Announcing the topic
In everyday spoken Danish, speakers often highlight the topic of their sentence by stating it up front, followed by a slight pause. They then immediately begin the actual sentence using a pronoun that refers back to the topic.
This structure is called left dislocation (venstredislokation). It is an excellent way to add emphasis, especially when passionately describing your favorite food!
When the fronted topic is the subject of the sentence, the resuming pronoun simply acts as the subject, followed normally by the verb.
| The new food truck, it makes flavorful food. | Den nye foodtruck, den laver smagfuld mad. |
| The juicy taco, it is both crispy and flavorful. | Den saftige taco, den er både sprød og smagfuld. |
Matching the pronoun
The pronoun you use to resume the sentence must match the gender and number of the noun you dislocated. For common gender nouns, use den; for neuter nouns or general concepts, use det; and for people, use han or hun. Plural subjects use de.
| Both the taco and the chicken, they are incredibly delicious. | Både tacoen og kyllingen, de er utrolig lækre. |
| My wife, she loves flavorful street food. | Min kone, hun elsker smagfuld streetfood. |
Dislocating the object
You can also use this structure to emphasize the object of your sentence.
When you do this, the resuming pronoun acts as the object. Because this pronoun is now sitting in the first position of the main clause, Danish's strict verb-second (V2) rule applies. The verb must immediately follow the pronoun, causing the subject to swap places and move to the third position.
Notice in the next example how den (referring to the taco) is followed immediately by the verb vil and then the subject jeg:
| The taco, I would like it without dressing. | Tacoen, den vil jeg gerne have uden dressing. |
If the dislocated object is plural, you must use the object form of the plural pronoun, which is dem (them):
| Crispy snacks, I always have an easy time eating them. | Sprøde snacks, dem har jeg altid let ved at spise. |