Modal verbs are the small set of helper verbs that colour an action with possibility, necessity, permission, or intention — can, will, shall, may, ought, dare. Danish has six core modals plus a useful seventh, and the wonderful news is that they behave as a tight, predictable group. Learn two things on this page — their syntax and their forms — and every individual modal page afterwards becomes a matter of fine-tuning meaning rather than wrestling with structure.
The six core modals (and a bonus)
| Infinitive | Present | Past | Core meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| at kunne | kan | kunne | can, to be able to |
| at ville | vil | ville | will, to want to |
| at skulle | skal | skulle | shall, to be supposed to |
| at måtte | må | måtte | may (permission); must |
| at burde | bør | burde | ought to, should |
| at turde | tør | turde | to dare |
Closely related, and worth meeting now, is at gide (present gider, past gad) — roughly "to bother to" or "to be bothered to." It is colloquial and extremely common in speech, almost always negated: jeg gider ikke ("I can't be bothered").
Jeg kan svømme, men jeg tør ikke springe fra vippen.
I can swim, but I don't dare jump off the diving board.
Du bør drikke mere vand, når det er så varmt.
You ought to drink more water when it's this hot.
Jeg gider ikke lave mad i aften — skal vi bestille pizza?
I can't be bothered to cook tonight — shall we order pizza?
The iron rule: modal + bare infinitive, no at
This is the single most important structural fact about Danish modals, and the one English speakers break constantly. A modal is followed by the bare infinitive — the dictionary form of the verb with no at in front of it.
Jeg kan svømme.
I can swim. (kan + bare svømme — no at)
Vi skal arbejde i morgen.
We have to work tomorrow. (skal + bare arbejde)
Han vil rejse til Italien til sommer.
He wants to travel to Italy this summer. (vil + bare rejse)
Why does this trip up English speakers so reliably? Because English itself is inconsistent. The English modals can, will, shall, may, must also take a bare infinitive ("I can swim," not "I can to swim") — so far so good. But the English paraphrases you reach for when a modal is awkward — want *to go, have to work, ought to drink, be able to swim, dare to jump — all carry *to. Danish collapses both groups into a single rule: after any modal, never at. So jeg vil gå ("I want to go") drops the to that English insists on in "want to go," and jeg bør drikke drops the to of "ought to drink."
Contrast this with non-modal verbs, which do take at before an infinitive: jeg prøver *at lære dansk ("I'm trying to learn Danish"), jeg håber **at se dig ("I hope to see you"). The line between the two groups — *at or no at — is exactly the line drawn in The Infinitive and the Marker At. Modals sit firmly on the no-at side.
Every modal has a present and a past form
Unlike English must (which has no past) or can/could (where could feels archaic in some uses), Danish gives each modal a full, living present and past pair, and both are in everyday use.
Da jeg var barn, kunne jeg tale flydende fransk.
When I was a child, I could speak fluent French.
Vi skulle have mødtes i går, men hun blev forsinket.
We were supposed to meet yesterday, but she got delayed.
Han måtte ikke køre bil efter operationen.
He wasn't allowed to drive after the operation.
The past forms double as politeness and hypothesis
Here is the insight that pays off immediately in real conversation. The past-tense modal forms are not only about past time — Danish, exactly like English, uses them to soften a request or to flag something hypothetical. Kan du...? is a blunt "Can you...?"; kunne du...? is the gentler "Could you...?" Vil du...? asks willingness; ville du...? makes it a polite "Would you...?"
Kunne du række mig saltet?
Could you pass me the salt? (past form kunne = polite request, not past time)
Ville du have lyst til at gå en tur?
Would you like to go for a walk? (past form ville = soft invitation)
Jeg ville ønske, jeg kunne hjælpe.
I wish I could help. (both past forms = hypothetical, not past)
Where the modal sits in the sentence
A modal counts as the finite verb of its clause, so it takes the verb slot that Danish word order reserves for the finite verb — second position in a main clause (the V2 rule). The infinitive it governs goes later, and anything in between (like an object or the subject after inversion) slots in around them. Negation with ikke lands after the modal but before the infinitive.
I morgen skal jeg arbejde hjemmefra.
Tomorrow I have to work from home. (time first → modal skal in second position, subject after it)
Jeg kan ikke komme til festen.
I can't come to the party. (ikke sits between the modal and the infinitive)
Hun vil gerne lære at spille guitar.
She'd like to learn to play the guitar. (note: the SECOND verb, lære, is non-modal, so it takes at before spille)
That last example is the clean illustration of the whole system: vil is a modal and grabs the bare infinitive lære; but lære is an ordinary verb, so it re-introduces at before spille. The no-at rule applies only to the verb directly under a modal.
Each modal is polysemous — preview
A single Danish modal often covers several English meanings, and the right translation depends on context. Må means both "may" (permission) and "must" (necessity). Skal covers "shall," "must," "is supposed to," and a future plan. Vil swings between "will" (prediction) and "want to" (volition) — a split that causes real trouble when expressing the future. Because each modal is this rich, each one gets its own dedicated page to map the meanings: see kunne, ville, and skulle to start. This page just gives you the shared skeleton they all hang on.
Du må gerne låne min cykel.
You may borrow my bike. (må = permission)
Jeg må afsted nu, ellers misser jeg toget.
I must get going now, or I'll miss the train. (må = necessity)
Common Mistakes
❌ Jeg vil at rejse til Spanien.
Wrong — never put at after a modal. This is the single most common modal error, imported from English 'want to'.
✅ Jeg vil rejse til Spanien.
Correct — vil + the bare infinitive rejse.
❌ Vi skal at arbejde i morgen.
Wrong — skal takes a bare infinitive, copying English 'have to'.
✅ Vi skal arbejde i morgen.
Correct — skal + bare arbejde.
❌ Du bør at drikke mere vand.
Wrong — burde takes no at, despite English 'ought to'.
✅ Du bør drikke mere vand.
Correct — bør + bare drikke.
❌ Jeg kan at svømme.
Wrong — even though English 'can' is fine, learners over-apply at here too.
✅ Jeg kan svømme.
Correct — kan + bare svømme.
Key Takeaways
- The six core modals are kunne, ville, skulle, måtte, burde, turde (plus colloquial gide).
- Each has a present and a past form: kan/kunne, vil/ville, skal/skulle, må/måtte, bør/burde, tør/turde.
- They take a bare infinitive with no at — the one rule to never break.
- Past forms double as politeness/hypothesis: kunne du...? = "could you...?", ville du...? = "would you...?"
- Each modal is polysemous and earns its own page; this page is the shared frame.
Now practice Danish
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Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- The Infinitive and the Marker AtA1 — The Danish infinitive, the infinitive marker at ('to'), when to use it and when to drop it — and the notorious at/og spelling trap.
- KunneB2 — Full reference for the modal kunne ('can / be able to / could'): a preterite-present verb that takes a bare infinitive.
- VilleA1 — The modal verb ville — volition, the future, and the everyday polite-request formula vil gerne — with full principal parts and tenses.
- SkulleA1 — The modal verb skulle — obligation, plans and arrangements, the reportative 'is said to', and skal vi…? — with full principal parts and tenses.
- Expressing the FutureA2 — Danish has no future tense — it uses the plain present, vil, or skal, each with a different nuance. The key is the skal (plan) vs vil (volition) split that English 'will' obscures.