I dag lærer vi udtrykket “lade som om”, når vi taler om noget, der ikke er virkeligt.

In standard Danish, i dag is written as two words.

• i = in/on
• dag = day

So I dag means today.

This is a very common thing for English speakers to notice, because English writes today as one word, but Danish does not.

This is because Danish follows the V2 rule in main clauses. That means the finite verb usually comes in second position.

So when the sentence begins with I dag, the verb must come next:

• I dag lærer vi ...

Not:

• I dag vi lærer ...

You can compare:

• Vi lærer udtrykket i dag.
• I dag lærer vi udtrykket.

Both are correct, but when I dag is moved to the front, the verb lærer stays in second position, and the subject vi comes after it.

Udtrykket means the expression.

The base form is:

• et udtryk = an expression

Danish adds the definite article to the end of the noun:

• udtryk = expression
• udtrykket = the expression

So -et here is the definite ending for a neuter noun.

Because the sentence is talking about the expression itself, not using it as the main action.

Compare:

• Vi lærer udtrykket lade som om.
  = We are learning the expression to pretend / act as if

Here, lade som om is being mentioned as a phrase or dictionary form, so it appears in the infinitive.

This is similar to English saying:

• We are learning the expression to pretend.

Lade som om means to pretend or to act as if something is true when it is not.

Examples:

• Han lader som om, han er syg.
  = He pretends that he is sick.

• Børnene leger og lader som om, de er pirater.
  = The children are playing and pretending they are pirates.

Literally, it does not map neatly word-for-word into natural English, so it is best learned as a fixed expression.

You should mostly learn it as a fixed expression.

The words are:

• lade = let / leave
• som = as
• om = if / about / around, depending on context

But in this combination, lade som om means pretend, and that meaning is not obvious from the individual words alone.

So for learners, the safest approach is:

• memorize lade som om as one unit

Here når means when, in a general or repeated sense.

The sentence means something like:

• when we talk about something that is not real
• whenever we talk about something that is not real

Use når for things that happen generally, regularly, or whenever a situation occurs.

Hvis means if, so it would change the meaning to a condition:

• hvis vi taler om ... = if we talk about ...

That is different from the intended meaning here.

Tale om means to talk about.

• tale = to speak / talk
• om = about

Examples:

• Vi taler om vejret.
  = We are talking about the weather.

• De taler om filmen.
  = They are talking about the film.

So in your sentence:

• når vi taler om noget
  = when we talk about something

This means:

• something that is not real

Here:

• noget = something
• der = that / which
• ikke er virkeligt = is not real

The word der introduces a relative clause.

So the structure is:

• noget
  
  • der ikke er virkeligt

= something that is not real

In this sentence, der is used because it is the subject of the relative clause:

• der ikke er virkeligt
  = that is not real

Here, der stands for noget, and it is the thing that is not real.

In Danish, der is very common in relative clauses when it functions as the subject.

English speakers often expect som because it can also mean as or appear in relative structures, but here der is the natural choice.

Because virkeligt agrees with noget, which is a neuter word.

The adjective is:

• virkelig = real

But with a neuter singular noun, it becomes:

• virkeligt

So:

• noget virkeligt = something real
• noget, der ikke er virkeligt = something that is not real

The -t is a very common adjective ending in Danish for neuter singular.

Not in this sentence.

This is an important point because English speakers may recognize virkelig/virkeligt from another use.

It can mean:

• real as an adjective
• really as an adverb in some contexts

But here it is clearly an adjective meaning real:

• det er virkeligt = it is real

So in this sentence, ikke er virkeligt means:

• is not real

not

• is not really

Yes, very often.

A very common pattern is:

• lade som om + clause

Examples:

• Hun lader som om, hun forstår det.
  = She pretends that she understands it.

• Han lod som om, han sov.
  = He pretended that he was sleeping.

So the expression is frequently used to introduce a situation that is not true, but that someone acts as if it were true.

A natural English version would be:

• Today we’re learning the expression lade som om, when we talk about something that isn’t real.

Or even more naturally:

• Today we’re learning the expression lade som om, which we use when talking about something that isn’t real.

The Danish sentence is fully natural, but English often prefers a slightly smoother structure like which we use when....