Danish Verb Tenses

Conjugating regular verbs in the present and past tenses in Danish

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Danish Verbs

The majority of verbs in Danish end in -e in the infinitive and they are only conjugated according to tense, not subject (i.e. the verb does not change, unlike in English where verbs add -s or -es for he/she/it forms in the present.)

Present Tense		Past Tense
jeg taler	I speak	jeg talte	I spoke
du taler	you speak	du talte	you spoke
han taler	he speaks	han talte	he spoke
hun taler	she speaks	hun talte	she spoke
vi taler	we speak	vi talte	we spoke
i taler	you speak	i talte	you spoke
de taler	they speak	de talte	they spoke

Please note the three present tenses in English (simple, progressive and emphatic) are all translated by one verb form in Danish. Jag taler can mean I speak, I am speaking or I do speak.

More Danish verbs

arbejde	to work
spørge	to ask
åbne	to open
tale	to speak
ringe	to ring
lukke	to close
følge	to follow
bygge	to build
tænke	to think
ryge	to smoke
læse	to read
købe	to buy
tro	to believe
bo	to live, dwell

Reflexive Verbs

Some verbs in Danish are reflexive verbs, in that the action by the subject is performed by itself. This is comparable to the -self or -selves pronouns used in English with some verbs, such as he behaves himself. Most of the time, verbs that are reflexive in Danish are not reflexive in English. To conjugate these verbs, simply add these pronouns after the verb:

mig	myself	os	ourselves
dig	yourself	dem	yourselves
sig	himself/herself/itself	sig	theirselves

Commands

The stem of a verb (the infinitive minus the final -e) is often the imperative or command form:

Imperative	Translation
åben!	open!
vent!	wait!
skriv!	write!
læs!	read!

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