Learn Hardcore Danish: Jeg drikker normalt kaffe om morgenen. - I normally drink coffee in the morning.

You cannot say ✗ Jeg normalt drikker kaffe om morgenen in a normal statement. The adverb normalt has to come after the conjugated verb drikker (unless you move normalt to the very beginning of the sentence for emphasis, which changes the order in another way: Normalt drikker jeg kaffe om morgenen).

Are there other correct places where I can put normalt, and do they change the meaning?

Yes, you can move normalt, but it slightly changes the emphasis:

Jeg drikker normalt kaffe om morgenen.
– Neutral, most typical version. Just stating a habit.
Normalt drikker jeg kaffe om morgenen.
– Emphasis on normalt. Often used in contrast:
Normalt drikker jeg kaffe om morgenen, men i dag drikker jeg te.
Jeg drikker kaffe om morgenen normalt.
– Grammatically possible, but feels more like an afterthought or more casual/spoken. The neutral place is right after the verb.

In everyday Danish, if you are just learning, prefer version 1 (or 2 when you want to highlight “normally”).

What exactly does normalt mean here, and how is it different from plejer at?

normalt is an adverb meaning roughly normally, usually, typically.

Jeg drikker normalt kaffe om morgenen.
= It is my normal pattern to drink coffee in the morning, but it allows for exceptions.

plejer at + infinitive is closer to usually / tend to / am in the habit of:

Jeg plejer at drikke kaffe om morgenen.

Nuance:

normalt: focuses on what is typical; can also be used to contrast with what is happening now.
plejer at: focuses on a habitual routine; sounds a bit stronger as a “this is what I usually do as a rule”.

Both can translate to usually, and often they are interchangeable, but plejer at feels more like a stable habit.

Why is it om morgenen and not i morgenen?

For recurring times of day, Danish normally uses om + a time‑of‑day word in the definite form:

om morgenen – in the morning(s)
om eftermiddagen – in the afternoon(s)
om aftenen – in the evening(s)
om natten – at night

This pattern is used when talking about general habits.

The preposition i is used differently, for example:

i morges – earlier this morning (a specific morning, in the past)
i går – yesterday
i januar – in January
i weekenden – in/over the weekend

So for “I normally drink coffee in the morning (as a habit)”, you want om morgenen, not i morgenen.

Why is it morgenen (definite singular) and not plural, if we mean “in the mornings”?

This is a typical Danish time expression pattern:

om morgenen literally “in/on the morning”
but idiomatically: “in the mornings / in the morning (generally)”

Danish often uses definite singular for generic time periods:

om morgenen – in the mornings
om aftenen – in the evenings
om søndagen – on Sundays (as a regular thing)

You would not say ✗ om morgenerne for this habitual meaning; that sounds wrong here.

So even though English uses a plural (“in the mornings”), Danish keeps it as definite singular after om.

Why is there no article before kaffe? Could I say en kaffe?

Here kaffe is used as a mass noun, like water, tea, milk:

Jeg drikker kaffe – I drink coffee
Jeg drikker vand – I drink water

In this sense, you don’t use an article.

You can say en kaffe, but that changes the meaning:

en kaffe = one coffee / a coffee (typically one cup of coffee)

Examples:

Jeg drikker normalt kaffe om morgenen.
– I normally drink coffee (in general).
Jeg bestilte en kaffe og en te.
– I ordered one coffee and one tea.

Very often, if you want to specify one portion, you say en kop kaffe (a cup of coffee).

Does Jeg drikker normalt kaffe om morgenen describe a habit only, or could it also mean “I am drinking coffee right now”?

Grammatically, Danish present tense (drikker) can express both:

a general habit
something happening right now

However, normalt strongly pushes the interpretation toward habitual:

Jeg drikker normalt kaffe om morgenen.
– Almost always understood as “As a rule, I drink coffee in the morning.”

To talk about right now, you’d normally add something like lige nu:

Jeg drikker kaffe lige nu. – I am drinking coffee right now.

Danish does not form a present continuous with er + -ing-form like English. You don’t say ✗ jeg er drikker kaffe. Instead you use:

plain present: Jeg drikker kaffe.
or periphrastic forms: Jeg er ved at drikke kaffe, Jeg sidder og drikker kaffe, depending on nuance.

Can I drop jeg, like Spanish or Italian often drop the subject pronoun?

No, not in standard Danish.

Danish almost always requires an explicit subject pronoun:

Jeg drikker normalt kaffe om morgenen. – correct
✗ Drikker normalt kaffe om morgenen. – wrong as a normal sentence

You might hear the pronoun dropped in very casual, telegraphic language (e.g. in a note: Kommer snart – “(I) am coming soon”), but for normal full sentences you should always include jeg, du, han, etc.

How do you pronounce jeg drikker normalt kaffe om morgenen?

Very roughly in a standard Copenhagen‑type pronunciation:

jeg ≈ yai – /jaj/ (often reduced to something like /jɑ/ in fast speech)
drikker ≈ DREH-guh – /ˈdʁegə/ (a guttural r, final -er is a neutral vowel /ə/)
normalt ≈ nor-MAL(t) – /nɔʁˈmælˀd/ (final t/d is often glottal; you may just hear a little “stop” at the end)
kaffe ≈ KAH-feh – /ˈkʰɑfə/
om ≈ om – /ʌm/
morgenen ≈ roughly MOR-nən – /ˈmɒːɐ̯nən/
- g is practically silent; the vowel is long; -en becomes a weak /ən/.

Said smoothly, everything connects and many sounds get reduced, so you might hear something like:

/jaj ˈdʁegə nɔʁˈmælˀd ˈkʰɑfə ʌ ˈmɒːɐ̯nən/

You do not pronounce the g clearly in morgenen.

Are there other common ways to say “in the morning” in this kind of sentence?

Yes, depending on nuance:

om morgenen – in the mornings / in the morning (as a general habit)
Jeg drikker normalt kaffe om morgenen.
hver morgen – every morning
Jeg drikker kaffe hver morgen.
(Slightly stronger: literally “each/every morning”.)
om morgenen hver dag – in the morning every day
(A bit redundant but possible for emphasis.)

Be careful with expressions like:

i morgen tidlig – tomorrow morning (a specific future morning)
i morges – this morning (earlier today, a specific past morning)

Those are for specific times, so they don’t replace om morgenen when you talk about a general habit.