Vi hakker tomat og agurk til salaten, fordi gæsterne kommer om lidt.

In Danish, food items are often used in a bare singular form when talking about ingredients in a general way, especially in cooking contexts.

So Vi hakker tomat og agurk can sound like We’re chopping tomato and cucumber as ingredients, not necessarily emphasizing the exact number of items.

If you wanted to stress the individual whole items, you could also say en tomat og en agurk.

Yes, sometimes you can, but the nuance changes a little.

• tomat og agurk = ingredient-style wording; more general
• en tomat og en agurk = one tomato and one cucumber
• tomater og agurker = tomatoes and cucumbers in plural, suggesting several of each or speaking more generally about them as countable items

In a kitchen sentence like this, the bare singular is very natural.

Til often means for use in, for, or to go with something.

Here, til salaten means the tomato and cucumber are being chopped for the salad / to go into the salad.

Using for here would sound less natural. In Danish, for is more often used for meaning for the benefit of someone or because of something, not so much for ingredients going into a dish.

Salaten is the definite form, meaning the salad.

Danish usually marks definiteness by adding an ending to the noun:

• en salat = a salad
• salaten = the salad

In this sentence, it is a specific salad that both speaker and listener already know about, so the definite form is used.

Gæsterne means the guests. It is the definite plural form of gæst.

The pattern is:

• en gæst = a guest
• gæster = guests
• gæsterne = the guests

So the ending -ne is one common way Danish forms the definite plural.

Danish often uses the present tense for:

• actions happening now
• near-future events that are already expected or planned

So:

• Vi hakker ... = we are chopping ...
• gæsterne kommer om lidt = the guests are coming soon / in a moment

This is very similar to English, where present forms can also refer to the near future in the right context.

No. Danish verbs are much simpler in that way.

The present tense form stays the same for all persons:

• jeg hakker
• du hakker
• han/hun hakker
• vi hakker
• I hakker
• de hakker

The same is true for kommer. You do not need a special -s form like English he comes.

Because fordi introduces a subordinate clause.

In standard Danish, subordinate clauses usually keep the order:

subject + verb

So:

• gæsterne kommer om lidt

That is why you do not invert the verb here.

This is different from main clauses in Danish, where the verb usually comes in second position. For example:

• Om lidt kommer gæsterne.

But after fordi, the standard order is gæsterne kommer.

Om lidt means in a little while, soon, or before long.

It usually suggests that something will happen quite soon, but not necessarily immediately this second.

It is very common in everyday Danish.

Compare:

• nu = now
• snart = soon
• om lidt = in a little while / shortly

Om lidt often feels a bit more concrete than snart.

The comma is there because fordi gæsterne kommer om lidt is a subordinate clause.

In Danish, you may often see a comma before subordinate clauses introduced by words like:

• fordi
• at
• som
• hvis

However, Danish comma usage has more than one accepted practice, so learners may sometimes see both versions in real texts:

• ..., fordi gæsterne kommer om lidt
• ... fordi gæsterne kommer om lidt

So the comma in your sentence is normal, but you may also encounter Danish without that comma depending on the writing style being followed.

At hakke means to chop.

It suggests cutting something into smaller pieces, often fairly roughly or repeatedly.

At skære means to cut, which is more general.

So:

• Vi hakker tomat og agurk = we are chopping tomato and cucumber
• Vi skærer tomat og agurk = we are cutting tomato and cucumber

Both can be possible in some situations, but hakker gives a more specific picture of the action.

A few useful pronunciation notes:

• æ in gæsterne is a front vowel, somewhat like the vowel in English cat, but not exactly the same
• g in agurk is a hard g
• the u in agurk is not like English you; it is a more rounded Danish vowel
• the r in Danish is usually pronounced farther back in the mouth than in most English accents

A rough learner-friendly approximation would be:

• gæsterne ≈ GES-tu-ne
• agurk ≈ ah-GOORK

Those are only rough guides, but they can help you get started.