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Lesson Transcript

Hej, jeg hedder [name]. Hi everybody! I’m [name].
Welcome to DanishClass101.com’s “Dansk på tre minutter”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Danish.
In our previous lessons, you learned how to use the verbs at være and at have. In this lesson, you’re going to learn how to turn these two verbs into their negative forms in order to say "I'm not" and "I don't have."
So let's take an example. Imagine you are about to go to a party with a Danish friend. You ask him if he is ready, and he answers Nej, jeg er ikke klar.
Then, you ask him if he has a car to use to go to the party and he says Nej, jeg har ikke bil.
Let’s break down these two negative sentences.
Nej, jeg er ikke klar
Nej, jeg har ikke bil
[slowly] Nej, jeg er ikke klar/ Nej, jeg har ikke bil
Did you catch some similar words in these two sentences?
Right! In each sentence, you have one little word, ikke. This is the special word used to make a verb negative in Danish.
So let's have a look at the way to switch from affirmative to negative.
First let’s look at the verb at være. If your friend *were* ready, he would say Jeg er klar, “I am ready.” But he actually said Nej, jeg er ikke klar.
So basically, you just have to put the word ikke after the verb to make it negative.
Now let's look at an example with the verb at have, meaning "to have"-
"I have a car" is jeg har en bil, and "I don't have a car" is Jeg har ikke bil.
But wait, this is a little different from the affirmative version. You might have noticed how the article en disappeared from the negative sentence. It is optional to have it in the sentence, but usually it sounds better without it.
So now, how would you say "I don't eat meat"? For reference, “I eat meat” is Jeg spiser kød. Put ikke after spiser.
Jeg spiser ikke kød.
[slowly] Jeg spiser ikke kød.
Easy, don't you think? Now you can turn many sentences into negative form just by adding this little word Ikke after the verb.
Now it’s time for [name]’s Insights.
If you want to answer negatively but without being too direct, you can add the words så godt after the ikke. This will mean "I don't really..."
So if you want to say "I don't really sing well," it will be Jeg synger ikke så godt.
Get ready for the next lesson because we are going to study a really important part of the Danish language - using adjectives.
I’ll be waiting for you in the next Dansk på 3 minutter.
På gensyn!

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