Learn more about grammatical gender in Danish
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Intro |
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| Antoni: Do adjectives have a gender in Danish? |
| Anna Juul: And does noun gender influence adjectives? |
| Antoni: At DanishClass101.com, we hear these questions often. In the following situation, Mark Lee and Diana Dyhr are walking past a car dealership. Mark Lee says, "I want a new car." |
| Mark: Jeg vil have en ny bil. |
| Dialogue |
| Mark: Jeg vil have en ny bil. |
| Diana: Og jeg vil have et nyt hus. |
| Antoni: Once more with the English translation. |
| Mark: Jeg vil have en ny bil. |
| Antoni: "I want a new car." |
| Diana: Og jeg vil have et nyt hus. |
| Antoni: "And I want a new house." |
Lesson focus |
| Antoni: Adjectives are words that modify nouns. Also known as "describing words," they give readers more information about a noun’s description or specification. In Danish, adjectives work a bit differently than in English. For one, they have to always agree with the gender and number of the noun they are modifying. |
| Nouns in Danish can be either |
| Anna: intetkøn |
| Michael: or "neuter", or they can be |
| Anna: fælleskøn |
| Michael: meaning "common gender." Now, with this in mind, let’s take a look at how the adjectives change depending on the gender: |
| Anna Juul: En fin bil |
| Antoni: "A fine car." In this case, the adjective "fine," or |
| Anna Juul: fin |
| Antoni: agrees with the noun "car," or |
| Anna Juul: bil |
| Antoni: The word "car" is a noun in the or "common gender" form in Danish. When the noun is in the neuter form, you have to add a "t" to the adjective. For instance, |
| Anna Juul: Et fint æble |
| Antoni: "A fine apple." The noun "apple" is considered neuter in Danish, which is why we added a "t" to the adjective, |
| Anna Juul: fint |
| Micharl Hillard: What if we’re dealing with plural nouns? In that case, we need to add "e" to the base form of the adjective. For instance, |
| Anna Juul: tre fine biler |
| Antoni: "Three fine cars." Let’s try another example, this time with a neutral noun. |
| Anna Juul: To fine æbler |
| Antoni: "Two fine apples." Here, we see that we always add -e to the base form of the adjective when the noun is in the plural form regardless of its gender. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Antoni: Let’s take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how to say "I want a new car?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Anna Juul: Jeg vil have en ny bil. |
| Antoni: Here, the noun is common gender and in the singular form, which is why the adjective "new," or |
| Anna Juul: ny |
| Michael: is in its base form. |
| [Recall 2] |
| Antoni: Now, let’s take a look at our second sentence. |
| Do you remember how to say "And I want a new house?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Anna Juul: Og jeg vil have et nyt hus. |
| Michael: Without checking what the gender of the word "house" is, we can already know that it’s a neuter noun just by looking at the form of the adjective "new" in the sentence, which is |
| Anna Juul: nyt |
| Michael: As we’ve learned, when the noun being modified by the adjective is a neuter noun, we add "t" to the base form of the adjective. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, you've learned that adjectives in Danish don’t have genders. Instead, they simply agree with the gender of the noun they are modifying and change forms depending whether the noun is a common or a neuter noun. |
| Now, let’s look at some examples. Our first example is: |
| Anna Juul: "han gav hende en grøn telefon" |
| Antoni: "He gave her a green phone." Here, the noun "phone" is a common noun, which is why the adjective "green" stays the same: |
| Anna Juul: grøn |
| Antoni: What happens when we tweak the sentence a bit? |
| Anna Juul: Han gav hende en telefon med et grønt etui. |
| Michael: "He gave her a phone with a green case." In this case, the noun "case," or |
| Anna Juul: etui |
| Michael: is a neuter noun, which is why the adjective received a "t," |
| Anna Juul: grønt |
| Antoni: Let’s try another example. |
| Anna Juul: De har en smuk datter. |
| Michael: "They have a beautiful daughter." Here, the noun "daughter" is a common noun, so the adjective retains its form. Changing the noun into a neuter noun will also change the form of the adjective. |
| Anna Juul: De har et smukt barn. |
| Michael: "They have a beautiful child." We used the same adjective for this sentence, which is "beautiful," but since "child" is a neuter noun, the adjective received a "t." That’s |
| Anna Juul: smuk |
| Antoni: for a common noun, and |
| Anna Juul: smukt |
| Antoni: with a "t" for a neuter noun. |
| Expansion |
| Antoni: Earlier, we mentioned that, when an adjective is modifying a plural noun, we need to add "e" to its base form. There is another instance when we do that, and that is when the noun is in the definite form. For instance, we say |
| Anna Juul: En elegant kjole. |
| Antoni: for "an elegant dress," which is in the indefinite and singular form. And we say |
| Anna Juul: Den elegante kjole |
| Antoni: for "the elegant dress," which is in the definite singular form. |
| Cultural Expansion |
| In Danish, different from Norwegian, there is neither a masculine gender nor a feminine gender for nouns. Instead, it has only two genders, the common gender and the neuter gender. In |
| Anna: Oldnordisk, |
| Michael: or Old Norse, there were three genders: |
| Anna: hankøn, hunkøn og intetkøn |
| Michael: meaning "masculine, feminine and neuter gender." Historically, the common gender of today’s Danish language is a fusion of the feminine gender and the masculine gender from the Old Norse language. This is the reason why it is called "common gender." |
| About 75% of the nouns in Danish are common gender. For a few nouns, however, both common and neuter gender are correct, for example to say "a circus," both |
| Anna: en cirkus |
| Michael: and |
| Anna: et cirkus |
| Michael: are correct. |
Outro |
| Antoni: Do you have any more questions? We’re here to answer them! |
| Anna Juul: Farvel! |
| Antoni: See you soon! |
| Credits: Anna Maria Juul (Danish, Denmark), Antoni (English, synthetic voice) |
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