ret.
I have tasted the new dish.
❌ Han smagter altid på vinen først.
Incorrect — the present tense is smager, with -r, not -ter.
✅ Han smager altid på vinen først.
He always tastes the wine first.
Key takeaways
- Smage never changes for person: smager serves every subject in the present.
- It is a -te weak verb: smage / smager / smagte / smagt, perfect with har.
- Flavour something has → smage af
- noun (not som).
- A person sampling something → smage på
- noun.
- After the verb, use the adverb godt / dårligt, not the adjective.
The verb smage belongs to the small family of Danish perception verbs that all build their meaning with af. Its closest cousin is lugte ("to smell"), which behaves identically — and both appear throughout the vocabulary of senses and feelings.
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Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- LugteA2 — Full reference for the Danish verb lugte — to smell — covering its forms, the lugte af construction, and the crucial difference between lugte and dufte.
- FøleA2 — Full reference for the verb føle ('to feel') — the reflexive føle sig for states vs transitive føle for touch.
- Talking About Feelings and StatesA2 — How Danish reports how you feel — the have det frame for general wellbeing, the være frame for specific states, the reflexive jeg keder mig, and why feeling cold is jeg fryser, not jeg er kold.