Word
Den fjerde januar er en mandag.
Meaning
The fourth of January is a Monday.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Den fjerde januar er en mandag.
være
to be
en
a / an (common)
den
the (common, before adjective)
mandag
Monday
Questions & Answers about Den fjerde januar er en mandag.
Why is it "Den fjerde" instead of "Det fjerde"?
When talking about dates, we are actually talking about the "day" of the month. The Danish word for day is dag, which is an en word (en dag). Because of this, we always use the matching definite article den for dates, rather than the et word article det.
Why aren't "januar" and "mandag" capitalized?
Unlike English, Danish does not capitalize the names of months, days of the week, or seasons. They are always written with lowercase letters, like januar and mandag, unless they happen to be the very first word in a sentence.
In English we often say "January fourth". Can I switch the order in Danish and say "januar den fjerde"?
No, in Danish you must put the number before the month when stating a date. You always follow the pattern of "the fourth of January", so the correct order is den fjerde januar.
Why do we include "en" before "mandag"?
Just like in English, saying er en mandag means "is a Monday" (as in, it falls on one of the many Mondays in the year). If you wanted to say "I am coming on Monday", you would use a different phrase without the article, like på mandag.