DA RESPUESTAS - Dansk

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🕒 How do you Express the Past in Danish?

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DA RESPUESTAS

Waerde profile picture WaerdeOctober 2022
Past tense in Danish is made by adding a -de or -te ending. There is no conjugation.
Examples:
At tale (to speak) -> talte (spoke)
At være (to be) -> var (was/were irregular)
At danse (to dance) -> dansede (danced)
At spille (to play) -> spillede (played)
At have (to have) -> havde (had, irregular)
Wordylady profile picture WordyladyOctober 2022

What Waerde means is that there’s no conjugation of verbs regarding person and number. ’To be’ and ’to have’ function as auxiliaries like in plenty of other languages and indeed don’t take the regular -(e)de or -te endings. But there is a number of stem-changing irregular verbs, too, whose infinitive and present-tense vowels change in the past tense, e.g.:

at synge (to sing), synger (present tense), sang (past tense)

at gå (to walk), går (present tense), gik (past tense)

at slå (to hit), slår (present tense), slog (past tense)

at trække (to pull), trækker (present tense), trak (past tense)

at nyse (to sneeze), nyser (present tense), nøs (past tense)

Etc, etc