The Impersonal Passive
When reading the news, listening to weather forecasts, or hearing the latest rumors, you will often encounter statements where the actual person speaking or thinking is left out. Instead of saying "People assume that...", Danish uses an impersonal passive construction starting with the dummy subject det (it).
To form this, you combine det with the s-passive form of a reporting verb, followed by an at (that) clause containing the prediction, belief, or rumor.
| It is assumed that the housing market will fall this year. | Det antages at boligmarkedet falder i år. |
In the sentence above, antages is the passive form of at antage (to assume). The at-clause delivers the actual information being assumed.
Financial and News Reporting
This construction is heavily favored in formal contexts like economics and news reporting. You will frequently see verbs for estimating and predicting in their passive forms, such as anslås (is estimated), forudsiges (is predicted), and rapporteres (is reported).
| It is estimated that the growth will be smaller. | Det anslås at væksten bliver mindre. |
| It is predicted that the stock will rise soon. | Det forudsiges at aktien stiger snart. |
Notice that the verb inside the at-clause is often simply in the present tense, even when predicting future events like a stock rising.
When reporting on events that have already happened or trends that are currently pausing, the exact same impersonal structure is used:
| It is reported that the drop has stopped. | Det rapporteres at faldet er stoppet. |
Expectations, Claims, and Rumors
The impersonal passive is not just for the stock market. It is the standard way to state weather forecasts using forventes (is expected).
| It is expected that the weather will be bad tomorrow. | Det forventes at vejret bliver dårligt i morgen. |
It is also a very common way to share gossip or unverified information without naming a specific source, using passive verbs like påstås (is claimed) or siges (is said).
| It is said that she has a lot of cash. | Det siges at hun har mange kontanter. |
In all of these cases, the at-clause acts as the core piece of information, while det safely holds the grammatical subject position.