Hvis hun går tilbage til bilen, mister hun pladsen i køen.

Hvis means if. It introduces a condition:

• Hvis hun går tilbage til bilen = If she goes back to the car

So the sentence is saying that one thing will happen on the condition that another thing happens.

This is because Danish follows the verb-second rule in main clauses.

The first whole chunk, Hvis hun går tilbage til bilen, counts as the first element of the sentence. After that, the finite verb of the main clause must come next:

• Hvis hun går tilbage til bilen, mister hun pladsen i køen.

So the order is:

1. subordinate clause: Hvis hun går tilbage til bilen
2. finite verb of main clause: mister
3. subject: hun

This is very common in Danish. Compare:

• Hun mister pladsen i køen.
• Hvis hun går tilbage til bilen, mister hun pladsen i køen.

Danish often uses the present tense to talk about:

• general truths
• likely future results
• conditions

So even though the sentence refers to what will happen, Danish uses present tense:

• går = goes
• mister = loses

This works like English in sentences such as:

• If she goes back, she loses her place.

In more natural English, you might often say she will lose, but Danish commonly keeps the present tense here.

Tilbage means back.

So:

• går = goes / walks
• går tilbage = goes back

It adds the idea of returning to a previous place.

Examples:

• Hun går tilbage. = She goes back.
• Hun går tilbage til bilen. = She goes back to the car.

Til means to.

So:

• til bilen = to the car

The noun bil means car, and bilen means the car. Danish usually adds the definite article to the end of the noun:

• en bil = a car
• bilen = the car

So går tilbage til bilen literally means goes back to the car.

Pladsen means the place / the spot.

Here it refers to a specific place: her place in the queue. Because it is understood as a definite, specific spot, Danish uses the definite form:

• en plads = a place / a spot
• pladsen = the place / the spot

In English, we often say lose her place in line, and Danish expresses that idea with mister pladsen i køen.

It could, but pladsen is very natural here.

• mister pladsen i køen = loses her place in the queue
• mister sin plads i køen = loses her place in the queue

Both can work. Using pladsen is common when the context already makes it obvious whose place is meant. Since the subject is hun, it is naturally understood to be her place.

So pladsen is not wrong or incomplete here at all.

Because Danish uses the expression i kø / i køen for being in a queue / in line.

• kø = queue, line
• i køen = in the queue / in line

This is just the normal preposition used with this idea in Danish.

Also, køen is the definite form:

• en kø = a queue
• køen = the queue

So:

• pladsen i køen = the place in the queue

The base noun is kø, which means queue or line.

It is a common-gender noun:

• en kø = a queue
• køen = the queue

The ending -en is the usual definite ending for many common-gender nouns in Danish.

The same pattern appears in:

• en bil → bilen
• en plads → pladsen
• en kø → køen

Because Danish normally uses a comma to separate the subordinate clause from the main clause.

Here:

• Hvis hun går tilbage til bilen = subordinate clause
• mister hun pladsen i køen = main clause

So the comma helps mark the structure of the sentence.

Yes, gå literally means walk, but in many contexts it is also used more generally as go.

So går tilbage til bilen can be understood as:

• walks back to the car
• goes back to the car

Which translation sounds best depends on context. Danish often uses gå where English would simply say go.

Yes. This is a normal real or open condition.

It presents a likely or possible consequence:

• condition: Hvis hun går tilbage til bilen
• result: mister hun pladsen i køen

It does not suggest something unreal or hypothetical in the past. For that, Danish would use different tense patterns. Here it is simply talking about what happens if she does that.