Questions & Answers about Hvornår er du født?
Why does this sentence use er (are) instead of a past tense verb like were?
In Danish, being born is seen as a state that is still true today. Because the person you are talking to is currently alive, Danish uses the present tense er. Literally, the sentence translates to When are you born?.
Would it be wrong to say Hvornår var du født?
Yes, it would sound very strange to a Danish speaker! You generally only use var født when talking about someone who has passed away or in a historical context. For a living person, always stick to er født.
What verb does født come from?
It comes from at føde, which means to give birth. Here, født is a past participle acting like an adjective to describe the ongoing state of having been born.
If I ask a group of people when they were born, does the word født change?
No, født stays exactly the same. If you are asking multiple people, you just change the pronoun to the plural I, making the sentence Hvornår er I født?.
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