Learn Hardcore Danish: Hun vil gerne have sin egen sofa i stuen. - She would like to have her own sofa in the living room.

Vil literally means wants (or will in some contexts). Gerne literally means gladly, but together vil gerne is the usual, polite way to say would like.

Hun vil have … = She wants to have … (can sound a bit strong or demanding).
Hun vil gerne have … = She would like to have … (more polite/softer).

So in this sentence, Hun vil gerne have … is best translated as She would like to have …, not She will gladly have ….

Is vil here a future tense, like English will?

No. Danish doesn’t use vil as a general future tense in the same way English uses will. Here, vil expresses desire/volition, not time.

Hun vil gerne have sin egen sofa i stuen.
= She would like to have her own sofa in the living room. (her wish)

If you need to emphasize future time in Danish, you usually use adverbs or context, not a special future tense:

I morgen vil hun købe en sofa. – Tomorrow she will buy a sofa.
Here i morgen (“tomorrow”) gives the future sense; vil still means wants/intends.

Why is the adverb order vil gerne have and not gerne vil have or vil have gerne?

The normal order in a main clause is:

Subject
Finite verb (here: vil)
Sentence adverbs (here: gerne)
Main verb in infinitive (here: have)

So: Hun – vil – gerne – have – …

Hun vil gerne have … – correct, natural
Hun gerne vil have … – sounds wrong in standard Danish
Hun vil have gerne … – also wrong

The pattern [subject] + [modal/aux] + [adverb] + [main verb] is very common:
Jeg kan ikke komme. / Vi skal snart spise. / Han vil altid hjælpe.

Why is it sin and not hendes for “her own sofa”?

Sin is the reflexive possessive pronoun for 3rd person singular. It refers back to the subject of the same clause:

Hun vil gerne have sin egen sofa …
= She would like to have *her (own) sofa … (the sofa belongs to *her, the subject).

Hendes is the non‑reflexive possessive, used when the owner is not the subject of that clause:

Hun vil gerne have hendes sofa i stuen.
= She would like to have *her sofa in the living room,
where *her = another woman’s, not the subject’s.

So sin tells us it’s her own sofa; hendes would usually mean another woman’s sofa.

When would hendes instead of sin be correct in a similar sentence?

Use hendes when the owner is someone else, not the subject:

Hun vil gerne have hendes sofa i stuen.
= She would like to have her (another woman’s) sofa in the living room.

Or when the subject is not the same person as the “her”:

Peter vil gerne have hendes sofa i stuen.
= Peter would like to have her sofa in the living room.

So:

Same person as the subject → sin
Different person from the subject → hendes

How do sin, sit, and sine work in general?

They all mean “his/her/its own”, but they agree with the noun, not with the owner:

sin – for common gender, singular nouns
- sin sofa, sin bil, sin bog
sit – for neuter, singular nouns
- sit hus, sit barn, sit bord
sine – for all plurals
- sine sofaer, sine bøger, sine børn

In the sentence, sofa is a common‑gender singular noun, so we must use sin:
sin egen sofa.

What does egen add? Could we just say sin sofa?

Egen means own and adds emphasis that the sofa belongs specifically to her, not shared or someone else’s:

Hun vil gerne have sin sofa i stuen.
= She would like to have her sofa in the living room. (neutral)
Hun vil gerne have sin egen sofa i stuen.
= She would like to have her own sofa in the living room. (emphasis: not someone else’s sofa, not a shared one, etc.)

So egen is optional, but it changes the nuance by stressing personal ownership or individuality.

Why is it sofa (indefinite) but stuen (definite)?

This pattern matches natural English too:

She would like to have *a sofa in the living room.*

Sofa is something she (presumably) doesn’t have in there yet; it’s being introduced as a new item → indefinite noun: en sofa / sin egen sofa.

Stuen (the living room) is a specific, known place (the main living room in that home) → definite noun: stuen.

Danish often uses the definite form for well‑known locations, especially parts of a home:

i køkkenet – in the kitchen
på badeværelset – in the bathroom
i stuen – in the living room

What’s the difference between stue and stuen?

They’re two forms of the same noun:

stue – a living room (indefinite singular)
- en stue – a living room
stuen – the living room (definite singular)
- stuen – the living room

Danish usually adds the definite ending ‑en / ‑et to the noun instead of putting a separate word like the in front.
So i stuen literally is “in living‑room‑the” = in the living room.

Why do we use i stuen and not på stuen?

For rooms in a home, the normal preposition is i (in):

i stuen – in the living room
i køkkenet – in the kitchen
i soveværelset – in the bedroom

På is used with some other locations or surfaces (e.g. på bordet – on the table, på arbejde – at work), but with ordinary rooms, i is the default. So i stuen is the idiomatic and correct choice.

Could you also say Hun vil gerne have sin egen sofa i sin stue?

You can, and it would literally mean She would like to have her own sofa in her own living room. But in most everyday contexts it sounds redundant or slightly odd.

Usually, if you say i stuen in a context about “her home”, listeners already assume it’s her living room.
If you wanted to contrast her living room with someone else’s, you might say i hendes stue or add context instead.

So the natural, neutral version is simply i stuen. I sin stue would only be used if you really need to emphasize that it’s specifically her living room (as opposed to someone else’s).

Why is it have and not få? Don’t both mean something like “have/get”?

Have means to have (a state), while få means to get/receive/obtain (an action of coming into possession).

Hun vil gerne have sin egen sofa i stuen.
= She would like to have her own sofa in the living room (she wants that situation/state).

If you say Hun vil gerne få sin egen sofa, it sounds wrong/unnatural; få doesn’t fit after vil gerne like that in this meaning. To express the idea of getting a sofa, you’d say:

Hun vil gerne have en sofa. – She would like to have/get a sofa.
Hun vil gerne købe en sofa. – She would like to buy a sofa.
Hun håber at få en sofa. – She hopes to get a sofa.

In this sentence, we’re focusing on the desired final situation (that there is her own sofa in the living room), so have is right.

Does this sentence follow the typical Danish word order rules?

Yes, it’s a straightforward main clause with normal V2 word order:

Subject: Hun
Finite verb (2nd position): vil
Adverb: gerne
Infinitive verb: have
Object phrase: sin egen sofa
Place adverbial: i stuen

You can see the V2 rule if you front the place phrase:

I stuen vil hun gerne have sin egen sofa.
(Here, i stuen is first, and the finite verb vil is still second.)

Both orders are correct; the original is the unmarked, neutral one.