Learn how to ask "What?"
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| 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 komme. |
| We will now jump into our lessons dedicated to question words in Danish. Up first is one of the most commonly used question words in Danish, and it is "What." You’ll see that it’s a short and simple word in Danish. Namely, Hvad. |
| So imagine you want to ask your friend "What are you doing?" How will you do it? |
| You will ask Hvad laver du? |
| [slowly] Hvad laver du? |
| So let’s break down this answer. |
| Hvad is the interrogative "What" in Danish. |
| Laver is the present tense of the verb "to do". |
| And finally, du, as you are probably familiar with by now is “you”.. |
| So, all together it is Hvad laver du? |
| “What are you doing?” |
| As you may have noticed, we already learned this question a few lessons ago, but there are several other ways to pose the same question. The most important thing, however, is that all of them start with hvad. |
| The rule is simple- in Danish hvad will always be the first word in the sentence when asking a “what” question. |
| Asking someone’s name would be- |
| Hvad hedder du? |
| [slowly] Hvad hedder du? |
| Here hvad is the first word, followed by hedder which means “is called or named”. |
| And finally du which you should know by now means “you”. |
| Asking “what is it/that” is as easy as in English. Just say |
| Hvad er det? |
| [slowly] Hvad er det? |
| Also, we can use a word we already learned to ask about people’s preferences. |
| Hvad slags mad kan du lide? |
| [slowly] Hvad slags mad kan du lide? |
| It means “What kind of food do you like?” |
| I bet you already know how to answer this! Jeg kan godt lide… That means “I like…” |
| Now it’s time for [name]’s Insights. |
| A heavily used phrase in Danish is “what’s up”, Hvad så? Like English, the phrase is used to initiate conversation. Often if you want to spend time with the person you would initiate the conversation with a hvad så? It’s an incredibly practical phrase to have when you’re around Danes, so I’ll say it again. |
| Hvad så? |
| Before ending this lesson, let’s look at one more use for hvad, a question you will likely hear quite often in Denmark. It’s “What do you want?” - Hvad vil du have? |
| [slowly] Hvad vil du have? |
| You will no doubt hear it when people are serving you food, in restaurants, cafés, and so on. So remember it in case someone asks. |
| In this lesson, you learned the Danish word for “what”. It’s a simple word, yet its usage is wide and you might have a hard time remembering all the different questions you can ask, but don’t worry, you just need to practice! |
| In the next lesson, we will talk the interrogative word "Where". |
| Do you know it already? I can promise it’s just as easy as "what"! |
| I’ll be waiting for you in the next Dansk på 3 minutter. |
| Hav det godt! |
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