Word
Efter at have spist gik vi en tur.
Meaning
After having eaten, we went for a walk.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Efter at have spist gik vi en tur.
Why is the verb order inverted to gik vi instead of vi gik?
Danish uses the V2 (verb-second) rule. Because the first position in the sentence is taken up by the entire introductory phrase Efter at have spist, the main verb gik must come next. This pushes the subject vi to the other side of the verb.
Could I just say Efter spiser to mean 'After eating'?
No, unlike English 'After eating', Danish does not use a present-tense verb directly after a preposition. You either need the perfect infinitive as shown here (Efter at have spist), or a full clause with a subject, such as Efter at vi spiste (After we ate).
Why use have spist instead of just spise?
Using the perfect infinitive (at have plus the past participle spist) emphasizes that the eating was completely finished before the walk began. It works exactly like the English 'having eaten'.
Why do we need en tur at the end? Doesn't gik already mean 'walked'?
While at gå does mean 'to walk', it can also mean 'to leave'. The fixed phrase for taking a walk for pleasure or exercise is at gå en tur (literally 'to walk a trip'). If you just said gik vi, it would sound more like 'we left'.