Questions & Answers about Der er fyrre hunde i parken.
The number four is fire. Why is forty fyrre instead of something like "fire-ti"?
Danish numbers can be a bit quirky! While English adds "-ty" to the base number, Danish has unique historical words for the tens up to forty. Fyrre comes from an older Old Norse word meaning "four tens." You just have to memorize fyrre as a standalone word for 40.
Is Der er used for both "there is" and "there are"?
Yes! Danish verbs do not change based on whether the subject is singular or plural. Because the verb er stays the same for all subjects, Der er translates to both "There is" for a single thing and "There are" for multiple things, like the fyrre hunde here.
How do we form the plural for dog (hund) in this sentence?
To make "dog" plural in Danish, you often add an -e to the end of the word. So en hund (a dog) becomes hunde (dogs). Since we are talking about forty of them, we use this plural form.
Where is the word for "the" in i parken?
In Danish, "the" is attached to the end of the noun instead of being a separate word in front. Because park is a common gender word, also known as an en word, we attach -en to the end, making it parken (the park).