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Learn Hardcore Danish: Filmen er kedelig i aften. - The film is boring tonight.

Hardcore Danish
/Lesson 10
/Filmen er kedelig i aften.

Filmen er kedelig i aften.

Word

Filmen er kedelig i aften.

Meaning

The film is boring tonight.

Part of speech

sentence

Pronunciation

Course

Hardcore Danish

Lesson

Breakdown of Filmen er kedelig i aften.

Questions & Answers about Filmen er kedelig i aften.

Why does filmen end in -en? Can’t you just say film?

Danish usually puts “the” at the end of the noun, not in front of it.

en film = a movie (indefinite, common gender)
filmen = the movie (definite, common gender)

So -en is the definite ending for most common gender nouns (the ones that take en in the indefinite).
You say filmen here because you are talking about a specific movie: the movie is boring tonight.

Why is it kedelig and not kedeligt or kedelige after er?

The adjective agrees with the noun in gender and number, even after “er”.

film is a common gender noun: en film, filmen
For common gender singular, the adjective is in its base form: kedelig

Compare:

Filmen er kedelig. – The movie is boring. (common singular → kedelig)
Programmet er kedeligt. – The program is boring. (neuter singular → kedeligt)
Filmene er kedelige. – The movies are boring. (plural → kedelige)

So filmen er kedelig is the correct form.

How is different from ?

kedelig

boring

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filmen er kedelig

den kedelige film

They are grammatically different structures and are used slightly differently:

Filmen er kedelig.
- Predicate adjective (after the verb).
- You first identify the thing (filmen) and then say something about it (er kedelig).
- Natural as a full statement: The movie is boring.
den kedelige film
- Attributive adjective (before the noun).
- Used inside a noun phrase: the boring movie.
- You need more to make a sentence:
  - Den kedelige film varer to timer. – The boring movie lasts two hours.

So filmen er kedelig is a complete sentence; den kedelige film is just a noun phrase you’d use as subject, object, etc.

What exactly does i aften mean? Is it “in the evening” or “tonight”?

i aften usually means this evening / tonight (the coming or current evening of today).

Rough guide:

i aften – this evening, tonight (later today)
i aftes – last night (yesterday evening)
om aftenen – in the evening / in the evenings (generally, habitually)
i nat – tonight / last night (the night-time, when you sleep)

So Filmen er kedelig i aften is understood as something like “The movie (that’s on) tonight is boring” or “The movie is boring this evening.”

Why is there no article in i aften? In English we say “in the evening”.

In Danish, very common time expressions drop the article where English keeps it. You just use the preposition + bare noun:

i dag – today
i går – yesterday
i morgen – tomorrow
i aften – this evening / tonight
i nat – tonight / in the night

So i aften literally looks like “in evening”, but it means “this evening / tonight” and never takes an article: not i den aften in this meaning.

Can I move i aften to the front? For example I aften er filmen kedelig?

Yes. Both are correct, but the focus changes slightly.

Filmen er kedelig i aften.
Neutral order: subject–verb–adjective–time. The new information is usually kedelig i aften.
I aften er filmen kedelig.
Here i aften is in first position. Danish main clauses then keep the verb in second position (er).
This version puts extra emphasis on tonight, as in “Tonight, the movie is boring.”

Another useful pattern is:

Filmen i aften er kedelig. – Tonight’s movie is boring.
Here i aften belongs inside the noun phrase filmen i aften (“the movie tonight”).

Why is it present tense er if we are talking about “tonight”? Shouldn’t it be something like vil være?

Danish often uses the present tense to talk about the near future, especially for planned or scheduled things.

So:

Filmen er kedelig i aften.
can mean: The movie (that’s on) tonight is boring – e.g. you’ve read the reviews or seen it before.

You could say:

Filmen vil være kedelig i aften.

but that sounds more like a prediction / guess and is less natural in everyday speech. Danes normally stick to the simple present here or say something like:

Filmen i aften kommer til at være kedelig. – The movie tonight is going to be boring.

How would I say “The movies are boring tonight” in Danish?

You make both the noun and the adjective plural:

Filmene er kedelige i aften.
- filmene = the movies (plural definite: film → filmene)
- kedelige = plural form of the adjective.

Pattern:

singular: Filmen er kedelig. – The movie is boring.
plural: Filmene er kedelige. – The movies are boring.

How would I say “The movie was boring last night”?

You need the past tense of er and the time expression for last night (yesterday evening):

Filmen var kedelig i aftes.
- var = was (past of er)
- i aftes = last night (yesterday evening)

So:

Filmen er kedelig i aften. – The movie is boring tonight.
Filmen var kedelig i aftes. – The movie was boring last night.

Does kedelig ever mean “sad”? I know ked af det means sad.

kedelig normally means boring / dull, not “sad”.

Some related words:

Jeg keder mig. – I’m bored.
kedelig film – boring movie
Jeg er ked af det. – I’m sad / I’m upset. (literally “I am sorry of it”)

For “sad” about a movie, you would usually use something like:

en trist film – a sad movie
en sørgelig film – a sorrowful / very sad movie

So in Filmen er kedelig i aften, kedelig is clearly boring, not sad.

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