Learn Danish: Er du træt? — Ja, det er jeg. - Are you tired?

In English, we can leave short answers hanging with just a verb like "am". In Danish, you cannot end a sentence like this with er. You need a placeholder word—in this case, det (it/that)—to represent the missing word træt. Literally, you are saying "Yes, that am I."

Why is the word order det er jeg instead of det jeg er?

This happens because of the Danish V2 rule, which says the verb (here, er) must be the second piece of information in the sentence. Since the placeholder det takes the first position, the verb er must come second, pushing jeg to the third position.

Why does the question start with the verb Er?

Just like in English, to form a yes/no question in Danish, you simply put the verb first. You take the statement Du er træt (You are tired) and swap the first two words to make Er du træt? (Are you tired?).

Would the word træt change if I were asking more than one person?

Yes! In Danish, adjectives must match the noun or pronoun they describe. Because du (you) is singular, we use the basic form træt. If you were asking a group of people using the plural "you" (I), you would add an -e to the adjective to make it plural: Er I trætte?