Making Someone Do Something
When you want to describe getting, convincing, or motivating someone to perform an action, Danish uses the construction få ... til at.
To build this, conjugate the verb få (to get), add the person or object you are influencing, and follow it with til at plus the infinitive of the action verb.
| The boss tries to get the employee to improve the collaboration. | Chefen prøver at få medarbejderen til at forbedre samarbejdet. |
Motivation at Work
In a professional setting, the subject doing the "getting" does not have to be a person. Abstract concepts like well-being or recognition can also act as the subject to motivate a team or an employee to be efficient.
| The well-being in the office gets the team to work efficiently. | Trivslen på kontoret får holdet til at arbejde effektivt. |
| The recognition gets her to improve her effort. | Anerkendelsen får hende til at forbedre sin indsats. |
Persuasion and Execution
When discussing workplace management, you will often need to talk about persuading (overtale) someone or carrying out (udføre) tasks.
| Can you persuade the man who must carry out the task? | Kan du overtale manden som skal udføre opgaven? |
You can also use the få ... til at structure when talking about non-human objects. For example, getting a plan, a machine, or a project to work (fungere).
| The new manager gets the project to work. | Den nye leder får projektet til at fungere. |
Multiple Actions
If you are motivating someone to do more than one thing—such as improving their effort and being creative (kreativ)—you only need to use til at before the very first action. The following infinitives can simply be joined with og (and).
| She gets the employee to improve the effort and be creative. | Hun får medarbejderen til at forbedre indsatsen og være kreativ. |