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Lesson Transcript

Hej, jeg hedder [name]. Hi everybody! I’m [name].
Welcome to DanishClass101.com’s “Dansk på 3 minutter”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Danish.
In the last lesson, you learned how to use the verb at skulle which among other things means "to go" in Danish.
In this lesson, we will continue our lesson series dedicated to very common Danish verbs.
The second verb in our series is at lave, which here means "to do." Though it is most often used in questions, there are not a lot of these questions. However, you will use these few questions a lot.
So imagine someone asks you Hvad laver du?
That means "What are you doing?" in an informal form.
So if you are doing your homework, for example, you will say in Danish Jeg laver lektier.
[slowly] Jeg laver lektier.
So let’s break down this answer.
First we had-
Jeg laver which is "I am doing."
It is the present form of the verb at lave, which is "to do" in infinitive.
Next was lektier which is the noun for "homework" in the plural form. This noun is always in the plural form if it means “homework”.
Note that in Danish, you can use the present tense form to say that you are doing nothing right now.
For example, if someone asks you what you are doing, and you are doing nothing, you can tell them Jeg laver ingenting! which literally means "I am doing nothing!" Here we are using the present tense form.
Let’s look at some other questions with which we can use the verb at lave. As I said earlier there aren’t a lot of these, but that doesn’t mean you won’t use them a lot.
Remember at skulle from the previous lesson? This time we will use it along with at lave to form the question Hvad skal vi lave? which means “What are we going to do?”
[slowly] Hvad skal vi lave?
As you might remember, to direct the question at someone else, all you do is change the pronoun. To ask someone “What are you going to do?” you simply switch vi with du in the previous sentence.
Hvad skal du lave?
[slowly] Hvad skal du lave?
Finally, let’s look at how to ask if someone is busy at the moment. To do this you have to place the verb at lave first in the sentence. So it will look like this - laver du noget nu?
[slowly] laver du noget nu?
Literally this translates as “are you doing anything now?” Noget means “something” or “anything,” and nu means “now.”
Now it’s time for [name]’s Insights.
In Danish, we often say hvad skal du lave i aften? which means “What are you going to do tonight?”
For example, if you want to go out with that friend tonight, you can ask this question to see if they are available. It will sound very natural - Hvad skal du lave i aften?
In this lesson, you learned how to use the verb at lave in many different contexts, and I’m sure it will help you a lot!
Next time we’ll learn another very useful and romantic verb, at kunne lide.
Do you know what this Danish verb means? I’m sure you have an idea!
I’ll be waiting for you in the next Dansk på tre minutter.
Vi ses igen!

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