Jeg åbner et vindue i stuen.

I open a window in the living room.

Breakdown of Jeg åbner et vindue i stuen.

• jeg: I
• i: in
• åbne: to open
• vinduet: the window
• stuen: the living room
• et: an

Questions & Answers about Jeg åbner et vindue i stuen.

Why is it et vindue and not en vindue?

Danish nouns have grammatical gender: common gender and neuter gender.

• vindue is neuter gender, so it takes the article et: et vindue (a window).
• Common‑gender nouns take en, e.g. en stol (a chair), en bog (a book).

You simply have to learn the gender of each noun. There’s no reliable rule to guess it from the ending, though patterns exist for some groups of words.

Why is it stuen and not stue in this sentence?

stue means “living room” (or “parlor”). Danish usually puts the definite article at the end of the noun:

• stue = living room
• stuen = the living room

In i stuen, you are talking about a specific room (the one in the house you’re in), so Danish uses the definite form: stuen.

Why don’t you say i stue, like in living room, without -n?

You normally need a definite or indefinite marker on a concrete countable noun in Danish.

• English: in living room (incorrect) → in *the living room*
• Danish: i stue (incorrect) → i stuen

So i stuen corresponds to “in the living room”. Using bare stue is only possible in very specific, mostly fixed expressions.

What is the basic word order in Jeg åbner et vindue i stuen?

The basic structure is:

• Subject – Verb – (Object) – (Adverbial)
• Jeg (subject) åbner (verb) et vindue (object) i stuen (adverbial = where)

Danish is a V2 language in main clauses: the finite verb must be in second position. Here, Jeg is first, åbner is second, so the word order is normal and neutral.

Can I move i stuen to the beginning of the sentence?

Yes:

• I stuen åbner jeg et vindue.

The meaning is still “In the living room, I open a window,” but the focus shifts a bit more onto the location (the living room).
Because Danish is V2, if you put i stuen first, the verb must still be second, so åbner comes next and jeg moves after the verb: I stuen åbner jeg …

How do I say “I open” vs “I am opening” in Danish? Does Jeg åbner mean both?

Yes, Jeg åbner can mean both:

• I open a window in the living room (habitual, general)
• I am opening a window in the living room (right now)

Danish normally uses simple present for both English present simple and present continuous.
If you really need to stress the ongoing action, you can say e.g.:

• Jeg er ved at åbne et vindue i stuen. = I am in the process of opening a window in the living room.

Why is it vinduet for “the window” but stuen for “the living room”? The endings are different.

Both are definite forms, but they follow different patterns:

• vindue (neuter):

  • et vindue = a window
  • vinduet = the window (-et is the definite ending for most neuter nouns)

• stue (common):

  • en stue = a living room
  • stuen = the living room (-en is the definite ending for common-gender nouns)

So vinduet and stuen are just the regular definite forms for their genders.

What’s the difference between et vindue i stuen and vinduet i stuen?

• Jeg åbner et vindue i stuen.
  → I open a window in the living room (any one window; not specified which).

• Jeg åbner vinduet i stuen.
  → I open the window in the living room (a specific, known window).

So et vindue is indefinite (“a/an”), while vinduet is definite (“the”).

Why do we use i in i stuen and not på?

Both i and på often translate as “in” in English, but they’re used differently:

• i is used for being inside something or in an enclosed space:

  • i stuen = in the living room
  • i huset = in the house
  • i byen = in the city

• på is used for surfaces, some institutions, and certain fixed expressions:

  • på bordet = on the table
  • på arbejde = at work
  • på skolen = at the school

A living room is a space you’re inside, so Danish uses i stuen.

Can I leave out Jeg, like in Spanish, and just say Åbner et vindue i stuen?

No, not in normal Danish. Subject pronouns like jeg are not usually dropped.

• Jeg åbner et vindue i stuen. ✅
• Åbner et vindue i stuen. ❌ (sounds incomplete or like a headline/telegram)

Spoken Danish sometimes drops det or der in certain patterns, but dropping jeg in a normal sentence is not standard.

How do you pronounce Jeg åbner et vindue i stuen?

Approximate guide (for an English speaker):

• Jeg ≈ “yai” (like y
  • eye). In some accents closer to “jaj”.
• åbner ≈ “OHB-ner”:
  • å like the “o” in born (British) or law.
  • b is often very soft, almost like “oh-ner”.
• et ≈ short “et” (like et in etch), often very weak in fast speech.
• vindue ≈ “VIN-doo-eh”:
  • first syllable stressed, d very soft.
• i ≈ “ee”.
• stuen ≈ “STOO-en”:
  • long “oo” like too, then a weak “en”.

In natural speech, the whole sentence flows together quite smoothly:
[yai OHB-ner et VIN-doo-eh ee STOO-en].

If I want to talk about several windows, how would the sentence change?

You need the plural form of vindue:

• et vindue → vinduer (windows, plural)
• flere vinduer = several windows

Examples:

• Jeg åbner vinduer i stuen. = I open windows in the living room. (general)
• Jeg åbner nogle vinduer i stuen. = I open some windows in the living room.

The rest of the sentence (i stuen) stays the same.