Efter mødet siger min kollega sin mening roligt, selv når hendes holdning er anderledes end min.

This is because Danish normally uses verb-second word order in main clauses.

The basic order would be:

Min kollega siger sin mening roligt ...
= subject + verb + other elements

But when you move a time expression like Efter mødet to the front, the finite verb still has to stay in the second position:

Efter mødet siger min kollega ...

So Danish is not following English word order here. In English, we would say After the meeting, my colleague says..., but in Danish the verb comes before the subject once another element is placed first.

Efter is a preposition meaning after, and mødet means the meeting.

Why mødet and not møde?

• møde = meeting
• mødet = the meeting

The -et ending is the definite article for many neuter nouns in Danish. So instead of using a separate word for the, Danish often adds it to the end of the noun.

In Danish, sige sin mening is a natural way to express say/give one’s opinion.

• sige = say
• mening = opinion
• sin mening = his/her own opinion

You may also hear expressions like:

• give sin mening til kende = make one’s opinion known
• udtrykke sin mening = express one’s opinion

But sige sin mening is straightforward and idiomatic.

This is a very important Danish grammar point.

Danish uses sin/sit/sine for a reflexive possessive, meaning the thing belongs to the subject of the clause.

In this part:

min kollega siger sin mening

the subject is min kollega, so sin means her own opinion.

If you said hendes mening, it would usually mean someone else’s opinion, not the colleague’s own.

So:

• sin mening = her own opinion
• hendes mening = another woman’s opinion

The form depends on the gender and number of the noun being possessed.

Here the noun is mening, which is a common gender singular noun, so the correct form is sin.

The pattern is:

• sin
  • common gender singular noun
• sit
  • neuter singular noun
• sine
  • plural noun

Examples:

• sin bil = his/her own car
• sit hus = his/her own house
• sine venner = his/her own friends

Because roligt is an adverb, while rolig is an adjective.

• rolig = calm
• roligt = calmly

In the sentence, it describes how the colleague says her opinion, so Danish uses the adverb form:

siger ... roligt = says ... calmly

A common pattern is that many Danish adjectives form the adverb with -t:

• hurtig → hurtigt = quickly
• klar → klart = clearly
• rolig → roligt = calmly

Selv når means even when.

• selv = even
• når = when

It introduces a subordinate clause:

selv når hendes holdning er anderledes end min

This tells us that something remains true under a condition: even in cases where her opinion differs from mine, she still speaks calmly.

Because the subject of this subordinate clause is hendes holdning, not min kollega directly.

The clause is:

når hendes holdning er anderledes end min

Here, holdning itself is the grammatical subject of er. Since the possessive is not reflexive back to the subject holdning, Danish uses the ordinary possessive hendes.

Also, using sin here would sound wrong, because sin refers back to the subject of the same clause. But the subject is holdning, and an opinion cannot possess itself in the intended meaning.

So:

• sin refers back to the subject of its own clause
• here that does not work
• therefore hendes is correct

They are related, but not identical.

• mening usually means opinion, often what someone says or thinks about a specific matter
• holdning means attitude, position, or viewpoint, often something a bit more settled or underlying

In this sentence, using both avoids repetition and sounds natural:

• siger sin mening = expresses her opinion
• hendes holdning er anderledes = her viewpoint/position is different

In many contexts, both can be translated as opinion, but Danish still feels a slight difference.

Because Danish, like English, can leave out a repeated noun when it is obvious from context.

So:

hendes holdning er anderledes end min

means:

her opinion/view is different from mine

Here min stands in for min holdning.

This is very natural. Compare English:

• Her opinion is different from mine not necessarily
• Her opinion is different from my opinion

The shorter version sounds better in both languages.

Because after end in this sentence, Danish uses the possessive form to mean my one / mine, not the object pronoun.

• min = my/mine
• mig = me

Here the idea is:

anderledes end min
= different from mine
= different from my opinion/view

If you used mig, it would mean different from me, which is not the intended meaning.

In many cases, når means when, especially for repeated or general situations.

In this sentence, selv når means even when in a general sense.

Danish also has da, which often refers to when in the sense of a specific event in the past.

A rough contrast is:

• når = when, whenever, in general / in the future
• da = when, at that time in the past

So here når is the right choice because the sentence expresses a general pattern, not one single past event.

Yes, something like that is possible, but the nuance changes a little.

• anderledes = different, in a more general or qualitative sense
• forskellig fra = different from, often more direct and contrastive

So both are understandable, but:

hendes holdning er anderledes end min

sounds natural and smooth in this context.

You should also notice the prepositions/comparison words:

• anderledes end
• forskellig fra

So you cannot freely mix them:

• anderledes fra is not standard here
• forskellig end is not standard here

Yes. kollega can refer to either a male or female colleague.

In this sentence, we know the colleague is female because of:

• hendes holdning

and because earlier sin refers back to min kollega, which in context means her own.

So kollega itself does not tell you the gender, but the possessive later does.