Word
Manden drikker teen, og kvinden spiser osten.
Meaning
The man drinks the tea, and the woman eats the cheese.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Manden drikker teen, og kvinden spiser osten.
manden
the man
kvinden
the woman
og
and
spise
to eat
Questions & Answers about Manden drikker teen, og kvinden spiser osten.
Does the word og change the word order in the second half of the sentence?
No, it does not. Og (and) is a coordinating conjunction, which is a linking word that just connects two independent sentences. Because of this, the second part of the sentence keeps the normal Subject-Verb order: kvinden (subject) comes right before spiser (verb).
Why do the words for man, tea, woman, and cheese all end in '-en' here?
In Danish, the word for 'the' is attached to the end of the noun rather than sitting in front of it. Because mand, te, kvinde, and ost are all 'en' words (common gender nouns), you add -en to the end to make them mean 'the man', 'the tea', 'the woman', and 'the cheese'.
The Danish word for tea is te. Why is 'the tea' spelled teen?
Normally, if a Danish word already ends in an 'e' like kvinde (woman), you just add an 'n' to say 'the woman' (kvinden). However, te is a very short word ending in a stressed vowel sound. For words like this, you add the full -en ending, resulting in teen.
Why is there a comma before the word og?
In standard Danish grammar, you almost always put a comma between two complete sentences that are joined by words like og (and), men (but), or eller (or). Because 'the man drinks the tea' and 'the woman eats the cheese' both have their own subject and verb, a comma is required to separate them.