Er reservationen til fredag eller lørdag?

Because this is a yes/no question in Danish. In Danish, the finite verb usually comes first in this kind of question.

• Statement: Reservationen er til fredag eller lørdag.
• Question: Er reservationen til fredag eller lørdag?

This is similar to English Is the reservation for Friday or Saturday?

Reservationen means the reservation.

The ending -en is the definite article attached to the noun. Danish often puts the at the end of the noun instead of using a separate word before it.

• en reservation = a reservation
• reservationen = the reservation

So unlike English, Danish does not need a separate word like the here.

Because Danish usually expresses definiteness by adding an ending to the noun.

In this sentence:

• reservation = reservation
• reservationen = the reservation

This is one of the first big differences English speakers notice in Danish. The definite article is often a suffix:

• en bil = a car
• bilen = the car

Here, til means something like for in English.

So:

• reservationen til fredag = the reservation for Friday

With bookings, appointments, tables, and similar things, Danish often uses til when referring to the date or time the reservation is for.

So in this sentence, til fredag eller lørdag means for Friday or Saturday.

Sometimes English speakers expect på because they think of on Friday. But with reservation, til is the natural choice when you mean what day the booking is for.

• reservation til fredag = a reservation for Friday

På is more often used when talking about something happening on a specific day:

• Vi ses på fredag. = See you on Friday.

So in this sentence, til fits better because it is attached to the idea of the reservation being for a certain date.

Eller means or.

It connects the two alternatives:

• fredag eller lørdag = Friday or Saturday

It works very much like English or.

In Danish, the names of the days of the week are not capitalized unless they begin a sentence.

So Danish writes:

• fredag
• lørdag

not Fredag or Lørdag.

This is different from English, where Friday and Saturday must be capitalized.

A rough guide:

• fredag sounds approximately like FREH-dai
• lørdag sounds roughly like LUR-dai or LÖR-dai, depending on how closely you want to imitate Danish pronunciation

A few helpful notes:

• The g at the end of -dag is not pronounced like a strong English g.
• ø in lørdag is a vowel English does not really have. It is somewhat like the vowel in French peur or German schön.
• Danish pronunciation is often softer and less fully pronounced than spelling suggests.

If you want a simple learner-friendly approach, saying something close to FREH-dai and LUR-dai will at least help you recognize the words.

The structure is:

• Er = is
• reservationen = the reservation
• til fredag eller lørdag = for Friday or Saturday

So the pattern is:

Verb + subject + rest of sentence

That is the normal pattern for a yes/no question in Danish.

As a statement, it would be:

Reservationen er til fredag eller lørdag.

So the difference is mainly word order:

• Question: Er reservationen til fredag eller lørdag?
• Statement: Reservationen er til fredag eller lørdag.

In the statement, the subject comes first. In the yes/no question, the verb comes first.

It is an en word:

• en reservation = a reservation
• reservationen = the reservation

That is why the definite ending is -en and not -et.

If it were an et word, the definite form would usually end in -et instead.

Yes, you could say:

Er reservationen til fredag eller til lørdag?

That is grammatically fine, but usually Er reservationen til fredag eller lørdag? sounds more natural and less repetitive.

Repeating til may add a little emphasis or clarity, especially in careful speech, but it is not necessary.