Word
Hun er et godt menneske.
Meaning
She is a good person.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Hun er et godt menneske.
Why is menneske used here instead of person?
While both can translate to "person", menneske carries the deeper meaning of "human being". When describing someone's fundamental moral character or inner goodness, Danish strongly prefers et godt menneske. Saying en god person sounds surprisingly clinical or detached.
Since Hun (she) is female, why do we use the neuter words et and godt?
Grammatical gender completely overrides biological gender in Danish sentence structure. The core noun being described is menneske, which is a neuter noun (et menneske). Therefore, it requires the neuter article et and the neuter adjective ending -t on god, regardless of who the "human" actually is.
How would this exact sentence look in the plural (They are good people)?
It would be De er gode mennesker. The pronoun changes to De (they), the adjective takes the plural -e ending to become gode, and the noun menneske takes its plural -r suffix to become mennesker.