Vinde | Danish Grammar

Vinde ("to win") is a strong verb built on the i–a–u ablaut — vinde → vandt → vundet — the very same vowel ladder you already know from finde / fandt / fundet and drikke / drak / drukket. It is also a true Germanic cognate of English "win," and the family resemblance runs deep: English win/won/won and Danish vinde/vandt/vundet descend from the same ancestor. That shared origin makes the strong forms easier to fix in memory — you are not learning an alien pattern, you are re-learning your own.

Principal parts

Form	Danish	English
Infinitive	(at) vinde	to win
Present	vinder	win(s)
Past	vandt	won
Past participle	vundet	won
Imperative	vind!	win!

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Vinde is strong with the classic i–a–u vowel ladder: present i (vinder), past a (vandt), participle u (vundet). It is one more anchor in the same class as finde / fandt / fundet, drikke / drak / drukket and synge / sang / sunget — see the Strong past tense overview.

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No agreement, as always: vinder is the entire present — jeg vinder, du vinder, hun vinder, vi vinder, de vinder — and vandt is the entire past, for every subject. Danish never changes the verb ending to match the person.

Present: vinder

Subject	Form	Example
jeg	vinder	jeg vinder næsten aldrig i kort
du	vinder	du vinder helt sikkert i år
han / hun	vinder	hun vinder ofte i skak
vi	vinder	vi vinder, hvis vi holder hovedet koldt
de	vinder	de vinder sjældent på udebane

Hvis vi scorer nu, vinder vi kampen.

If we score now, we win the match.

Hun vinder næsten altid, når vi spiller Matador.

She almost always wins when we play Monopoly.

Past: vandt

The past is the strong vandt — note the silent d before the t, written but not pronounced.

Danmark vandt sølv ved OL i den disciplin.

Denmark won silver at the Olympics in that event.

Jeg vandt en kurv med vin på julefrokostens lotteri.

I won a basket of wine in the raffle at the Christmas lunch.

Present perfect: har vundet

The perfect uses har plus the participle vundet — never være. Vinde is a transitive, agentive verb (you do the winning), and Danish reserves være for change-of-state and motion verbs like blive and komme. So it is always har vundet, havde vundet.

Holdet har vundet de sidste fire kampe i træk.

The team has won the last four matches in a row.

Hun havde aldrig vundet noget før den dag.

She had never won anything before that day.

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Auxiliary: always har, never er. You will not hear *hun er vundet. The verb describes an action you carry out, so it takes har like spise and læse. Reserve være for the motion-and-change verbs covered in the perfect overview.

Imperative and passive

The imperative is the bare stem vind! The -s passive (vindes) is rare with this verb; you far more often hear the participle in a blive-passive: kampen blev vundet i sidste sekund ("the match was won in the final second").

Vind nu den kamp, så er vi i finalen!

Win this match now, and we're in the final!

Pokalen blev vundet af et hold, ingen havde regnet med.

The cup was won by a team nobody had counted on.

Collocations and particle verbs

A handful of fixed combinations carry most of vinde's everyday weight:

vinde over (nogen) — to beat someone (in a contest)
vinde frem — to gain ground, catch on, advance
vinde indpas — to catch on, gain acceptance (slightly formal)
vinde tid — to buy time, gain time

Vi vandt over dem med tre mål i anden halvleg.

We beat them by three goals in the second half.

Elbiler vinder hurtigt frem på det danske marked.

Electric cars are quickly gaining ground in the Danish market.

Den nye stavemåde har aldrig rigtig vundet indpas.

The new spelling never really caught on.

Han stillede en masse spørgsmål bare for at vinde tid.

He asked a lot of questions just to buy time.

vinde over vs sejre vs slå

Three verbs orbit the idea of "winning" or "beating," and B2 learners need to keep them apart:

vinde is the neutral, everyday "win" — vinde kampen, vinde over dem.
sejre (regular: sejrer / sejrede / sejret) means "to be victorious / prevail." It is (formal) and slightly literary — newspapers and sports commentary, not the playground.
slå means "to beat (a person/team)" with a direct object, often emphasising the margin or the act of defeating: vi slog dem stort ("we beat them by a lot"). See Slå.

Det blev en hård kamp, men i sidste ende sejrede fornuften.

It was a tough fight, but in the end reason prevailed.

Vi vandt kampen, fordi vi slog dem på kondition.

We won the match because we beat them on fitness.

Common mistakes

❌ Vi vindede kampen i sidste sekund.

Incorrect — vinde is strong; the past is vandt, not the regular -ede form.

✅ Vi vandt kampen i sidste sekund.

We won the match in the final second.

❌ Holdet er vundet tre kampe i træk.

Wrong auxiliary — vinde takes har in the perfect, not er: har vundet.

✅ Holdet har vundet tre kampe i træk.

The team has won three matches in a row.

❌ Jeg vinder 20.000 kroner om måneden på mit arbejde.

Wrong verb — money earned at a job is tjene, not vinde. You vinde a prize, you tjene a salary.

✅ Jeg tjener 20.000 kroner om måneden på mit arbejde.

I earn 20,000 kroner a month at my job.

❌ Vi vandt dem med tre mål.

Missing particle — to beat an opponent you need vinde over: vandt over dem.

✅ Vi vandt over dem med tre mål.

We beat them by three goals.

❌ Har du vinde i lotteriet?

Wrong form — the perfect needs the participle vundet: Har du vundet?

✅ Har du vundet i lotteriet?

Did you win the lottery?

Key takeaways

Vinde / vandt / vundet — strong, i–a–u, the cognate of English win/won/won.
Perfect is always har vundet — never er.
To beat an opponent, add the particle: vinde over (nogen).
Do not confuse vinde ("win a prize/match") with tjene ("earn money") — the English "win" is wider than the Danish one.

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