Questions & Answers about Chefen er på arbejde nu.
Why does the sentence use Chefen instead of having a separate word for the English "the"?
In Danish, "the" is usually attached to the end of the noun as a suffix. The word for a boss is en chef, so to say "the boss", you add -en to the end, making it chefen.
Why does the sentence use på instead of a word that translates directly to "at"?
Prepositions rarely match up perfectly between languages. In Danish, you use på (which often translates to "on") for being at your job. So, you are literally "on work" (på arbejde).
Is arbejde a verb or a noun in this sentence?
It is a noun here, meaning the place or state of work. It is spelled exactly the same as the verb at arbejde (to work), but you can tell it is a noun because it comes right after the preposition på.
If I want to emphasize that it is happening right now, can I put nu at the beginning of the sentence?
Yes, you can! But remember the Danish verb-second rule. If you start the sentence with Nu, the verb er must still be the second piece of information. So it becomes Nu er chefen på arbejde.
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