Breakdown of Han reparerer døren, men han kan ikke finde skruen.
han
he
ikke
not
finde
to find
døren
the door
kunne
to be able to / can
men
but
reparere
to repair
skruen
the screw
Questions & Answers about Han reparerer døren, men han kan ikke finde skruen.
Why does the Danish sentence use reparerer when the English translation says "is repairing"?
In Danish, there is no separate "is doing" (present continuous) tense. You use the regular present tense, reparerer, to mean both "repairs" and "is repairing".
How do we get døren for "the door"?
In Danish, "the" is usually added to the end of the noun. The word for "door" is en dør. To say "the door", you simply attach the -en to the end of the word, making it døren.
If you add -en for "the", why is "the screw" skruen instead of skrueen?
The dictionary word for a screw is en skrue. Because skrue already ends in an -e, you only need to add an -n to the end to make it "the screw". Danish drops the extra e to avoid awkward double vowels.
Why does ikke (not) go between kan (can) and finde (find)?
When you have a helper verb like kan and an action verb like finde, small adverbs like ikke go right after the first verb. This keeps the helper verb in the second position of the phrase, which is a strict rule in Danish sentences.
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