Stige means to rise, to climb, to increase, or to get on/board. It is a strong verb with a clean ablaut series — stige, steg, steget — and, crucially, it takes være in the perfect because every one of its meanings describes a change of position or level. English speakers will recognise the root: it is cognate with the sty- of stair and sty (in upstairs), and the related noun stige even means a ladder. That image — going up a ladder — is a good anchor for the whole verb.
Principal parts
| Infinitive | Present | Past | Past participle | Imperative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| at stige | stiger | steg | steget | stig! |
The perfect uses være: er steget (has risen). This is not optional — stige always denotes movement or change to a new level, so it patterns with the change-of-state verbs that reject har.
The strong pattern: stige, steg, steget
This is the i — e — e ablaut class, the same series you see in bide → bed → bidt and gribe → greb → grebet. The long i of the present stiger drops to e in both the past steg and the participle steget. Note the participle keeps the -et ending typical of strong verbs.
Temperaturen steg til over tredive grader i går.
The temperature rose above thirty degrees yesterday.
Røgen er steget op gennem skorstenen.
The smoke has risen up through the chimney.
Han steg ud af bilen uden et ord.
He stepped out of the car without a word.
Why stige takes være
The perfect of stige is er steget, never har steget. The logic is the one that governs all Danish motion-and-change verbs: when the verb expresses transition to a new state or place — going up, going down, arriving, becoming — Danish frames the perfect as describing the resulting state, and that calls for være (to be), exactly as older English once said the sun is risen. Prices that are risen now sit at a higher level; a passenger who is boarded is now on the train.
Huslejen er steget igen i år.
The rent has gone up again this year.
Vi er allerede steget på toget.
We've already boarded the train.
For the full rule, see have vs. være in the perfect.
This is one of the sharpest divergences between Danish and English. Modern English has collapsed almost entirely onto have for the perfect — we say prices have risen, the sun has set, we have arrived — and the older be-perfect survives only in frozen relics like the time is come or he is gone. Danish kept the distinction alive and productive: a change of state or position is still framed with være, so the perfect literally states the new condition. Vandet er steget does not report an action so much as a result — the water is (now) up. Once you hear it that way, choosing være for stige stops feeling like a rule to memorise and starts feeling like the natural thing to say.
A small but important consequence: because er steget describes a present state, it pairs comfortably with words like nu (now) and allerede (already), which point at the current situation rather than the moment of change.
Vandstanden er allerede steget en halv meter.
The water level has already risen half a metre.
The phrasal life of stige
Stige combines with particles to cover a lot of everyday ground. These are stressed-particle constructions; see phrasal verbs for the pattern.
- stige på / stige af — get on / get off a vehicle.
- stige op — ascend, rise up.
- stige ned — climb down, descend.
Du skal stige af ved næste stop.
You need to get off at the next stop.
Ballonen steg langsomt op over byen.
The balloon slowly rose up over the city.
There is also the vivid idiom stige til hovedet — to go to one's head, said of success or praise.
Berømmelsen er steget ham til hovedet.
The fame has gone to his head.
It is worth separating the two everyday domains where stige dominates. The first is physical ascent or descent: people, smoke, balloons, water, and especially passengers boarding or leaving a vehicle (stige på bussen, stige af toget, stige ind i bilen, stige ud). The second is abstract increase: prices, temperatures, rates, levels, and demand all stiger when they go up. English splits these across several verbs — climb, get on, rise, go up, increase — but Danish funnels them all through this one strong verb, with the particle doing the fine-tuning. That economy is a gift to the learner: one verb, many situations.
Efterspørgslen efter elbiler stiger fortsat.
Demand for electric cars keeps rising.
Common mistakes
❌ Priserne har steget meget i år.
Incorrect — stige is a change-of-state verb and takes være.
✅ Priserne er steget meget i år.
Prices have risen a lot this year.
English speakers default to have for every perfect, so har steget is the number-one error. Because stige always means moving to a higher level, the auxiliary must be er.
❌ Temperaturen stigede i nat.
Incorrect — stige is strong; the weak past -ede does not apply.
✅ Temperaturen steg i nat.
The temperature rose during the night.
❌ Vi har steget på toget.
Incorrect — boarding is a change of position → være.
✅ Vi er steget på toget.
We have boarded the train.
❌ Han har stiget ud af bilen.
Incorrect — wrong participle and wrong auxiliary.
✅ Han er steget ud af bilen.
He has got out of the car.
The participle is steget, never stiget — the ablaut e runs through both past and participle.
❌ Stig af bussen, før den kører videre... nej, du har allerede stiget af.
Incorrect — wrong participle (stiget) and wrong auxiliary.
✅ Stig af bussen, før den kører videre — nå, du er allerede steget af.
Get off the bus before it moves on — oh, you've already got off.
A final tip on the imperative: it is simply the bare stem, stig! — no ending. Danish forms the imperative by dropping the infinitive -e, which for stige leaves stig. You will hear it constantly on public transport announcements and platform signs.
Key takeaways
- Principal parts: stige — stiger — steg — steget, perfect with være: er steget.
- Strong i → e → e ablaut, cognate with English stair / sty; the noun en stige = a ladder.
- Every sense is a change of level, so the auxiliary is always være, never har.
- No subject agreement; one present form for all persons.
Now practice Danish
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Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- Strong Verbs: Ablaut PatternsA2 — Danish strong verbs form their past by changing the stem vowel — learn the major ablaut series as families to turn memorisation into pattern recognition.
- Have vs Være in the PerfectB2 — Danish builds the perfect with two auxiliaries — default har, but er for motion-to-a-goal and change-of-state when you mean the resulting new location or state.
- Phrasal Verbs and ParticlesB1 — Danish verb + particle combinations, the stress rule that distinguishes a separable phrasal verb from a verb + preposition, and the most common particles and their meanings.