Breakdown of På apoteket viser jeg min recept, så jeg kan få medicinen med det samme.
Questions & Answers about På apoteket viser jeg min recept, så jeg kan få medicinen med det samme.
Because Danish uses V2 word order (the finite verb is in position 2 in main clauses). When you place something other than the subject first—here the adverbial På apoteket (At the pharmacy)—the verb still has to come second, so the subject moves after the verb:
- På apoteket (1st position) + viser (verb, 2nd) + jeg (subject)
If you started with the subject, you’d get normal order: Jeg viser min recept på apoteket.
No—idiomatically, på is often used for being at certain places/institutions in Danish, especially when you mean going there / being there for its function. So på apoteket = at the pharmacy (as a place where you get medicine).
English uses at, but Danish often uses på in these “institution/location” expressions.
In Danish, en recept means a medical prescription, not a cooking recipe. It’s a “false friend” with English recipe.
A cooking recipe in Danish is typically en opskrift.
Danish has two common ways to mark definiteness:
- indefinite noun + possessive: min recept = my prescription
Possessives like min/mit/mine already make the noun definite in meaning, so you normally don’t add the definite ending (-en/-et).
So min recept is the natural form.
Because så here introduces a subordinate clause expressing purpose/result: så jeg kan få... (so that I can get...). In Danish, it’s standard to put a comma between a main clause and a following subordinate clause:
- På apoteket viser jeg min recept, så ...
Here så means so (that), introducing the reason/aim: so that I can...
Danish så can also mean then, but in this sentence the structure , så jeg kan ... clearly signals the so that meaning.
Because så jeg kan få... is treated as a subordinate clause, and Danish subordinate clauses typically keep the subject before the verb (no V2 inversion).
So you get:
- så
- jeg (subject) + kan (finite verb) + få (infinitive)
If you wrote så kan jeg få..., that looks like a new main clause starting with så meaning then/so, and it would sound like: ..., so/then I can get... (slightly different structure and feel).
kan means can / be able to. It’s a modal verb and is followed by the infinitive (base form) of another verb:
- jeg kan få = I can get / I’m able to obtain
medicinen is the medicine (definite), referring to the specific medicine connected to the prescription. That’s the natural choice when the listener can identify which medicine you mean (the one on the prescription).
medicin without the ending is more like medicine (in general) or an uncountable/general concept.
med det samme is an idiom meaning immediately / right away. Literally it’s something like with the same (thing), but you should learn it as a fixed expression.
Placement: it commonly goes at the end of the clause:
- ... få medicinen med det samme = ... get the medicine right away
Approximate (varies by accent):
- apoteket: roughly a-po-TEH-get (the -ket ending often sounds like -get)
- recept: roughly reh-SEBD (final consonants often soften; p can sound close to b)
- medicinen: roughly meh-di-SI-nen (stress often on the last or second-to-last syllable depending on the word; many speakers stress the si part)
If you want, tell me whether you’re aiming for Copenhagen pronunciation, and I can refine these.