Breakdown of Han lægger bogen på sit bord i stuen.
Questions & Answers about Han lægger bogen på sit bord i stuen.
Danish distinguishes between:
- at lægge = to lay, to place something (you actively put it somewhere) → transitive verb
- Han lægger bogen på sit bord. – He puts the book on his desk.
- at ligge = to lie, to be lying, to be located (something is already there) → intransitive verb
- Bogen ligger på bordet. – The book is lying on the table.
In your sentence, there is an action of placing the book, so lægger is correct, not ligger.
Danish usually marks definiteness on the noun itself:
- en bog = a book (indefinite, singular, common gender)
- bogen = the book (definite, singular, common gender)
In the sentence, a specific book is being put on the desk, so bogen (the book) is used. If it were just a book (not specific), it would be:
- Han lægger en bog på sit bord i stuen. – He puts a book on his desk in the living room.
Danish has special reflexive possessive pronouns that refer back to the subject of the same clause:
- sin / sit / sine = his/her/its/their (own), when the owner is the subject
- hans / hendes / deres = his/her/their, when the owner is someone else, not the subject
Here, Han is the subject, and it is his own desk. So we use the reflexive form:
- Han lægger bogen på sit bord i stuen.
= He puts the book on his own desk in the living room.
If we said:
- Han lægger bogen på hans bord i stuen.
it would normally mean: He puts the book on *another man’s desk in the living room (not his own).*
These three all mean something like his/her/its/their own, but they agree with the noun they modify, not with the person:
- sin – with common gender singular nouns (en-words)
- sin bog – his/her own book
- sit – with neuter singular nouns (et-words)
- sit bord – his/her own desk
- sine – with plural nouns (of either gender)
- sine bøger – his/her own books
Since bord is a neuter noun (et bord), the correct form is sit → sit bord.
Danish prepositions are often literal about spatial relationships:
- på = on (top of) a surface
- i = in/inside something
A book goes on a desk, not inside it (unless you mean literally inside a drawer). So:
- på sit bord = on his desk (on the surface)
- i sit bord would mean something like inside his desk, which is not what is meant here.
Just like bog → bogen, you have:
- en stue = a living room
- stuen = the living room
In the sentence i stuen means in the living room (a specific one, presumably his / the one in the house). I stue would be ungrammatical in this context; you need the definite form:
- i stuen = in the living room.
Yes, that is grammatical:
- Han lægger bogen på bordet i stuen.
= He puts the book on the table in the living room.
Differences:
- på sit bord specifies that it is his own desk.
- på bordet is just the table/the desk, with no explicit information about ownership.
In many real contexts, people use på bordet if it is obvious whose table it is, but på sit bord highlights the personal possession.
Danish nouns are either:
- common gender (en-words): e.g. en bog (a book)
- neuter (et-words): e.g. et bord (a table, a desk)
There is no reliable rule that lets you always predict the gender; it is mostly something you must learn per noun.
In this sentence:
- et bord → neuter
- therefore:
- bordet = the table/desk
- sit bord = his/her own desk (neuter → sit)
Yes, context matters. Literally, bord is simply table. Danish doesn’t have a completely separate, commonly used everyday word that always corresponds to English “desk.”
- et bord can be:
- a dining table,
- a coffee table,
- a work table,
- or a desk.
In context—especially with something like a book and the idea of working or studying—bord is naturally understood as “desk” in English translation, but the Danish word itself is more general.
Both are grammatical, but the usual and most natural order is:
- small place → bigger place
- på sit bord (more specific location)
- i stuen (larger location)
So:
- Han lægger bogen på sit bord i stuen.
= on his desk, which is in the living room.
If you say:
- Han lægger bogen i stuen på sit bord.
it is still understandable, but it sounds a bit less natural; you first say the larger area (i stuen) and then zoom in (på sit bord). Danish typically prefers to move from more specific to more general in place phrases.
Lægger is present tense of at lægge:
- jeg lægger – I put / I am putting
- han lægger – he puts / he is putting
Danish present tense usually covers both English simple present and present continuous. There is no separate continuous tense formed with “to be” + -ing as in English.
So Han lægger bogen på sit bord i stuen can mean:
- He puts the book on his desk in the living room.
or - He is putting the book on his desk in the living room.
Context decides which English form fits best.
Sit agrees with the noun it modifies, not with the person who owns it.
- Han (he) → owner is male
- bord is a neuter noun (et bord)
- therefore, the correct reflexive possessive is sit (neuter singular).
If the noun were common gender, you’d use sin, regardless of the owner’s gender:
- Han lægger bogen på sin stol. – He puts the book on his (own) chair.
- stol is common gender: en stol → sin stol
So: sin/sit/sine are about the noun’s gender and number, not about whether the owner is male or female.
Stue most commonly means living room (the main room where people sit, watch TV, etc.). But depending on context, it can be a bit broader:
- stuen in a typical home = the living room
- stueetage = ground floor (literally “stue floor”)
- historically, stue could also mean a kind of chamber/room more generally.
In everyday modern Danish, when you see stuen on its own in a home context, it almost always means the living room.