Smerten i skulderen fik hende til at blive hjemme fra arbejde i går.

Smerten means the pain. Danish often uses the definite form where English uses the + noun.

• en smerte = a pain
• smerten = the pain

In this sentence, it refers to a specific pain, so the definite form is used.

I skulderen means in the shoulder and is the normal Danish way to talk about pain located in a body part.

So Danish commonly says:

• smerter i ryggen = pain in the back
• ondt i hovedet = pain in the head / a headache
• smerten i skulderen = the pain in the shoulder

Even though English often says pain in the shoulder too, learners sometimes expect a different preposition, so this is worth noticing.

This pattern means made her or caused her to do something.

The structure is:

• få + someone + til at + infinitive

So:

• fik hende til at blive hjemme = made her stay home / caused her to stay home

Examples:

• Det fik mig til at grine. = It made me laugh.
• Regnen fik os til at blive inde. = The rain made us stay inside.

Because hende is the object form of hun.

• hun = she
• hende = her

In this sentence, the pain is the subject, and her is the person affected:

• Smerten ... fik hende ... = The pain ... made her ...

So hende is correct because it is not the subject.

They do different jobs.

1. til at is part of the pattern få nogen til at gøre noget
   = make/get someone to do something

2. The second part is the infinitive verb:

   • blive = to stay / remain / become, depending on context

So til at blive hjemme means to stay home.

You should think of til at here as a fixed grammatical pattern, not as two separate words you translate one by one.

Literally, blive often means remain or stay, and hjemme means at home.

So blive hjemme = stay home / stay at home

Examples:

• Jeg bliver hjemme i dag. = I’m staying home today.
• Hun blev hjemme fra festen. = She stayed home instead of going to the party.

Fra arbejde means from work, but in this context it means away from work or off work.

So:

• blive hjemme fra arbejde = stay home from work

It tells you what she stayed home from. Without it, blive hjemme would just mean stay home, but not necessarily instead of going to work.

Compare:

• Hun blev hjemme. = She stayed home.
• Hun blev hjemme fra arbejde. = She stayed home from work.

I går means yesterday, and putting time expressions near the end is very common in Danish.

So this sentence order is completely natural:

• Smerten i skulderen fik hende til at blive hjemme fra arbejde i går.

You could move i går earlier for emphasis, but then the word order would change:

• I går fik smerten i skulderen hende til at blive hjemme fra arbejde.

Both are correct, but the original version is very natural and neutral.

The structure is:

• Smerten i skulderen = subject
• fik = verb
• hende = object
• til at blive hjemme fra arbejde = infinitive phrase
• i går = time expression

So the sentence breaks down like this:

[The pain in her shoulder] [made] [her] [stay home from work] [yesterday].

This is a very useful Danish pattern:

• X fik Y til at Z

meaning:

• X made Y do Z

Because the sentence is talking about something that happened yesterday.

• får = gets / makes
• fik = got / made

Since i går means yesterday, the past tense is required:

• Smerten ... fik hende ... i går.

If it were happening now, you might say:

• Smerten i skulderen får hende til at blive hjemme fra arbejde i dag. = The pain in her shoulder is making her stay home from work today.

Yes. Danish often uses the definite form for body parts where English uses a possessive.

So Danish may say:

• Hun har ondt i ryggen. = She has pain in her back.
• Smerten i skulderen = the pain in her shoulder / the shoulder pain

The owner is usually understood from the context. Here, since the pain affects her, English often translates it as the pain in her shoulder.

No. Få has several meanings depending on context.

Common meanings include:

• get / receive
  • Jeg fik en gave. = I got a gift.
• be allowed to
  • Jeg fik lov til at gå. = I was allowed to go.
• make / cause
  • Det fik mig til at tænke. = It made me think.

In this sentence, fik clearly means made or caused.

Grammatically, yes, that is a close literal rendering of the Danish structure. But in natural English, made her stay home or caused her to stay home is usually better.

So:

• more literal: got her to stay home
• more natural English here: made her stay home / caused her to stay home

The Danish itself is completely natural.

Yes. Danish is a verb-second language, so the finite verb must come right after the first element.

Original:

• Smerten i skulderen fik hende til at blive hjemme fra arbejde i går.

With I går first:

• I går fik smerten i skulderen hende til at blive hjemme fra arbejde.

Notice that fik moves into second position, before the subject smerten i skulderen.

This is one of the most important word-order rules in Danish.