Family and Pets at Home | Learn Danish in English

Sentence explanations

1. Bor du sammen med din familie?

   Do you live with family?

   Bor

   live

   du

   you

   sammen med

   with; together with

   din

   your

   familie

   family

   More detail

   Bor is the present-tense form of bo, “to live.” In a yes/no question, Danish commonly places the finite verb before the subject: Bor du ...? means “Do you live ...?” The same form bor is used with different subjects in the present; for example, Jeg bor her. means “I live here.” du means “you” for one person. It is the subject form used here. Compare jeg (“I”) in Jeg bor sammen med mit barn. sammen med is a reusable expression meaning “together with” or, in this context, simply “with.” It introduces the person or group someone lives alongside. For example, Jeg bor sammen med min ven. means “I live with my friend.” din means “your” and agrees with the noun it modifies. Here it is used with familie, which is a common-gender singular noun: en familie, “a family,” so the matching possessive is din familie. The corresponding possessive for a neuter singular noun is dit, as in dit barn, “your child.” familie means “family.” Its base form is familie; the indefinite singular is en familie, and the definite singular is familien, “the family.” In din familie, the possessive determiner already identifies the family, so Danish does not add the definite article. Together, Bor du forms the yes/no question “Do you live?” and sammen med din familie adds “with your family.” The complete utterance therefore means “Do you live with family?”; more literally, the Danish wording says “Do you live together with your family?”

2. Jeg bor sammen med mit barn.

   I live with my child.

   Jeg

   I

   bor

   live

   sammen med

   together with

   mit

   my

   barn

   child

   More detail

   Jeg means “I” here: it is the first-person singular subject pronoun. Danish subject pronouns include jeg “I,” du “you” (singular), and vi “we.” Example: Jeg arbejder. — “I work.” bor is the present-tense form of bo, “to live.” Danish present tense commonly uses the same verb form with different subjects: jeg bor “I live,” du bor “you live,” and de bor “they live.” Example: Jeg bor i Aarhus. — “I live in Aarhus.” sammen med is the reusable prepositional construction “together with” or, in this context, simply “with.” It introduces the person or thing someone lives together with. Example: Hun bor sammen med sin ven. — “She lives with her friend.” mit means “my” before a singular neuter noun. Danish possessive forms contrast by the noun’s grammatical gender and number: min is used with a singular common-gender noun, mit with a singular neuter noun, and mine with plural nouns. The possessive form agrees with the possessed noun, not with the person who owns it. barn means “child.” It is a neuter noun: et barn “a child,” barnet “the child,” and børn “children.” In this sentence, mit barn means “my child”; mit is the neuter singular possessive form required by barn. Together, Jeg bor sammen med mit barn. has the structure “I live together with my child,” naturally translated as “I live with my child.” The subject is Jeg, bor states the present situation, and sammen med mit barn identifies the person the speaker lives with.

3. Er der også et kæledyr derhjemme?

   Is there a pet at home too?

   Er der

   is there

   også

   also; too

   kæledyr

   pet

   derhjemme

   at home

   More detail

   Er der forms a Danish existential question: it asks whether something exists or is present in a place. The corresponding statement pattern is Der er ... (“There is/are ...”); turning it into a question places Er before der: Er der ...? Here, er is the present form of være (“to be”), while der is the existential word, not a specific person or object. Example: Er der kaffe? — “Is there coffee?” også means “also” or “too”. It marks the pet as an additional thing included in the question. Its exact position can vary with the sentence structure, but in this utterance it comes after the existential question opening. kæledyr means “pet”. It is a neuter noun: the singular indefinite form is et kæledyr, the definite singular is kæledyret, and the plural is kæledyr; the plural definite form is kæledyrene. Example: Hun har et kæledyr. — “She has a pet.” derhjemme means “at home” and functions as a place adverb. It is a fixed form for referring to being at home; it is not the same construction as the existential der in Er der. A related form is hjemme, meaning “at home” without the initial der. Example: Børnene er derhjemme. — “The children are at home.” Together, Er der asks whether something is present, også adds the sense “too”, et kæledyr supplies the thing being asked about, and derhjemme specifies the place. The complete utterance therefore means: “Is there a pet at home too?”

4. Vi har en lille hund.

   We have a small dog.

   Vi

   we

   har

   have

   lille

   small

   hund

   dog

   More detail

   Vi means “we”: it is the first-person plural subject pronoun, used for the speaker together with at least one other person. Its singular counterpart is jeg (“I”). Example: Vi bor her. — “We live here.” har is the present-tense form of have (“to have”). It is used with all subjects in the present tense: jeg har (“I have”), du har (“you have”), and vi har (“we have”). Here it expresses possession. Example: De har en bil. — “They have a car.” lille means “small” here and describes hund. In the indefinite singular, it is used with both common-gender and neuter nouns: en lille hund (“a small dog”) and et lille hus (“a small house”). The plural form is små, as in små hunde (“small dogs”). In the definite singular, the form remains lille, as in den lille hund (“the small dog”); in the definite plural, it is små. The comparative is mindre (“smaller”), and the superlative is mindst (“smallest”). Example: en lille bog — “a small book.” hund means “dog.” It is a common-gender singular noun: en hund means “a dog”, and hunde means “dogs”. Example: Hunden sover. — “The dog is sleeping.” Together, en lille hund means “a small dog”: en introduces an indefinite singular noun phrase, and lille describes the noun. The subject Vi plus present-tense har gives “We have”, so the complete utterance is “We have a small dog.”

5. Hvordan har de det sammen?

   How do they get along?

   Hvordan

   how

   har de det

   are they doing

   sammen

   together

   More detail

   Hvordan asks how something is or happens, often focusing on manner or quality. In Hvordan går det?, it means “How is it going?” Here it asks about the quality of the interaction described by the rest of the sentence. har de det contains har, the present-tense form of have, with the subject pronoun de (“they”) and the pronoun det (“it/that”). In this expression, har det means how someone is doing or feeling; it does not by itself mean “get along.” Har is the present form of have and does not change for person or number. Compare De har det godt — “They are doing well.” Sammen means “together.” It adds the idea that the subjects are interacting with each other. A reusable example is Vi arbejder sammen — “We work together.” Together, Hvordan har de det sammen? asks how the subjects get along, or what their relationship is like. The meaning “get along” comes from the combination of asking how they are sammen, rather than from har de det alone.

6. De leger sammen hver dag.

   They play together every day.

   De

   they

   leger

   play

   sammen

   together

   hver

   every

   dag

   day

   More detail

   De means “they” here. It is the third-person plural pronoun. Danish also has a capitalized formal “you” form, but the fixed translation identifies the meaning here as “they.” leger means “play” in this sentence. Its base form is lege (“to play”), and leger is the present-tense form: De leger = “They play.” Danish commonly marks the present tense of verbs with -r, although the exact form depends on the verb. sammen means “together.” It is an adverb that describes the manner or arrangement of the playing. The reusable pattern lege sammen means “play together.” hver means “every” in hver dag. It introduces a repeated time expression. hver is used with a singular noun; with a neuter singular noun, Danish uses hvert, as in hvert år (“every year”). dag means “day.” In hver dag, it is singular and means “every day.” The same noun can appear in the plural as dage (“days”); hver dag is the regular pattern for a daily occurrence. Together, De leger sammen means “They play together,” and hver dag adds the frequency “every day.” The complete utterance is therefore: “They play together every day.”