Word
Det var en dum ide.
Meaning
That was a stupid idea.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Det var en dum ide.
Since ide is an en word, why does the sentence start with Det instead of Den?
When introducing or pointing something out with phrases like 'That is...' or 'It is...', Danish always uses the neuter pronoun det, regardless of the noun's actual gender. Since you are establishing what the thing was ('That was a stupid idea'), you use Det as the dummy subject. If you continued talking about the idea in the next sentence, you would switch to den.
Why is the adjective written as dum rather than dumt?
Adjectives must agree with the noun they describe. Because ide is a singular common-gender noun (en ide), the adjective stays in its base form, dum. If you were describing a neuter noun like et spørgsmål (a question), you would add a 't' and say et dumt spørgsmål.
Is it also correct to spell the last word as idé?
Yes, both ide and idé are officially correct in Danish. The accent over the 'e' is optional, but many Danes use it to reflect the word's French origin and to show that the stress falls on that final syllable.
Are dum and the English word 'dumb' pronounced the same way?
No, the vowel sounds are very different. The 'u' in dum is pronounced like the short 'oo' in the English word 'look' or 'book'. Additionally, the word is spoken with a very short, clipped sound, unlike the more relaxed vowel in the English word 'dumb'.