Breakdown of Planen skal følges, hvis vi vil komme til tiden.
Questions & Answers about Planen skal følges, hvis vi vil komme til tiden.
-en is the Danish definite suffix for common-gender nouns. So plan = a plan, and planen = the plan. Danish often makes nouns definite by adding -en/-et instead of using a separate word like the.
In this sentence, skal expresses obligation/necessity: must/has to/needs to. It’s much closer to English must than to modern English shall.
Example pattern: X skal + infinitive = X must/has to + verb.
følges is the -s passive (also called the s-passive). The -s turns følge (to follow) into to be followed.
So Planen skal følges literally means The plan must be followed. Danish uses the -s passive a lot, often where English uses be + past participle.
Yes, skal blive fulgt is a periphrastic passive (blive + past participle). It’s grammatical, but skal følges is usually more natural and concise here.
A rough nuance: blive can feel a bit more “event-like” (something happens/gets done), while -s is often more general/instruction-like.
In standard Danish punctuation, you normally put a comma before a subordinate clause introduced by hvis (if).
So: main clause + comma + hvis-clause.
After hvis, you get subordinate-clause word order, which typically means the finite verb comes after adverbs/negation and after the subject.
Here it’s: hvis vi vil komme til tiden (subject vi before the finite verb vil).
If you add negation, you see the difference clearly: hvis vi ikke vil komme til tiden (the ikke comes before the infinitive part and after the subject, with the finite verb still early but in subordinate structure overall).
vil can mean both want to and will depending on context. In an if-clause like this, it often means want to / intend to: if we want to arrive on time.
Danish uses vil more readily than English uses will in conditional clauses, where English often prefers want to, are going to, or present tense.
Danish commonly expresses “be on time” with komme til tiden (arrive on time). It focuses on the arrival event.
You can say være til tiden, but it’s less common and can sound more like “be there at the right time” rather than “arrive on time.”
til tiden is an idiom meaning on time / punctually. The noun is definite: tiden = the time. The phrase is fixed, so you normally don’t change it to til tid or similar.
Yes. If you start with the subordinate clause, the main clause shows V2/inversion (the finite verb comes before the subject).
Example: Hvis vi vil komme til tiden, skal planen følges.
Notice skal comes before planen in the main clause.
A few common ones:
- Planen: the second syllable is often reduced (roughly PLA-nən).
- skal: the a is fairly open; it’s short and unstressed here.
- følges: the ø is a front rounded vowel; the -s is clearly pronounced at the end.
- tiden: often reduced in speech (roughly TEE-ðn), with a soft d (more like a voiced “th”-type sound than an English d. )