Breakdown of Jeg savner roen, når jeg er i storbyen.
Questions & Answers about Jeg savner roen, når jeg er i storbyen.
At savne means “to miss” in the emotional sense – to feel the lack of something or someone you wish you had.
- Jeg savner roen = I miss the peace/quiet.
- It’s a transitive verb, so it normally takes a direct object: jeg savner dig, jeg savner sommeren, jeg savner min familie.
- It is not the same as at mangle, which is more neutral/practical (to lack):
- Jeg mangler penge = I lack money / I don’t have enough money.
- Jeg savner penge would sound like you emotionally miss having money (a bit unusual).
In this sentence, savner expresses an emotional longing for a calmer environment than the big city.
The noun ro means something like calm, peace, quiet, stillness.
- Grammatically, ro is a common-gender (en-) word:
- indefinite: (en) ro (almost never used in practice)
- definite: roen = the calm / the peace / the quiet
- The ending -en is the definite suffix, so roen literally means “the calm/peace”.
Semantically, roen here is “that peace/quiet” the speaker knows from elsewhere (often the countryside, small towns, or home), not just generic quietness.
Yes, there is a nuance:
- Jeg savner ro
= I miss peace/quiet in general, any kind of calm. - Jeg savner roen
= I miss the peace – a specific, familiar kind of calm that both speaker and listener can imagine (for example the peace of nature or home).
Danish uses the definite form a lot to talk about “the usual / characteristic X” in a situation. So roen suggests a concrete, almost “known” peace, not just the abstract idea of quietness.
Storbyen is a compound noun: stor (big) + by (town/city) → storby (big city, metropolis).
- storby = big city / metropolis
- storbyen = the big city / the metropolis
In many contexts, storbyen doesn’t just mean a specific big city, but “city life / the urban environment” as an idea or setting. So i storbyen can often be felt as “in the big city world / in the metropolis” rather than just one named city.
They’re all grammatically correct but carry different nuances:
i storbyen
= in the (big) city / in the metropolis
Often a generic, almost stereotypical big-city environment (noise, traffic, crowds, etc.).i en stor by
= in a big city
Indefinite and non‑specific: any big city, we don’t care which one.i den store by
= in the big city (literally: “in the big town”)
Refers to a particular big city that has already been identified in the context (e.g., Copenhagen vs your small hometown).
In your sentence, i storbyen underlines the general contrast between big‑city life and the peacefulness the speaker misses.
Danish makes an important distinction between når and da:
når = when / whenever for
- present or future time, and
- repeated or general situations.
da = when for
- a single event in the past (one specific time).
In når jeg er i storbyen, the speaker is talking about a general, repeated situation (“whenever I am in the big city”), so når is correct.
If you were telling a past story about a single occasion, you might say, e.g.:
- Da jeg var i storbyen sidste år, savnede jeg roen.
= When I was in the big city last year, I missed the peace.
In Danish:
- In a main clause, the finite verb is usually in second position (V2):
- Jeg savner roen. (subject–verb–object)
- In a subordinate clause introduced by words like når, fordi, at etc., the order is normally subject before verb:
- når jeg er i storbyen (subjunction–subject–verb–...)
So:
- ✅ når jeg er i storbyen = correct subordinate clause structure.
- ❌ når er jeg i storbyen = wrong word order in Danish (it looks like an English-influenced “when am I in the big city”).
Danish does not invert subject and verb after når the way English sometimes does.
Yes, that is completely correct and very natural:
- Jeg savner roen, når jeg er i storbyen.
- Når jeg er i storbyen, savner jeg roen.
The meaning is the same.
What changes in the second version is:
- The sentence starts with the subordinate clause, so the next element (savner) comes right after the comma, and then the subject (jeg) follows: savner jeg roen.
- This is still V2 word order in the main clause after the comma (verb in second position relative to the clause-initial element).
Both versions are normal Danish.
Traditionally, Danish spelling rules have a comma between a main clause and a subordinate clause:
- Jeg savner roen, når jeg er i storbyen.
With the current rules, there are two accepted comma systems (with or without so‑called “grammatical commas”), so:
- Many people still write the comma before når (and most textbooks teach this).
- Some people leave out some commas in less formal writing.
If you’re learning Danish, using the comma here is safe and standard, and exam material will almost always prefer it.
It’s about the preposition’s typical use:
i = in, inside a place or area.
- Jeg er i storbyen. = I am in the big city.
til = to / toward a place (movement/direction).
- Jeg tager til storbyen. = I’m going to the big city.
på is used with some specific types of locations (islands, squares, some institutions, etc.), but not normally with by/storby in this meaning.
So for a static location inside a city, i is the natural choice: i storbyen.
In Danish, you must include the subject in each clause; it cannot be dropped just because it is the same:
- ✅ Jeg savner roen, når jeg er i storbyen.
- ❌ Jeg savner roen, når er i storbyen.
Each clause (main and subordinate) needs its own explicit subject (jeg, du, han, etc.), unless it’s an imperative or some very special pattern. Danish does not allow the kind of subject omission that you see in some other languages.
Approximate pronunciation (in a neutral standard accent), using English-like hints:
- Jeg ≈ yai (like “y-eye”), often very reduced in fast speech.
- savner ≈ SOWN-er (SOWN as in “sound” without the d).
- roen ≈ roughly ROH-en in two syllables; the o is like “oh”, and there’s usually a stød (a little glottal catch) on the first syllable.
- når ≈ nor with a long “o” sound and a fairly weak r.
- er ≈ air but short and unstressed.
- i ≈ ee (like “see”).
- storbyen ≈ STOHR-byoo-en
- stor ≈ stohr (long “o”)
- by ≈ byoo (like “byu”)
- -en = a little unstressed -en at the end.
Spoken smoothly, it might sound something like:
“Yai SOWN-er ROH’en, nor yai air ee STOHR-byoo-en.” (very rough approximation).