Prisen på billetterne til koncertsalen er desværre høj.

The price of the tickets to the concert hall is unfortunately high.

Breakdown of Prisen på billetterne til koncertsalen er desværre høj.

• være: to be
• til: to
• høj: high
• på: of
• billetten: the ticket
• prisen: the price
• koncertsalen: the concert hall
• desværre: unfortunately

Questions & Answers about Prisen på billetterne til koncertsalen er desværre høj.

Why is it prisen and not just pris?

Danish usually shows “the” by adding an ending to the noun instead of using a separate word.

• pris = price
• prisen = the price

So prisen means “the price”, just like in English, but with a suffix -en instead of a separate word the.

Why do you say prisen på billetterne and not prisen af billetterne for “the price of the tickets”?

With pris, Danish normally uses the preposition på to show what the price is of:

• prisen på bilen = the price of the car
• prisen på billetterne = the price of the tickets

Af is more for things like “made of” (lavet af træ = made of wood) or “one of” (en af drengene = one of the boys), not for prices.

Why is it billetterne and not just billetter?

Again, the -ne ending shows “the” in the plural:

• en billet / billetter = a ticket / tickets
• billetterne = the tickets

So billetterne means “the tickets”, referring to some specific tickets that the speaker and listener have in mind.

Why is koncertsalen in the definite form? Could it also be koncertsal?

• koncertsal = a concert hall (indefinite)
• koncertsalen = the concert hall (definite)

In the sentence, we’re talking about tickets to a specific concert hall (probably already known from the context), so Danish uses the definite form: koncertsalen. You could say til en koncertsal (“to a concert hall”) if you meant any random concert hall, not a particular one.

Why is koncertsalen written as one word instead of koncert sal?

Danish normally writes compound nouns as one word:

• koncert
  • sal → koncertsal (concert hall)
• In the definite: koncertsalen = the concert hall

So it’s not two separate words; it’s one compound noun with a definite ending.

Why do we use til in til koncertsalen, and not for or i?

Here til roughly means “to”, expressing destination or purpose:

• billetter til koncerten = tickets to the concert
• rejse til Danmark = trip to Denmark

For is used differently (more like English “for”/“because of”), and i is mostly “in” or “inside”. For destinations or tickets to an event/place, til is the normal choice.

Why is it høj and not højt at the end?

Adjectives in Danish usually agree with the gender and number of the noun. The subject is prisen, which is common gender (en pris), singular:

• common gender singular: høj (prisen er høj)
• neuter singular: højt (beløbet er højt – “the amount is high”)

So you use høj because it describes prisen (a common-gender noun), not something neuter.

Why doesn’t the adjective agree with billetterne (plural)? Shouldn’t it be plural?

The adjective høj describes the subject of the sentence, which is prisen (singular), not billetterne. The structure is:

• Prisen (subject, singular) … er høj (is high)
• på billetterne til koncertsalen is just extra information about which price.

So the adjective must match prisen, not billetterne. That’s why it stays singular.

Can desværre go in other positions, like Desværre er prisen på billetterne…?

Yes. Desværre is a sentence adverb and is fairly flexible:

• Prisen på billetterne… er desværre høj. (neutral, very common)
• Desværre er prisen på billetterne… høj. (puts a bit more emphasis on unfortunately)

What you normally don’t do is put it between the subject and verb in a main clause (like Prisen desværre er… – that’s wrong). In main clauses, the usual neutral spot is after the verb: er desværre høj.

Could I say dyr instead of høj, and what’s the difference?

Yes, you can say Prisen på billetterne til koncertsalen er desværre dyr.

• høj = high (literally comparing to some scale, like “the price is high”)
• dyr = expensive (judging it as costing a lot)

In practice, when talking about prices, dyr is more common if you want to say it’s too expensive, while høj sounds a bit more neutral or technical: the level of the price is high.