Det lyder, som om bowlingkuglen landede i kuglerenden.

In this sentence, det is a dummy subject, much like English it in It sounds as if....

It does not have to point to a specific thing. Danish often uses det with verbs such as lyde when talking about an impression, opinion, or interpretation:

• Det lyder godt = That sounds good
• Det lyder, som om... = It sounds as if...

So det is there because Danish wants a subject in a full sentence.

Som om is a fixed expression meaning as if.

So:

• Det lyder, som om... = It sounds as if...

It is best learned as one unit. A word-for-word translation would not be very helpful here. In this sentence, som om introduces the idea that the speaker is interpreting what they hear.

Because som om bowlingkuglen landede i kuglerenden is a subordinate clause.

However, there is an important detail: in modern Danish, the comma before a subordinate clause is often optional, depending on which comma style is being used.

So both of these can be correct:

• Det lyder, som om bowlingkuglen landede i kuglerenden.
• Det lyder som om bowlingkuglen landede i kuglerenden.

What you would not do is put the comma after som om.

Because the two verbs describe two different time frames:

• lyder describes the speaker’s impression now
• landede describes the event that seems to have happened earlier

So the structure is very natural:

• It sounds now
• as if the bowling ball landed earlier

English works the same way: It sounds as if the bowling ball landed in the gutter.

The dictionary forms are:

• lyde = to sound
• lande = to land

In this sentence:

• lyder is present tense of lyde
• landede is past tense of lande

So if you look them up in a dictionary, search for lyde and lande, not the inflected forms.

Because Danish uses compound nouns very freely.

Here:

• bowlingkugle = bowling ball
• kuglerende = literally something like ball gutter/channel

Instead of writing separate words the way English often does, Danish usually joins them into one noun.

This is extremely common in Danish, so learners should get used to reading long compound words as normal.

The ending -en is the definite article attached to the noun.

So:

• en bowlingkugle = a bowling ball
• bowlingkuglen = the bowling ball

and

• en kuglerende = a gutter/channel
• kuglerenden = the gutter/channel

Unlike English, Danish often puts the at the end of the noun instead of using a separate word.

Because Danish normally uses the attached definite ending when the noun stands by itself:

• bowlingkuglen = the bowling ball

You usually use a separate definite word like den when there is an adjective:

• den tunge bowlingkugle = the heavy bowling ball

So in this sentence, with no adjective, bowlingkuglen and kuglerenden are exactly what you would expect.

Because Danish treats kuglerenden as something the ball goes into, not something it lands on.

So i is the natural preposition:

• i kuglerenden = in/into the gutter

If you want to emphasize the movement downward, Danish might also use something like ned i, but i alone is perfectly normal here.

No. Som om introduces a subordinate clause.

In this particular sentence, the word order looks normal because the subject comes first anyway:

• bowlingkuglen landede...

But if you add an adverb, the subordinate-clause pattern becomes clearer:

• Det lyder, som om bowlingkuglen ikke landede i kuglerenden.

Notice that ikke comes before the finite verb landede, which is typical subordinate-clause word order in Danish.

Yes. Both are possible, but they are slightly different in feel.

• landede = simple past, focusing on the event
• er landet = present perfect, often focusing a bit more on the result or completed action

So these are both natural:

• Det lyder, som om bowlingkuglen landede i kuglerenden.
• Det lyder, som om bowlingkuglen er landet i kuglerenden.

The choice depends on context and what nuance the speaker wants.

Not always. Just like English It sounds as if..., Danish Det lyder, som om... can be used both:

• literally, based on what someone hears
• more generally, based on the overall impression or information available

So it can mean either from the sound of it or more broadly it seems as if.

It is understandable as a literal compound:

• kugle = ball
• rende = channel / gutter / trench

So kuglerende is a very Danish-style way of naming the gutter/channel where the bowling ball ends up. Even if a learner has not seen the word before, breaking it into parts helps a lot.

That is a useful strategy with Danish compounds in general.