The pluperfect — førdatid in Danish, literally "before-past-time" — lets you step one rung further back into the past. It marks an action that was already complete at some point in a past story: not just "before now," but "before then." If you can already form the present perfect (jeg har talt), the pluperfect costs you almost nothing new: you simply put the auxiliary into the past tense.
How it is formed
The pluperfect is havde or var (the past tense of have and være) plus the past participle. The participle is exactly the same one you use in the present perfect — only the auxiliary moves from present to past.
| Present perfect | Pluperfect | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| jeg har talt | jeg havde talt | I had spoken |
| hun har købt | hun havde købt | she had bought |
| han er gået | han var gået | he had gone |
| de er kommet | de var kommet | they had come |
Jeg havde glemt min paraply, så jeg blev gennemblødt.
I had forgotten my umbrella, so I got soaked.
Hun var allerede stået op, da jeg ringede.
She had already got up when I called.
A spelling note worth flagging: havde has a silent d — it is pronounced roughly "ha-e" — but the d must always be written. Leaving it out (*have for the past) is a common slip. And keep the participle's diacritics intact: gået, stået, fået all carry the å.
What it does: past-before-past
The core job of the pluperfect is anteriority — showing that one past event happened before another. In a single sentence you often have a simple past verb anchoring "the past," and a pluperfect verb pointing to something that was already finished by then.
Da jeg kom hjem, var børnene allerede faldet i søvn.
When I got home, the children had already fallen asleep.
Vi nåede ikke toget, fordi vi var startet for sent.
We didn't catch the train, because we had set off too late.
In the first example, kom (simple past) sets the reference point — the moment I got home — and var faldet tells us the children's falling asleep was complete before that moment. Strip out the pluperfect and replace it with a simple past (faldt i søvn) and the sequence collapses: it would suggest they fell asleep as I arrived, not before. The pluperfect is precisely what keeps the two past events in order.
Reported speech and backshifting
The pluperfect is essential in reported (indirect) speech. When you report what someone said, and what they said was already in the past from their point of view, the verb backshifts one step: a present perfect or simple past in the original becomes a pluperfect in the report.
Hun sagde, at hun havde glemt aftalen.
She said that she had forgotten the appointment.
Han fortalte mig, at toget var kørt uden ham.
He told me that the train had left without him.
Direct speech "Jeg har glemt aftalen" ("I have forgotten the appointment") becomes havde glemt once it sits behind the past-tense reporting verb sagde. English does exactly the same backshift, so this much will feel familiar.
Danes use it more than you might expect
Here is a point where Danish and casual English part ways. In relaxed spoken English, people often let context carry the time relationship and use a simple past where a pluperfect would be more precise: "When I arrived, they already left." Danish does not lean on context this way — speakers reach for the pluperfect readily, even in everyday conversation, wherever one past event precedes another.
Jeg vidste det ikke — ingen havde fortalt mig det.
I didn't know — nobody had told me.
Hun var gået, før festen overhovedet var begyndt.
She had left before the party had even started.
The practical consequence: learners coming from English tend to under-produce the pluperfect. If you find yourself describing a sequence of past events and using only the simple past, ask whether one of them was already finished before the other — if so, that one usually wants havde or var.
Common mistakes
The dominant error is using the simple past where anteriority needs to be marked — the English-conversation habit transferring straight into Danish.
❌ Da vi ankom, gik de allerede.
Incorrect — 'they had already gone' is anterior to our arrival and needs the pluperfect.
✅ Da vi ankom, var de allerede gået.
When we arrived, they had already gone.
Choosing the wrong auxiliary carries over from the perfect:
❌ Hun havde gået, før jeg nåede frem.
Incorrect — gå (change of location) takes være, so the past perfect is var gået.
✅ Hun var gået, før jeg nåede frem.
She had left before I got there.
Dropping the silent but written d in havde:
❌ Jeg have aldrig set noget lignende.
Incorrect — the past of have is havde, with a written (silent) d.
✅ Jeg havde aldrig set noget lignende.
I had never seen anything like it.
And reaching for a present perfect where the surrounding tense is past:
❌ Han fortalte, at han har mistet sin nøgle.
Incorrect — behind a past reporting verb, backshift to the pluperfect.
✅ Han fortalte, at han havde mistet sin nøgle.
He said that he had lost his key.
Key takeaways
- The pluperfect is havde / var
- past participle — the perfect with its auxiliary shifted to the past.
- It marks an event that was already complete before another past moment (anteriority).
- The have / være choice is identical to the present perfect.
- It is standard in reported speech (backshifting) and Danes use it freely in everyday talk — English speakers tend to under-use it.
For when to choose the perfect over the simple past in the first place, see past vs perfect; and revisit the perfect overview for how all the perfect tenses connect.
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Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- The Present PerfectA2 — How Danish builds the present perfect with have (or være) plus the past participle — and the one rule English speakers need: definite past time takes the simple past, not the perfect.
- Choosing Have or Være in the PerfectB1 — Why most Danish verbs build the perfect with have, but verbs of motion and change of state use være — and how the same verb can take either.
- Datid vs Perfektum: Choosing the PastB1 — When to use the simple past (datid) and when to use the present perfect (perfektum) — with the one clean test that decides it: a definite past-time adverbial forces datid and blocks the perfect.
- Conditionals: Hvis-clauses and VilleB1 — Real and unreal conditional sentences in Danish — and why the language uses the plain past tense, not a special subjunctive, for hypothetical situations.