Breakdown of Koncertsalen er fyldt, og vi mister desværre billetterne, hvis vi kommer for sent.
Questions & Answers about Koncertsalen er fyldt, og vi mister desværre billetterne, hvis vi kommer for sent.
Danish usually marks definiteness with an ending instead of a separate word like the.
- koncertsal = a concert hall (indefinite, singular)
- koncertsalen = the concert hall (definite, singular)
So -en is the definite ending for many common-gender nouns (those that take en: en koncertsal – koncertsalen).
In English you say the concert hall with a separate word; in Danish you “glue” the onto the noun: koncertsalen.
Both er fyldt and er fuld can mean “is full,” but there are nuances:
- fyldt is the past participle of at fylde (to fill) and often focuses on something being filled up, often completely, sometimes with an implied process of filling.
- fuld is an adjective that can mean “full” but also “drunk”.
For a venue like a concert hall:
- Koncertsalen er fyldt.
→ The concert hall is (all) filled up / packed.
You can also hear Koncertsalen er fuld, and it isn’t wrong, but er fyldt (op) is very natural when we talk about capacity being reached.
Also, when fyldt is used in this “state” meaning with være (er fyldt), it does not change form to agree with the noun. You don’t say koncertsalen er fyldte. It stays fyldt.
In a main clause, Danish wants the finite verb in second position (the “V2” rule). Sentence adverbs like desværre usually come right after that verb:
- Vi (1st element: subject)
- mister (2nd element: finite verb)
- desværre (sentence adverb)
- billetterne (object)
So:
- Vi mister desværre billetterne … = correct
- Vi desværre mister billetterne … = sounds wrong in standard Danish
- Desværre mister vi billetterne … = also correct (here desværre is 1st element, so the verb mister is still 2nd)
The key point: in ordinary word order, the adverb desværre goes right after the conjugated verb.
billet behaves like this:
- en billet = a ticket
- billetten = the ticket
- billetter = (some) tickets
- billetterne = the tickets
In the sentence, you are talking about specific tickets that you already have (or are supposed to have). In English you could say:
- we lose the tickets
- or more naturally in context: we lose our tickets
Danish often uses the definite form where English would use the or even our, so:
- vi mister desværre billetterne
≈ we’ll unfortunately lose the tickets / our tickets
You could also say vores billetter (our tickets), but billetterne is perfectly normal and slightly more compact.
Danish has several verbs that translate as lose in English, but they are used differently:
at miste
- to lose something in the sense of no longer having it, often permanently:
- miste billetterne, miste jobbet, miste sin far
- used when something is taken away, becomes invalid, disappears, or dies.
- to lose something in the sense of no longer having it, often permanently:
at tabe
- to lose in the sense of drop or be defeated:
- tabe nøglerne (drop/lose the keys, often physically),
- tabe kampen (lose the match).
- to lose in the sense of drop or be defeated:
In this sentence, the idea is that if you’re too late, you lose your entitlement to the tickets (they are cancelled / invalidated). That fits very naturally with miste billetterne.
If the idea were physically dropping them on the floor, tabe billetterne might be more natural.
hvis vi kommer for sent is a subordinate clause (“if”-clause):
- hvis = if
- vi = we
- kommer = come / arrive
- for sent = too late
Basic subordinate clause word order is:
conjunction – subject – (sentence adverb) – verb – other stuff
Here there’s no sentence adverb like ikke, so it’s simply:
hvis (conjunction) vi (subject) kommer (verb) for sent (adverbial)
You can’t shuffle it around like hvis vi for sent kommer; that sounds wrong in modern Danish. The natural order here is exactly hvis vi kommer for sent.
for sent is:
- for = too (as in too much / too late)
- sent = late (adverb form)
So literally it’s too late, but very often it just corresponds to English late in time expressions:
- Jeg kom for sent i skole.
→ I was late for school. - Hvis vi kommer for sent, mister vi billetterne.
→ If we arrive too late, we lose the tickets.
It’s an adverbial phrase (describing how/when you come), so it normally comes towards the end of the clause.
In Danish, at komme covers both English come and many uses of arrive. The phrase komme for sent is a fixed expression meaning “to be/arrive late”:
- Jeg kommer altid for sent.
→ I’m always late / I always arrive late. - Kom ikke for sent!
→ Don’t be late! / Don’t arrive late!
There is a verb ankomme = to arrive, but in everyday speech you usually say komme in sentences like this. Hvis vi kommer for sent is therefore the standard, idiomatic way to say “if we arrive too late / if we are late.”
The commas reflect Danish comma rules:
Comma before “hvis”
Subordinate clauses (like “if we come too late”) must be separated by a comma:- …, hvis vi kommer for sent.
(“… if we come too late.”)
This comma is always required in standard written Danish.
- …, hvis vi kommer for sent.
Comma before “og”
Here, og joins two main clauses:- Koncertsalen er fyldt,
- og vi mister desværre billetterne, …
Under current rules, you may choose a system:
- either always put a comma between main clauses,
- or never do so (except in some special cases).
So both of these are accepted as correct:
- Koncertsalen er fyldt, og vi mister desværre billetterne, hvis vi kommer for sent.
- Koncertsalen er fyldt og vi mister desværre billetterne, hvis vi kommer for sent.
The comma before hvis is obligatory; the one before og is optional, depending on the chosen comma style.
Yes, you can also say:
- Koncertsalen er fuld.
The core meaning is still that the concert hall is full. Differences:
- er fyldt
- sounds a bit more like “filled up,” “at capacity,” often quite neutral and commonly used for rooms, halls, etc.
- er fuld
- can also mean “full” (of people),
- but in everyday language fuld is very strongly associated with “drunk” when used about a person.
For a hall, both are understandable and idiomatic, but many speakers prefer fyldt (op) in this type of formal / capacity context.
No, fyldt does not change form here. It’s a past participle used as a predicative complement after være (er fyldt), expressing a state:
- Koncertsalen er fyldt.
- Værelset er fyldt.
- Stolen er fyldt.
It always stays fyldt in this state meaning; it doesn’t become fyldte to match the noun’s definiteness or number.
Contrast this with ordinary adjectives like træt (tired):
- en træt mand
- to trætte mænd
Past participles used like er fyldt often have “frozen” forms in this function; you just memorize them as fixed expressions: er fyldt, er lukket, er åbent etc.
Danish distinguishes between subject and object forms of “we,” just like English does:
- vi = we (subject form)
- os = us (object form)
In the sentence vi mister desværre billetterne, vi is the subject of the verb mister:
- vi (subject)
- mister (verb)
- billetterne (object)
You cannot use os as the subject in standard Danish, just like in English you wouldn’t say “us lose the tickets”. Os would be used as an object: De ringer til os (They call us).
Both are grammatically correct and mean the same thing: unfortunately, we lose the tickets.
The difference is in emphasis and information structure:
- Vi mister desværre billetterne …
- neutral word order; desværre is in its typical position (after the finite verb).
- Desværre mister vi billetterne …
- fronting desværre gives extra emphasis to the “unfortunately”; it sounds a bit more dramatic or emotional, similar to starting with “Unfortunately, …” in English.
So the meaning is the same; it’s about where you put the stylistic/emotional emphasis.