Hvis vi havde set køreplanen, ville vi have taget det andet tog.

If we had seen the timetable, we would have taken the other train.

Breakdown of Hvis vi havde set køreplanen, ville vi have taget det andet tog.

• se: to see
• vi: we
• tage: to take
• toget: the train

Questions & Answers about Hvis vi havde set køreplanen, ville vi have taget det andet tog.

What kind of sentence is this grammatically?

It is a past unreal or counterfactual conditional.

The speaker is talking about something that did not happen in the past:

• we did not see the timetable
• so we did not take the other train

Danish builds this very similarly to English:

• Hvis vi havde set køreplanen = If we had seen the timetable
• ville vi have taget det andet tog = we would have taken the other train

Why is the first clause havde set?

Havde set is the past perfect of se.

It is formed with:

• havde = had
• set = seen

So:

• vi havde set = we had seen

In this kind of conditional, Danish normally uses the past perfect in the if-clause, just like English does:

• If we had seen...
• Hvis vi havde set...

Why does the second clause use ville vi have taget?

Because Danish uses ville + have + past participle to express the result that would have happened in the past.

So:

• ville = would
• have = have
• taget = taken

Together:

• ville have taget = would have taken

This is the normal way to express the unreal result of a past condition.