Mixed and Irregular Verbs | Danish Grammar

Most resources divide Danish verbs into two boxes: weak (the past adds a -ede or -te ending, the vowel stays put — lave → lavede) and strong (the past changes the vowel and adds no dental ending — finde → fandt). But a large group of very high-frequency verbs refuses to sit in either box. They do both things at once: they change the vowel and add a dental ending. Treating these as a distinct mixed class — rather than dumping them into a vague "irregular" pile — turns a memorisation nightmare into a small set of recognisable patterns.

The mixed class: vowel change + dental ending

A mixed verb takes a strong feature (the vowel shifts) and a weak feature (a -de or -te is added in the past). The past participle ends in -t. Here are the highest-frequency members — and because they are so common, they repay memorising as a block.

Infinitive	Past	Participle	Meaning
sige	sagde	sagt	to say
lægge	lagde	lagt	to lay / put
gøre	gjorde	gjort	to do / make
bringe	bragte	bragt	to bring
sælge	solgte	solgt	to sell
vælge	valgte	valgt	to choose
følge	fulgte	fulgt	to follow
vide	vidste	vidst	to know

Han sagde ikke et ord hele aftenen.

He didn't say a single word all evening.

Jeg lagde nøglerne på bordet, men nu er de væk.

I put the keys on the table, but now they're gone.

Vi solgte huset sidste år og flyttede ind til byen.

We sold the house last year and moved into the city.

Notice the family resemblances. Sælge/vælge/følge all share the pattern -ælge → -algte/-ulgte with a hard g; sige/lægge both collapse to sa-de in the past. These are not random — they are remnants of old sound changes — but for the learner the practical takeaway is simply: when a verb both changes its vowel and grows a -de/-te, it belongs to this class.

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The participle of a mixed verb almost always ends in -t with no vowel before it: sagt, lagt, gjort, bragt, solgt, valgt, fulgt, vidst. If your past form is sagde, the participle is the bare-bones sagt — never *saget.

A spelling trap: gjorde and gjort

The verb gøre ("to do/make") is worth its own warning. Its past is gjorde and participle gjort — both pick up a silent j and a d/t that the infinitive gives no hint of. The ø of the infinitive becomes o. Write it carefully:

Hvad gjorde du i weekenden?

What did you do at the weekend?

Jeg har gjort mit bedste.

I have done my best.

The wholly irregular core verbs

Beyond the mixed class sit a handful of verbs that follow no pattern at all — they are suppletive or unique, and there is no shortcut: you simply memorise them. The consolation is that there are very few of them, and they are the most common verbs in the language, so you will drill them constantly just by speaking.

Infinitive	Past	Participle	Meaning
være	var	været	to be
have	havde	haft	to have
gå	gik	gået	to go / walk
få	fik	fået	to get / receive
se	så	set	to see
gøre	gjorde	gjort	to do / make

Jeg var i Italien sidste sommer.

I was in Italy last summer.

Vi fik en hund, da jeg var ti år gammel.

We got a dog when I was ten years old.

Har du set den nye film?

Have you seen the new film?

A couple of orthographic points to hold onto: havde has a silent but written d (pronounced roughly "ha-e"); så (the past of se, "saw") carries an å and must never be written saa in running text; and gået / fået keep their å in the participle.

A classic confusion: lagde versus lå

Danish has two similar-looking verbs that learners routinely mix up — and one of them is mixed while the other is strong.

lægge ("to lay, to put something down") is mixed: lægge → lagde → lagt. It is transitive — it takes an object.
ligge ("to lie, to be lying somewhere") is strong: ligge → lå → ligget. It is intransitive — no object.

Jeg lagde bogen på hylden.

I laid the book on the shelf. (lægge — there is an object: the book)

Bogen lå på hylden hele dagen.

The book lay on the shelf all day. (ligge — no object)

The past forms lagde (laid) and lå (lay) sound and look close, but they belong to different verbs with different grammar. The same transitive/intransitive split runs through English "lay" versus "lie," which trips up English speakers in their own language too — so treat this as a known hazard, not a personal failing.

Common mistakes

The biggest pull on a learner is regularisation: applying the default -ede weak ending to a verb that actually changes its vowel.

❌ Han sigede, at han var træt.

Incorrect — sige is mixed; the past is sagde, not the regularised sigede.

✅ Han sagde, at han var træt.

He said that he was tired.

❌ Jeg gørede ikke noget forkert.

Incorrect — the past of gøre is gjorde.

✅ Jeg gjorde ikke noget forkert.

I didn't do anything wrong.

Building the participle as if the verb were weak, instead of using the mixed -t form:

❌ Vi har sælget bilen.

Incorrect — the participle of sælge is solgt, not a regularised sælget.

✅ Vi har solgt bilen.

We have sold the car.

And mixing up the lay/lie pair:

❌ Jeg lå bogen på bordet.

Incorrect — with an object you need lægge: past lagde.

✅ Jeg lagde bogen på bordet.

I laid the book on the table.

Key takeaways

The mixed class changes the vowel and adds a dental ending: sige → sagde → sagt, sælge → solgte → solgt. Treat it as a third category between weak and strong.
Mixed participles almost always end in a bare -t: sagt, lagt, gjort, solgt, valgt, vidst.
A small set of wholly irregular verbs — være, have, gå, få, se, gøre — must simply be memorised; luckily they are the most frequent verbs you have.
Keep lægge (mixed, transitive: lagde) apart from ligge (strong, intransitive: lå).

For the fully patterned strong verbs, see strong verbs; for the predictable weak -te group, see weak -te verbs.

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