Breakdown of Hun købte en kjole i byen i går.
hun
she
en
a / an (common)
i
in
byen
the city
købe
to buy
kjolen
the dress
i går
yesterday
Questions & Answers about Hun købte en kjole i byen i går.
Why is the verb købte instead of køber?
Købte is the past tense meaning "bought", while køber is the present tense meaning "buys" or "is buying". In Danish, many regular verbs form the past tense by adding -te to the stem of the verb (from the infinitive at købe).
Where is the word for "the" in i byen?
In Danish, the word for "the" is usually attached to the end of the noun. The word for "city" or "town" is by. Because it is a common gender noun (an en-word), you add -en to the end, making it byen ("the city" or "the town").
Does i går literally translate to "in yesterday"?
I går is the fixed Danish phrase for "yesterday". The word i usually means "in", but here it is just a preposition that Danish uses to build time words. You will also see it used this way in i dag (today) and i morgen (tomorrow).
Could I put i går at the very beginning of the sentence?
Yes, you can, but it changes the word order! If you start the sentence with the time (I går), the verb and the subject must swap places. This is a strict Danish rule where the verb must be the second piece of information. The sentence would become: I går købte hun en kjole i byen.
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