Questions & Answers about Vi taler om filmen i stuen.
Danish does not have a separate continuous tense like English am/is/are talking.
- Vi taler = We talk / We are talking
- The simple present (taler) covers both the general and the “right now” meaning.
- You do not add er (am/is/are) before a main verb to make a continuous form in Danish.
So Vi taler already means We are talking in this context.
Both can often be translated as talk or speak.
- tale (taler) is a bit more neutral/formal and can also mean “give a speech”.
- snakke (snakker) is more informal/colloquial, like chat.
In this sentence, you could also say:
- Vi snakker om filmen i stuen.
It would sound more casual, but the meaning is almost the same.
Danish usually marks “the” by adding a suffix instead of using a separate word.
- en film = a movie
- filmen = the movie
So om filmen literally means about the movie.
If you said om film, it would be more like about movies (in general), not one specific movie.
Danish definite nouns are usually formed with an ending:
- en film → filmen (the movie)
- en stue → stuen (the living room)
You don’t say ✗ den film or ✗ den stue here in basic sentences.
den film exists, but it’s used in more specific contexts (often with emphasis), e.g.:
- den film, vi så i går – that movie we watched yesterday
In this sentence, om means about:
- tale om noget = talk about something
Some common uses of om:
- Vi taler om filmen. – We talk about the movie.
- En bog om katte. – A book about cats.
So om + noun = “about” + noun in many cases.
By itself, Vi taler om filmen i stuen is somewhat ambiguous, just like in English.
Most natural reading in everyday speech:
- We are in the living room, talking about the movie.
- i.e. i stuen describes where we are talking.
Possible but less likely reading:
- We are talking about the movie that is in the living room.
- i.e. i stuen describes the movie.
If you really want to stress meaning (2), you’d usually make it clearer, e.g.:
- Vi taler om den film, der er i stuen.
(We’re talking about the film that is in the living room.)
The preposition used with stue (living room) is i:
- i stuen – in the living room
i is used for being inside something (rooms, buildings, countries, etc.):
- i huset – in the house
- i køkkenet – in the kitchen
- i Danmark – in Denmark
på is used for other types of locations (e.g. på bordet – on the table, på arbejde – at work), but not with stue for normal “in the living room” meaning.
Same reason as with filmen: it’s the definite form.
- en stue = a living room
- stuen = the living room
After many prepositions indicating a specific place, Danish often uses the definite form:
- i stuen – in the living room
- på skolen – at the school
- i køkkenet – in the kitchen
Yes, that is also correct Danish:
- Vi taler om filmen i stuen.
- Vi taler i stuen om filmen.
Both are grammatically fine. The neutral word order is usually:
Subject – Verb – (Object) – Place
So the original Vi taler om filmen i stuen feels very neutral.
Moving i stuen earlier can give it a little more emphasis (on the place), but it’s still natural.
In a main clause, Danish is a V2 language (the verb is in second position):
- Vi (subject)
- taler (verb, 2nd position)
- om filmen i stuen (rest of the sentence)
Pattern: Subject – Verb – (Other elements)
English often follows the same pattern here, so this sentence feels similar to English word order.
Approximate pronunciation (in simple English-style hints):
- Vi – like “vee”
- taler – roughly “TAH-ler” (the r is soft/weak)
- om – like the English “om” in “om-nom”, shorter
- filmen – “FIL-men”
- i – like English “ee”
- stuen – “STOO-en” (often something like “STOO-ən”)
Spoken fluently, some sounds may blend, and the final -er / -en endings are not very strong.
Both film and stue are common gender (en-words):
- en film → filmen
- en stue → stuen
Common gender nouns form the definite singular with -en.
(Neuter gender nouns – et-words – use -et, e.g. et hus → huset, the house.)
Yes, that’s natural and a bit more explicit:
- inde i stuen = inside the living room
So:
- Vi taler om filmen inde i stuen.
= We’re talking about the movie inside the living room.
It clearly emphasizes that we are located inside the living room.