De henter affaldet herfra.

It can mean either, depending on context.

• de = they
• De = formal you

But because this word is at the beginning of the sentence, it is capitalized anyway, so De here is spelling-wise ambiguous.

So De henter affaldet herfra could mean either:

• They collect the garbage from here
• You collect the garbage from here (formal)

In modern everyday Danish, du is much more common than formal De, so without special context many learners will first assume they.

henter is the present tense of at hente.

• at hente = to fetch / to collect / to pick up
• henter = fetches / collects / picks up

Danish verbs do not change for different persons the way English verbs do. So the same present-tense form is used with all subjects:

• jeg henter = I collect
• du henter = you collect
• han/hun henter = he/she collects
• de henter = they collect

So henter does not specifically mean plural; it is just the normal present-tense form.

Because affaldet is the definite form: the garbage / the waste.

• affald = garbage, waste
• affaldet = the garbage, the waste

In Danish, the definite article is often added as an ending instead of as a separate word.

Here, affald is a neuter noun, so the definite singular ending is -et:

• et affald (rare as an isolated phrase, but grammatically neuter)
• affaldet = the waste / the garbage

So the sentence is talking about specific garbage/waste, not garbage in general.

Affald is a broad word and can often be translated as:

• waste
• garbage
• trash
• sometimes rubbish

The best English translation depends on context.

For example:

• household trash -> garbage/trash
• general refuse or disposal language -> waste
• municipal collection context -> often garbage or waste

So in this sentence, affaldet most likely means the garbage / the waste being collected.

Herfra means from here.

Danish often uses one-word adverbs like:

• her = here
• der = there
• hvor = where
• herfra = from here
• derfra = from there
• hvorfra = from where

So herfra is the normal compact Danish way to say from here.

You may also hear structures with fra separately in other contexts, but herfra is very common and natural.

The structure is:

• De = subject
• henter = finite verb
• affaldet = object
• herfra = adverbial/place expression

So the sentence follows the common Danish main-clause pattern:

Subject + Verb + Object + Adverbial

This is very similar to normal English word order:

• They collect the garbage from here.

Yes. Danish is a V2 language, which means the finite verb usually stays in the second position in a main clause.

So you can say:

• Herfra henter de affaldet.

This still means roughly:

• From here, they collect the garbage.

Notice what happens:

• When herfra moves to the front,
• the verb henter stays second,
• and the subject de comes after the verb.

That inversion is very typical in Danish main clauses.

Not always. At hente is a flexible verb that can mean:

• fetch
• pick up
• collect
• sometimes get

In this sentence, collect or pick up is usually the most natural translation, especially if the context is waste collection.

So although hente can mean fetch, that is not always the best English choice.

It exists, but it is much less common than it used to be.

Modern Danish usually uses:

• du = you (singular, normal everyday form)
• I = you (plural)

Formal De may still appear in:

• very formal letters
• customer service
• official or old-fashioned style
• situations where someone wants to sound especially polite or distant

In ordinary conversation, most Danes would not use De.

So if a learner sees De in a sentence like this, it is worth checking whether it is:

• just sentence-initial de = they, or
• genuinely formal De = you

A careful pronunciation would be roughly:

de HEN-ter AF-fal-et HER-fra

A few helpful notes:

• De/de is often pronounced somewhat like dee or a softer thee-like sound depending on accent and context.
• henter has stress on the first syllable: HEN-ter
• affaldet has stress near the start: AF-fal-et
• herfra has stress on fra or can sound like one smooth unit, depending on rhythm

As in all Danish, the actual spoken form is often more reduced than the spelling suggests.

Yes, in some contexts that is a possible English rendering.

The Danish present tense henter can translate into English in different ways depending on context:

• They collect the garbage from here
• They pick up the garbage from here
• They are getting the garbage from here

Usually, for a routine action such as waste collection, collect or pick up sounds most natural in English. Danish does not have a separate grammatical form that matches the English be + -ing exactly, so context decides the best translation.