Spise | Danish Grammar

Spise ("to eat") is one of the first verbs every learner needs, and it is wonderfully regular. It belongs to the -te weak class, so its forms are entirely predictable: present spiser, past spiste, participle spist. Learn it well and you have a model for a large family of Danish verbs. There is one cultural nuance worth knowing from the start: Danish reserves spise for people eating a meal and uses a different verb, æde, for animals — applying æde to a human is rude.

Principal parts

Form	Danish	English
Infinitive	(at) spise	to eat
Present	spiser	eat / eats
Past	spiste	ate
Past participle	spist	eaten
Imperative	spis!	eat!

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Spise is a textbook -te verb. The past adds -te to the stem (spis- → spiste) and the participle adds -t (spist). Because the stem already ends in a voiceless consonant cluster, the ending is -te, not -ede. There is no way to derive this from spelling alone — you simply learn which verbs are -te and which are -ede; spise is a good one to anchor the -te group around. See Weak -te Verbs.

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No agreement, as always: spiser is the whole present — jeg spiser, du spiser, hun spiser, vi spiser, de spiser — and spiste is the whole past. English still splits eat/eats; Danish never does.

Present: spiser

The present spiser is identical for every subject and covers both "I eat" and "I am eating," since Danish has no separate progressive form.

Subject	Form	Example
jeg	spiser	jeg spiser frokost
du	spiser	du spiser sundt
han / hun	spiser	han spiser ikke kød
vi	spiser	vi spiser klokken seks
de	spiser	de spiser ude i aften

Vi spiser altid aftensmad klokken seks.

We always eat dinner at six o'clock.

Spiser du kød, eller er du vegetar?

Do you eat meat, or are you a vegetarian?

Børnene spiser i køkkenet lige nu.

The children are eating in the kitchen right now.

Past: spiste

The past is spiste — regular and easy: just add -te.

Vi spiste på en lille restaurant nede ved havnen.

We ate at a little restaurant down by the harbour.

Jeg spiste ikke morgenmad i morges, så nu er jeg meget sulten.

I didn't eat breakfast this morning, so now I'm very hungry.

Present perfect: har spist

The perfect uses the default auxiliary har plus the participle spist: har spist ("have eaten"). This is an everyday form — the standard way to ask whether someone has had their meal yet.

Har I spist endnu, eller skal vi lave noget mad sammen?

Have you eaten yet, or shall we make some food together?

Jeg har allerede spist, tak — men en kop kaffe vil jeg gerne have.

I've already eaten, thanks — but I'd love a cup of coffee.

Da gæsterne ankom, havde vi heldigvis lige spist færdig.

When the guests arrived, we had luckily just finished eating.

That last sentence shows the past perfect, havde spist ("had eaten").

Imperative: spis!

The imperative is spis — common at the dinner table.

Spis nu din mad, før den bliver kold!

Eat your food now, before it gets cold!

Spis op — du må gerne få mere bagefter.

Finish your food — you can have more afterwards.

Register note: spise vs æde

Danish draws a sharp line that English does not. Spise is the neutral, polite verb for a person eating. Æde is the verb for animals eating — and if you use æde about a human, it is crude or insulting, the way "to feed" or "to scoff" might land in English. Recognise æde, but use spise for people.

Køerne æder græs ude på marken.

The cows eat grass out in the field. (neutral for animals)

Du æder som et svin! (rude)

You eat like a pig! (insulting — æde applied to a person)

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One careful exception: native speakers do sometimes use æde jokingly about themselves or in casual slang (jeg åd det hele, "I scoffed the lot"), but as a learner you should default to spise for every human subject. With animals, æde is simply the correct, neutral verb.

Common collocations and fixed expressions

spise morgenmad / frokost / aftensmad — to eat breakfast / lunch / dinner
spise ude — to eat out (at a restaurant)
spise op — to finish one's food, eat it all up
spise sig mæt — to eat one's fill
spise med — to eat along, join the meal

Skal vi spise ude i weekenden? Der er åbnet en ny italiener.

Shall we eat out this weekend? A new Italian place has opened.

Passive: spises

Danish forms an easy -s passive by adding -s to the verb. For spise this gives spises ("is eaten"), common in recipes, menus, and general statements about how food is consumed. It corresponds to English "is eaten / is to be eaten."

Retten spises varm med en skive rugbrød til.

The dish is eaten warm with a slice of rye bread on the side.

Æblet kan spises med skræl og det hele.

The apple can be eaten with the skin and everything.

This -s passive is one of Danish's tidiest features — no helper verb, no participle, just the bare verb plus -s. It saves you the English "is eaten" detour entirely.

A natural exchange

— Har du spist? — Nej, jeg spiser sjældent frokost. — Så spiser vi sammen — jeg har lige lavet suppe.

— Have you eaten? — No, I rarely eat lunch. — Then let's eat together — I've just made soup.

Common mistakes

❌ Vi spisede på en restaurant i går.

Incorrect — spise is a -te verb, so the past is spiste, not the over-regularised *spisede.

✅ Vi spiste på en restaurant i går.

We ate at a restaurant yesterday.

❌ Vil du æde med os i aften?

Incorrect — æde is for animals; using it about people is rude. People spise.

✅ Vil du spise med os i aften?

Would you like to eat with us tonight?

❌ Jeg er spist allerede.

Incorrect auxiliary — spise is a normal transitive activity, so the perfect uses har, not er.

✅ Jeg har spist allerede.

I've already eaten.

❌ Han spiser ikke kødet, han spiser er vegetar.

Incorrect — 'is a vegetarian' uses være (er), not a second spiser.

✅ Han spiser ikke kød; han er vegetar.

He doesn't eat meat; he's a vegetarian.

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