Learn Hardcore Danish: Jeg vil spise noget frugt i køkkenet.

want to / intend to (volition):
- Jeg vil hjem. = I want to go home.
Sometimes a kind of future, but usually with a nuance of intention or willingness:
- Jeg vil ringe senere. = I’ll call later / I intend to call later.

For a neutral future (“I will eat fruit later, just as a fact”), Danish often just uses the present tense without vil:

Jeg spiser noget frugt senere. = I’ll eat some fruit later.

In your sentence, the natural reading is about desire / intention, not a neutral future.

Why is there no at before spise? In English we say “to eat”.

In Danish, you normally put at before an infinitive (the basic verb form), similar to English to:

Jeg begynder at spise. = I’m starting to eat.
Det er godt at spise frugt. = It’s good to eat fruit.

But after modal verbs (like vil, kan, skal, må, bør), you do not use at:

Jeg vil spise. = I want to eat.
Jeg kan spise. = I can eat.
Jeg skal spise. = I must / am supposed to eat.

So Jeg vil spise … is correct, and Jeg vil at spise … is wrong.

What’s the difference between noget frugt and nogle frugter? Both look like “some fruit(s)”.

Both can translate as some fruit, but the nuance is different:

noget frugt
- Treats frugt as a mass / uncountable noun (fruit in general).
- Focus on an unspecified amount:
  - Jeg vil spise noget frugt. = I want to eat some fruit (a bit of fruit, not specified how many pieces).
nogle frugter
- Frugter is the plural of en frugt (a fruit).
- Focus on separate pieces / items:
  - Jeg vil spise nogle frugter. = I want to eat some fruits (some individual fruits, e.g. two apples and a pear).

If you just mean “some fruit” in a general healthy-snack way, noget frugt is the usual choice.
If you want to highlight several individual fruits, use nogle frugter.

Could I say nogen frugt instead of noget frugt?

Normally, no. In standard modern Danish:

noget is used:
- as a pronoun: noget = something / anything (neuter)
- as a quantifier before mass/uncountable nouns:
  - noget vand = some water
  - noget frugt = some fruit
nogen / nogle is used:
- nogen mostly in questions / negatives:
  - Er der nogen æbler? = Are there any apples?
  - Jeg har ikke nogen æbler. = I don’t have any apples.
- nogle in positive sentences meaning some, several:
  - Jeg har nogle æbler. = I have some apples.

So:

Jeg vil spise noget frugt = I want to eat some fruit (correct and natural).
Jeg vil spise nogen frugt sounds wrong/unnatural.

Why is it i køkkenet and not just i køkken?

Køkken is et køkken (a kitchen), and køkkenet means the kitchen.

In Danish, places are very often used in the definite form when you mean a particular place that is contextually known:

i køkkenet = in the kitchen
i stuen = in the living room (from stue → stuen)
på kontoret = at the office (from kontor → kontoret)

Saying i køkken (without the -et) sounds wrong in this meaning. You practically always say i køkkenet when you mean “in the kitchen” as a location.

What are the genders of frugt and køkken, and how do they affect the forms we see?

Danish has two genders: common and neuter.

frugt
- Gender: common
- Indefinite singular: en frugt = a fruit
- Definite singular: frugten = the fruit
- In your sentence, frugt appears as a mass noun without article, so you don’t see the gender marking there.
køkken
- Gender: neuter
- Indefinite singular: et køkken = a kitchen
- Definite singular: køkkenet = the kitchen
- In the sentence, you see the definite neuter ending -et in køkkenet.

So i køkkenet = in the kitchen, with the definite neuter ending attached.

Can I move i køkkenet to another position in the sentence?

Yes, Danish word order is flexible for adverbials like i køkkenet, but the basic and most neutral word order here is:

Jeg vil spise noget frugt i køkkenet.

You can move i køkkenet for emphasis or style:

I køkkenet vil jeg spise noget frugt.
- Emphasis on the location. Literally: In the kitchen, I want to eat some fruit.
Jeg vil i køkkenet spise noget frugt.
- Possible but sounds marked / less natural in everyday speech; it can sound a bit “broken” or overly stylized.

In normal conversation, you would almost always use the original … noget frugt i køkkenet order.

How would I say “I am going to eat some fruit in the kitchen” in the sense of a simple future, not really “I want to”?

For a neutral future (a plan or scheduled action), Danish often uses present tense without a special future marker:

Jeg spiser noget frugt i køkkenet senere.
- Literally: I eat some fruit in the kitchen later.
- Meaning: I’m going to eat some fruit in the kitchen later.

If you keep vil, you usually add a nuance of intention / desire:

Jeg vil spise noget frugt i køkkenet.
- Most naturally: I want to eat some fruit in the kitchen.
- Could also be: I’ll eat some fruit in the kitchen (with a sense of decision/intention).

So for a plain “will” / “going to”, context and time expressions (like senere, i morgen) plus the present tense usually do the job.

How would I change this sentence into a negative: “I don’t want to eat any fruit in the kitchen”?

You mainly need two changes:

Add ikke (not).
Change noget frugt to noget frugt or nogen frugt? For a negative, you usually keep noget frugt as a mass noun, but nogen frugt is also possible; the most natural is to keep noget and let ikke do the negation.

Common version:

Jeg vil ikke spise noget frugt i køkkenet.
= I don’t want to eat any fruit in the kitchen.

Word order rule: in main clauses, ikke comes after the conjugated verb (vil) and before the infinitive (spise):
vil ikke spise.

How do you pronounce the words in Jeg vil spise noget frugt i køkkenet?

Very roughly in “English-style” phonetics (standard Danish):

Jeg ≈ yai (with a soft, short “y” sound at the start; often sounds like “yai”)
vil ≈ vil (short, clipped vil; the l is clear)
spise ≈ SPEE-seh (stress on the first syllable)
noget ≈ NO-ð or NO-eth
- The d is a soft “th-like” sound, often very weak, and in casual speech noget can sound close to no-e or nåd.
frugt ≈ frukt
- The g is almost silent; you mostly hear frukt.
i ≈ ee
køkkenet ≈ KØK-ken-eth
- ø like the vowel in French peu or German ö.
- kk is a hard k.
- Final -et is -eth with a very soft d/ð quality; often quite weak.

Spoken quickly, the whole sentence can sound something like:
yai vil SPEE-se no-ð frukt ee KØK-ken-eth.