How Do You Say This and That? in Danish

Learn how to ask "How do you say this in Danish?"

Dialogue

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Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION

In this lesson, you will learn a question that will help you improve your Danish vocabulary without carrying a dictionary around with you.“How do you say [something] in Danish?” is a sentence that will amazingly replace your pocket dictionary. The Danes are famous for their beer, designer furniture, produce, open sandwiches, and Danish pastry.

GRAMMAR POINT

“How do you say ‘beer’ in Danish?” is

Hvordan siger man “beer” på Dansk?

Let’s break it down:

(slow) Hvor-dan si-ger man “beer” på Dansk?

Once more:

Hvordan siger man “beer” på Dansk?

The first word, hvordan means, “how”.

(slow) Hvordan.

Hvordan.

This is followed by siger, the present form of “to say”.

(slow) Siger.

Siger.

Next, we have man, which is the indefinite pronoun that means “you”.

(slow) Man.

Man.

After man, just insert the word you want to know in Danish, in this case “beer”.

And at the end of the question you have på dansk translated as “in Danish”.

(slow) På dansk.

På dansk.

Altogether, we have

Hvordan siger man “beer” på dansk?

Literally, this means, “How do you say beer in Danish?”

Remember, we already covered the word “beer” in our previous lessons. In Danish, “beer” is øl.

You can also use this expression without using any English. To accomplish this, you can use the expression “How do you say this in Danish?” In Danish, “this” is det her.

(slow) Det her.

Det her.

So in Danish “How do you say this in Danish?” is

Hvordan siger man det her på Dansk?

Let’s break it down:

(slow) Hvor-dan si-ger man det her på Dansk?

Once again:

Hvordan siger man det her på Dansk?

The structure is exactly the same as the previous sentence, except that instead of “beer” we have the words det her, which are “this” in Danish.

Altogether, we have

(slow) Hvor-dan si-ger man det her på dansk

Hvordan siger man det her på Dansk?

To ask, “How do you say that in Danish?” simply substitute the words det her with det der (“that”).

(slow) det der.

det der.

The phrase will sound like this:

Hvordan siger man det der på dansk?

Let’s break it down:

(slow)Hvor-dan si-ger man det der på dansk?

Once more:

Hvordan siger man det der på dansk?

Det der is “that” in Danish.

While asking these questions, you usually point at the specific thing that you are curious about. It is mostly used for written things though.

For things not written and a more commonly used sentence, you will hear this: Hvad kalder man den her på dansk?

Hvad hedder den her på dansk?

These sentences would be translated as “What do you call this in Danish?” and “What is this called in Danish?”

Let’s look at the first sentence

(slow) Hvad kalder man den her på Dansk?

Now the question has changed to “what” hvad.

(slow) Hvad.

Hvad.

Then we have the word kalder, the present form of the verb “to call”

(slow) Kalder.

Kalder.

And in the end we have man den her på Dansk which directly means “you this in Danish.”

If you notice, unlike the first question we covered, here we used the common gender denominator instead. So det her became den her. But it still has the meaning of “this”. So in this question, if you want to ask for “that” you change it to den der instead of det der.

Altogether that is:

(slow) Hvad kalder man den her på dansk?

Hvad kalder man den her på dansk?

Now for the second form:

Hvad hedder den her på Dansk?

The base of this question is the same as the previous one, but we have changed the verb to hedde which is “to state”, but is translated as “called”.

(slow) Hedder.

Hedder.

Actually, you can use both common and neuter gender det and den in these questions. There is no real rule about when you should use which.

Let’s hear it again:

(slow) Hvad hedder den her på Dansk?

Hvad hedder den her på Dansk?

“What is this called in Danish?”

Now let’s imagine that you are invited to a birthday party. You will need to know how to say “Happy birthday” in Danish. The question sounds like this:

Hvordan siger man Happy birthday på dansk?

“How do you say ‘happy birthday’ in Danish?”

(slow) Hvor-dan siger man Ha-ppy birth-day på dansk?

Hvordan siger man Happy birthday på dansk?

The first word is hvordan which means “how”.

Then you have siger man, which is translated as “do you say”

(slow) Siger man.

Siger man.

Next we have the words you need translated, and at the end of the question comes på dansk which means “in Danish”.

Altogether:

Hvordan siger man “Happy birthday”på dansk?

By the way, Danes say Tillykke med fødselsdagen!

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