Spille means "to play" — but only one kind of playing. It is the verb for playing a game (spille fodbold, spille kort), playing a musical instrument (spille klaver), and playing a role (spille en rolle). What it does not cover is the free, imaginative play of small children — that is lege. English uses one word, "play", for both; Danish splits them, and choosing the wrong one is the single most common error English speakers make with this verb. Mechanically, though, spille is a gift: a perfectly regular weak verb with no surprises.
Principal parts
| Form | Danish | English |
|---|---|---|
| Infinitive | (at) spille | to play |
| Present | spiller | play(s) |
| Past | spillede | played |
| Past participle | spillet | played |
| Imperative | spil! | play! |
Present: spiller
The present spiller is identical for every subject.
| Subject | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| jeg | spiller | jeg spiller guitar |
| du | spiller | du spiller godt |
| han / hun | spiller | hun spiller fodbold |
| vi | spiller | vi spiller kort |
| de | spiller | de spiller i et band |
Jeg spiller fodbold hver tirsdag.
I play football every Tuesday.
Spiller du et instrument?
Do you play an instrument?
Notice the second example: a yes/no question puts the verb first (spiller du…?), and there is no "do"-helper. Danish has nothing like English "do you play" — the bare verb does the asking.
The big point: spille vs lege
This is the heart of the page. Both verbs translate as "play", but they cover different territory:
| Verb | Covers | Typical objects |
|---|---|---|
| spille | structured play: games with rules, sports, instruments, roles | fodbold, kort, skak, klaver, en rolle |
| lege | free, imaginative play, mostly of children | (no object, or) gemmeleg, med dukker, i sandkassen |
The rule of thumb: if there are rules, a board, a ball, a score, or an instrument, it is spille. If it is children making things up — pretending, running around, playing in the sandpit — it is lege.
Børnene leger i haven, mens de voksne spiller kort.
The children are playing in the garden while the grown-ups play cards.
Min datter elsker at lege med sine dukker.
My daughter loves playing with her dolls.
"Play an instrument" — no article
When you play an instrument, Danish drops the article: spille klaver, not spille et klaver. The bare noun names the activity, much as English says "play piano" alongside "play the piano".
Hun spiller klaver, og hendes bror spiller violin.
She plays piano, and her brother plays violin.
Vi spillede guitar og sang til langt ud på natten.
We played guitar and sang until late into the night.
Past: spillede
The past is the regular spillede — stem plus -ede.
Vi spillede en hel kamp i regnvejr i går.
We played a whole match in the rain yesterday.
Som barn spillede jeg klaver, men jeg stoppede igen.
As a child I played the piano, but I gave it up again.
Present perfect: har spillet
The perfect takes the default auxiliary har plus the participle spillet. Spille describes an activity, not a change of state or movement, so it always pairs with har — never er.
Jeg har aldrig spillet golf før.
I've never played golf before.
Har I spillet det nye spil endnu?
Have you played the new game yet?
Past perfect: havde spillet
Holdet havde spillet rigtig godt indtil pausen.
The team had played really well up until half-time.
Imperative: spil!
The imperative drops the -e of the infinitive: at spille → spil!
Spil den sang igen, den er så god!
Play that song again, it's so good!
"Play a role" — spille en rolle
The figurative "play a role / part" works just as in English, both literally (on stage) and metaphorically (matter, be important).
Hun spiller hovedrollen i det nye teaterstykke.
She's playing the lead role in the new play.
Prisen spiller en stor rolle, når man vælger en bil.
Price plays a big part when you're choosing a car.
Common collocations and fixed expressions
- spille fodbold / håndbold / tennis — to play football / handball / tennis
- spille kort / skak / et spil — to play cards / chess / a game
- spille klaver / guitar / violin — to play the piano / guitar / violin
- spille en rolle — to play a role / to matter
- spille om penge — to gamble (literally "play for money")
- spille høj musik — to play loud music
De spiller om penge hver fredag, men kun små beløb.
They gamble every Friday, but only small amounts.
A natural exchange
— Spiller du stadig i et band? — Ja, vi spillede faktisk i weekenden. Og dine børn, leger de godt sammen? — De leger fint, men den ældste vil hellere spille computerspil.
— Do you still play in a band? — Yes, we actually played at the weekend. And your kids, do they play well together? — They play nicely, but the oldest one would rather play computer games.
Notice that last line: the children leger (free play together), but a computer game is a structured game, so it is spille computerspil.
Common mistakes
❌ De voksne leger kort om søndagen.
Wrong verb — cards is a structured game, so it's spille, not lege.
✅ De voksne spiller kort om søndagen.
The grown-ups play cards on Sundays.
❌ Børnene spiller i sandkassen.
Wrong verb — free imaginative play of children is lege, not spille.
✅ Børnene leger i sandkassen.
The children are playing in the sandpit.
❌ Jeg spiller et klaver.
Don't insert the article — instruments take the bare noun: spille klaver.
✅ Jeg spiller klaver.
I play the piano.
❌ Vi spilte fodbold i går.
Wrong past form — spille is an -ede verb, so the past is spillede, not spilte.
✅ Vi spillede fodbold i går.
We played football yesterday.
❌ Jeg har spille tennis hele dagen.
Missing the participle ending — the perfect needs spillet, not the bare stem.
✅ Jeg har spillet tennis hele dagen.
I've played tennis all day.
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
- LegeA2 — Full reference for lege ('to play' as children do) — principal parts, the regular -ede past, and the crucial split between lege (free, make-believe play) and spille (structured games, sport, instruments).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Danish Verbs: An OverviewA1 — A big-picture map of the Danish verb system — no person agreement, one present and one past form per verb, compound perfects, the passive, and modals.