Udlejeren skriver: “Kan De underskrive kontrakten i dag?”

Udlejeren means the landlord.

The base word is udlejer = landlord / lessor.
The ending -en is the Danish definite article attached to the noun, so:

• udlejer = a landlord
• udlejeren = the landlord

This is very common in Danish. Instead of putting a separate word like the before the noun, Danish often adds the definite ending to the noun itself.

De is the formal, polite form of “you” in Danish.

It is capitalized to distinguish it from:

• de = they
• De = formal you

So in this sentence, the landlord is addressing someone politely and formally.

A native English speaker might think of it as something like older or more formal English you in a business letter. In modern spoken Danish, De is much less common than du, but it can still appear in formal writing, customer service, or when someone wants to sound especially polite or distant.

Here, De is most likely singular formal “you”, though historically it can also be used as formal plural.

In practice, when you see De in a sentence like this, it usually means the speaker is politely addressing one person.

So:

• du = informal you
• De = formal you

Unlike English, Danish can mark this difference clearly.

Because after the modal verb kan (can), Danish uses the bare infinitive.

So:

• kan underskrive = can sign
• not kan at underskrive

This works like English:

• Can you sign ... ?
• not Can you to sign ... ?

Other common Danish modal verbs behave the same way, for example:

• vil = want to / will
• skal = must / shall
• må = may / must
• bør = ought to

So underskrive stays in the infinitive without at.

Underskrive is the infinitive form of the verb, meaning to sign.

A few useful forms are:

• at underskrive = to sign
• underskriver = signs / is signing
• underskrev = signed
• har underskrevet = has signed

In the sentence Kan De underskrive kontrakten i dag?, it appears in the infinitive because it follows kan.

Yes, but they are very close in meaning.

• underskrive is the standard single-word verb meaning to sign
• skrive under is also used and literally means write underneath, but in modern Danish it can also mean sign

In formal or written contexts like contracts, underskrive is especially common and sounds very natural.

So in this sentence, underskrive kontrakten is exactly the kind of phrasing you would expect.

For the same reason as udlejeren: it is in the definite form.

• kontrakt = contract
• kontrakten = the contract

So Danish often expresses the by adding an ending to the noun.

This sentence uses kontrakten because it refers to a specific contract that both people know about.

Because in Danish, i dag is the normal spelling for today when used as an adverbial expression.

So:

• i dag = today

This may look a little surprising to English speakers, since English writes today as one word.

Danish often keeps expressions like this separate:

• i morgen = tomorrow
• i går = yesterday

So i dag is completely standard.

This is normal Danish word order for a yes/no question.

The structure is:

• Kan = finite verb
• De = subject
• underskrive = infinitive
• kontrakten = object
• i dag = time expression

So the pattern is basically:

Verb + subject + infinitive + object + time

That is similar to English:

Can + you + sign + the contract + today?

In a statement, the order would be different:

• De kan underskrive kontrakten i dag.
  = You can sign the contract today.

But in the question, the verb comes first.

It sounds polite and formal.

A landlord writing Kan De underskrive kontrakten i dag? sounds respectful, businesslike, and somewhat distant. In modern Danish, many people would instead use du, especially if the relationship is not very formal:

• Kan du underskrive kontrakten i dag?

That version is much more common in everyday spoken Danish.

So if you learn De, it is useful to recognize it, but you should know that it can sound old-fashioned, very formal, or customer-service-like depending on the context.

Yes, that is possible, but the nuance is a little different.

• Kan De underskrive kontrakten i dag?
  = Are you able to sign the contract today? / Can you sign it today?
• Vil De underskrive kontrakten i dag?
  = Would you sign the contract today? / Are you willing to sign it today?

In real usage, both can function as polite requests. But:

• kan focuses more on possibility/ability
• vil can sound more like willingness or a polite request

So Kan De ... ? is asking whether it can be done today, while Vil De ... ? leans a bit more toward asking the person to do it.

A rough pronunciation guide is:

Udlejeren skriver
≈ OOD-lie-er-en SKREE-ver

Kan De underskrive kontrakten i dag?
≈ kan dee OON-er-skree-ve kon-TRAK-ten ee DAI?

A few notes:

• De is usually pronounced like dee
• skrive has a long i sound, like ee
• dag often sounds closer to dai than a hard English dag
• Danish pronunciation is softer and more reduced than spelling suggests, so listening to native audio is especially important

If you are speaking carefully as a learner, a clear pronunciation of each word is perfectly fine.

The colon introduces direct speech:

• Udlejeren skriver: Kan De underskrive kontrakten i dag?

It works like English The landlord writes: followed by the exact words written.

This punctuation is normal when introducing a quotation, message, or exact wording. It helps show that what follows is the landlord’s actual sentence.