Learn Hardcore Danish: I dag lærer vi om hypotetiske sætninger med "hvis" og "ville". - Today we learn about hypothetical sentences with "if" and "would".

I dag lærer vi om … – slightly more emphasis on today (as opposed to some other day).
Vi lærer om … i dag – more neutral; common word order in everyday speech.

Grammatically there is no big difference; it’s mainly about which part you want to highlight.

Why is lærer in the present tense? In English I’d say “Today we are learning…”, not “Today we learn…”.

Danish uses the simple present tense much more broadly than English:

Vi lærer om … can mean:
- “We learn about …” (general)
- “We are learning about …” (right now, today)
- “We’re going to learn about … (today)” (planned future)

Danish normally doesn’t need a separate “-ing” form. Context and time expressions like i dag (today) tell you whether it’s ongoing or future.

What is the difference between at lære, lærer, lærer (teacher), and læse? They look very similar.

Good to separate these:

at lære = to learn / to teach (infinitive verb)
lærer (verb, present) = learns / is learning or teaches
- Vi lærer om … = We are learning about …
- Han lærer børnene dansk = He teaches the children Danish
en lærer (noun) = a teacher
- Same spelling as the verb; context tells you which is which.
at læse (infinitive) / læser (present) = to read or to study (at school/uni)
- Jeg læser dansk = I study Danish (or I read Danish).

In your sentence, lærer is a verb (“are learning”), not “teacher”.

Why do we say lærer vi om and not just lærer vi hypotetiske sætninger?

In Danish, lære om noget means “learn about something”. The preposition om is almost always used when you’re learning about a topic:

Vi lærer om grammatik = We are learning about grammar.
De lærer om Danmark = They are learning about Denmark.

Without om, lære normally means “teach” or “cause someone to learn”:

Lær mig dansk = Teach me Danish.
Hun lærte ham at læse = She taught him to read.

So here om is necessary to get the meaning “learn about” rather than “teach”.

Why is it hypotetiske sætninger and not hypotetisk sætninger?

Because hypotetiske is the adjective in plural form.

In Danish:

Singular, indefinite: en hypotetisk sætning – a hypothetical sentence
Plural, indefinite: hypotetiske sætninger – hypothetical sentences
- Adjectives in the plural take -e → hypotetisk + e = hypotetiske

So since sætninger is plural, the adjective must also be plural: hypotetiske.

When would I use singular sætning instead of plural sætninger?

Use singular when you talk about one sentence, and plural for general types or more than one:

En hypotetisk sætning = a hypothetical sentence
To hypotetiske sætninger = two hypothetical sentences
Vi lærer om hypotetiske sætninger = we are learning about hypothetical sentences (the type in general)

If you want to say the hypothetical sentences, you’d say:

De hypotetiske sætninger (definite plural with de
- -e on the adjective + -er on the noun).

Why do we say med hvis og ville? What does med mean here?

Med literally means “with”, but in this context it works like “that use / that contain”.

So:

hypotetiske sætninger med hvis og ville ≈ “hypothetical sentences with if and would in them”
More literally: “sentences that use hvis and ville”.

You could also say:

hypotetiske sætninger, der bruger hvis og ville – “hypothetical sentences that use hvis and ville”,

but med is shorter and very natural here.

What is the difference between hvis and når? Aren’t they both “if/when”?

Both can translate to English “if/when”, but they’re used differently:

hvis = if, for conditions that are uncertain, hypothetical, or not guaranteed
- Hvis jeg har tid, læser jeg dansk.
  = If I have time, I’ll study Danish.
når = when, for things that are regular, expected, or certain
- Når jeg har tid, læser jeg dansk.
  = When(ever) I have time, I study Danish. (a regular habit)

In hypotetiske sætninger, you typically use hvis, not når.

What exactly does ville mean here? How is it different from vil?

vil and ville are forms of the same verb:

vil = present tense
- means “want(s) to”, “will”, or “is going to”
- Jeg vil lære dansk. = I want to learn / I will learn Danish.
ville = past tense of vil
- can mean “wanted to”:
  - Jeg ville lære dansk. = I wanted to learn Danish.
- or function as “would” in conditionals:
  - Hvis jeg havde tid, ville jeg lære dansk.
    = If I had time, I would learn Danish.

In hypotetiske sætninger, ville is the form usually used to translate English “would”.

How do you pronounce words like I dag, lærer, hvis, and ville? Any traps for English speakers?

A few key points (simplified):

i dag – roughly like “ee DAY”, but g is not pronounced like an English g; it’s almost silent with a little glottal stop: [iˈdæˀ].
lærer – the æ is like the vowel in English “cat” but longer; r is soft and can sound almost like a vowel: roughly [ˈlɛːɐ].
hvis – the h is silent; it sounds like “vis” [vis].
ville – like “VIL-leh”, with a short i and a schwa at the end: [ˈvilə].

The silent h in hvis and the almost silent g in dag are very typical Danish features.

Is I dag one word or two? And is the I here the same as the English pronoun “I”?

It’s two words: i dag.

i is a preposition meaning “in”.
dag means “day”.
Together i dag is a fixed expression meaning “today”.

At the start of the sentence it’s written I dag (capital I) only because it’s the first word, not because it’s the English “I”.
In the middle of a sentence you’d write: Vi lærer om det i dag.