Smile ("to smile") is a gentle, everyday verb with completely regular -ede forms — the conjugation will give you no trouble at all. The learning lives elsewhere: in the prepositions (smile til "smile at" vs smile ad "smile/laugh at"), and in keeping smile apart from grine and le, the two Danish verbs for laughing. English packs "smile" and "laugh" into separate words too, but it blurs the grine/le split that Danish cares about — and it uses a single "at" where Danish chooses between til and ad.
Principal parts
| Form | Danish | English |
|---|---|---|
| Infinitive | (at) smile | to smile |
| Present | smiler | smile(s) |
| Past | smilede | smiled |
| Past participle | smilet | smiled |
| Imperative | smil! | smile! |
Present: smiler
| Subject | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| jeg | smiler | jeg smiler til hende |
| du | smiler | du smiler altid om morgenen |
| han / hun | smiler | hun smiler genert |
| vi | smiler | vi smiler til kameraet |
| de | smiler | de smiler ad min accent |
Hun smiler hver gang hun ser sin hund.
She smiles every time she sees her dog.
Smil til fotografen!
Smile at the photographer!
Past: smilede
Han smilede høfligt og rakte mig hånden.
He smiled politely and shook my hand.
Barnet smilede første gang i dag.
The baby smiled for the first time today.
Present perfect: har smilet
Jeg har ikke set hende smile sådan i lang tid.
I haven't seen her smile like that in a long time.
Han har smilet hele dagen — der må være sket noget godt.
He's been smiling all day — something good must have happened.
smile til vs. smile ad
This is the part to get right. Danish uses two different prepositions where English says "smile at":
- smile til
- person = to smile toward someone, a warm or friendly smile directed at them.
- smile ad
- thing/person = to smile at something funny or odd — often with a faint edge of amusement at it, the same ad you meet in grine ad ("laugh at").
Hun smilede til mig hen over bordet.
She smiled at me across the table. (a warm smile directed at me)
Han smilede ad min kluntede dansk.
He smiled at my clumsy Danish. (amused by it)
smile vs. grine vs. le
Danish keeps a three-way distinction English doesn't fully mark. Smile is silent and gentle; grine is the everyday word for laughing out loud; le is a more formal, literary "laugh."
| Verb | Meaning | Register | Past / Participle |
|---|---|---|---|
| smile | to smile (silent) | everyday, neutral | smilede / smilet |
| grine | to laugh (out loud) | everyday, neutral-to-informal | grinede / grinet |
| le | to laugh | formal, literary, slightly old-fashioned | lo / leet |
The error to avoid is reaching for smile when something is actually audible laughter — for that you need grine. And for everyday spoken laughter, choose grine over le, which belongs to writing and a faintly literary tone.
Hun smilede, men hun grinede ikke — det var ikke så sjovt.
She smiled, but she didn't laugh — it wasn't that funny.
Publikum lo højt. (literary)
The audience laughed out loud. (literary register)
Common collocations and derived words
- smile til (+ person) — to smile at (warmly)
- smile ad (+ thing) — to smile/laugh at (amused)
- et smil — a smile (the noun)
- smilende — smiling (the present participle, used as an adjective: et smilende ansigt)
- smile skævt — to smile crookedly / give a wry smile
Hun mødte mig med et stort smil og et smilende ansigt.
She met me with a big smile and a smiling face.
A natural exchange
— Hvorfor smiler du sådan? — Jeg smiler bare ad noget, jeg kom i tanke om. — Du smilede til ham før, troede jeg. — Måske. Han fik mig i hvert fald til at grine.
— Why are you smiling like that? — I'm just smiling at something I thought of. — I thought you smiled at him earlier. — Maybe. He made me laugh, anyway.
Common mistakes
❌ Hun smilede på mig.
Wrong preposition — you don't smile 'på' someone. A warm smile directed at a person is smile til.
✅ Hun smilede til mig.
She smiled at me.
❌ Han smilede så højt, at alle hørte det.
Wrong verb — smiling is silent. Audible laughter needs grine.
✅ Han grinede så højt, at alle hørte det.
He laughed so loudly that everyone heard it.
❌ Vi smilte til vittigheden.
Wrong past — smile is an -ede verb, so the past is smilede, not the -te form smilte.
✅ Vi smilede ad vittigheden.
We smiled at the joke.
❌ Jeg er smilet hele dagen.
Wrong auxiliary — smiling is an activity, so the perfect is har smilet, never er.
✅ Jeg har smilet hele dagen.
I've been smiling all day.
❌ Hun smilede ad mig, da jeg kom ind. (intending a friendly welcome)
Wrong nuance — smile ad sounds amused-at-you; for a warm welcoming smile use smile til.
✅ Hun smilede til mig, da jeg kom ind.
She smiled at me when I came in.
For the laughing counterpart and the full grine/le contrast, see grine; for the wider vocabulary of moods and reactions, see reactions and interjections; and for the regular class smile belongs to, see the -ede past tense.
Now practice Danish
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Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- GrineA2 — Full reference for grine ('to laugh') — principal parts, the regular -ede past, the difference from le and smile, and the construction grine ad for laughing AT someone.
- Reactions and InterjectionsB1 — The little Danish words — nå, pyt, av, øv, hold da op — that carry emotion, and why mastering them signals real fluency.
- 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.