Numbers and Time in Danish

In Brief

Danish numbers from 21 put the unit before the ten: enogtyve is literally “one-and-twenty.” The tens halvtreds, tres, halvfjerds, firs, halvfems mean 50–90 and are best learned as a set. For time, Klokken er tre means “It is three o’clock,” while halv fire means 3:30—halfway toward four, not half past four.

Overview

Numbers and time are an A1 foundation in Danish. You need them to understand prices, give your age, make an appointment, read a timetable, and say when something happens. The basic vocabulary is manageable, but two patterns often surprise English speakers: compound numbers reverse the order found in English, and the traditional way of telling time looks ahead to the next hour around the half-hour.

This article covers cardinal numbers (numbers used for counting) from zero to one hundred, everyday clock time, the days of the week, the months, and simple dates. Dates also require a few ordinal numbers (forms such as “first” and “second”), but only the most useful date forms are introduced here; the full system belongs in the separate article on ordinal numbers.

Danish has no equivalent of English capitalization for weekdays and months. Write mandag, juli, and den første maj with lowercase initial letters unless the word begins a sentence.

How It Works

Numbers from 0 to 20

Learn these forms first. They are the building blocks for most larger numbers.

Number	Danish	Number	Danish
0	nul	11	elleve
1	en / et	12	tolv
2	to	13	tretten
3	tre	14	fjorten
4	fire	15	femten
5	fem	16	seksten
6	seks	17	sytten
7	syv	18	atten
8	otte	19	nitten
9	ni	20	tyve
10	ti

The number one follows the gender of a noun: en krone (“one krone”) but et år (“one year”). Danish nouns belong to either common gender, normally used with en, or neuter gender, normally used with et. When counting aloud, en is usual. The accents in én and ét may be added when the meaning “one, exactly one” needs emphasis, but they are not normally required.

The tens and compound numbers

Number	Danish	Number	Danish
20	tyve	60	tres
30	tredive	70	halvfjerds
40	fyrre	80	firs
50	halvtreds	90	halvfems
100	hundrede / et hundrede

For 21–99, place the unit first, add og (“and”), and then add the ten. The result is written as one word:

• 21: en + og + tyve → enogtyve
• 34: fire + og + tredive → fireogtredive
• 58: otte + og + halvtreds → otteoghalvtreds
• 76: seks + og + halvfjerds → seksoghalvfjerds
• 99: ni + og + halvfems → nioghalvfems

This is the reverse of English “twenty-one,” so train yourself to wait for the whole Danish number before interpreting it. The compound form uses en-, even with a neuter noun: enogtyve år, not etogtyve år.

The forms from 50 upward reflect an old counting system based partly on twenties. That history explains why they do not resemble fem, seks, syv, otte, ni as clearly as an English speaker might expect. You do not need the historical arithmetic to use them: learn halvtreds–tres–halvfjerds–firs–halvfems as the sequence 50–60–70–80–90.

Asking for and stating the time

Ask Hvad er klokken? (“What time is it?”). Answer with Klokken er …:

• Klokken er tre. — It is three o’clock.
• Klokken er kvart over tre. — It is quarter past three.
• Klokken er halv fire. — It is half past three.
• Klokken er kvart i fire. — It is quarter to four.

The key words are over (“past”) and i (“to,” in clock expressions). Danish halv fire looks toward the coming hour: it means halfway to four, or 3:30. The same pattern gives halv ni for 8:30.

Times close to the half-hour can be expressed relative to halv:

Time	Everyday Danish	Literal orientation
3:05	fem over tre	five past three
3:15	kvart over tre	quarter past three
3:25	fem i halv fire	five to half four
3:30	halv fire	half four
3:35	fem over halv fire	five past half four
3:45	kvart i fire	quarter to four
3:55	fem i fire	five to four

For appointments, use klokken without an English-style preposition: Mødet begynder klokken ni (“The meeting starts at nine”). In informal conversation, klokken may be shortened to kl. in writing: Vi ses kl. 14.

The 24-hour clock

Timetables, official notices, digital displays, and written appointments commonly use the 24-hour clock. 14.30 is read as fjorten tredive in a schedule-style reading, though in conversation a speaker may simply say halv tre if the part of the day is obvious.

Danish does not normally depend on a.m. and p.m. in ordinary speech. Add a part of the day when clarification is needed:

• klokken syv om morgenen — seven in the morning
• klokken elleve om formiddagen — eleven in the late morning/before noon
• klokken tre om eftermiddagen — three in the afternoon
• klokken otte om aftenen — eight in the evening
• klokken to om natten — two at night

Days of the week

English	Danish
Monday	mandag
Tuesday	tirsdag
Wednesday	onsdag
Thursday	torsdag
Friday	fredag
Saturday	lørdag
Sunday	søndag

Use på for a particular coming day: på mandag (“on Monday”). For a repeated routine, hver mandag (“every Monday”) is simple and unambiguous. Danish also has forms such as i mandags (“last Monday”), which are useful but should be learned as complete expressions.

Months and dates

English	Danish	English	Danish
January	januar	July	juli
February	februar	August	august
March	marts	September	september
April	april	October	oktober
May	maj	November	november
June	juni	December	december

A date uses an ordinal number: a form that gives position in a sequence, such as “first” rather than “one.” The most important irregular forms are første (“first”), anden (“second”), and tredje (“third”). In a full spoken date, use den before the ordinal:

• den første maj — the first of May
• den anden juni — the second of June
• den tredje august — the third of August
• den tiende juli — the tenth of July

In writing, a period after the numeral marks it as an ordinal: 1. maj, 10. juli, 24. december. A full numeric date is often written day-month-year, for example 10.07.2026. This order differs from the month-day-year format familiar to many US English speakers.

Ask Hvad er datoen? for the date and Hvilken dag er det i dag? for the day of the week. To attach a date to an event, use den: Jeg har fødselsdag den 3. april (“My birthday is on April 3”).

Examples in Context

Danish	English	Note
Jeg er enogtyve år.	I am twenty-one years old.	The unit comes before the ten.
Det koster halvtreds kroner.	It costs fifty kroner.	halvtreds = 50.
Vi har fireogtredive gæster.	We have thirty-four guests.	Written as one compound word.
Toget kører klokken syv.	The train leaves at seven.	No preposition before klokken.
Klokken er ti over to.	It is ten past two.	over means “past.”
Vi mødes kvart i seks.	We are meeting at quarter to six.	kvart i seks = 5:45.
Filmen begynder halv ni.	The film starts at half past eight.	halv ni looks ahead to nine.
Bussen går kl. 16.20.	The bus leaves at 4:20 p.m.	A written 24-hour time.
Jeg arbejder på mandag.	I am working on Monday.	A particular coming Monday.
Vi træner hver torsdag.	We train every Thursday.	A repeated weekly routine.
Hun kom i fredags.	She came last Friday.	i fredags refers to the most recent Friday.
Det er den første maj.	It is the first of May.	Spoken date with an ordinal.
Min fødselsdag er den 12. november.	My birthday is November 12.	The period marks an ordinal in writing.
Kurset starter den tredje september.	The course starts on September 3.	Month names stay lowercase.
Jeg ringer klokken otte om aftenen.	I’ll call at eight in the evening.	The day part removes ambiguity.

Common Mistakes

Using English order inside compound numbers

• Wrong: tyveen
• Right: enogtyve
• Why: Danish places the unit before the ten and joins them with og: one-and-twenty.

Interpreting halv fire as 4:30

• Wrong: halv fire = 4:30
• Right: halv fire = 3:30
• Why: Danish counts halfway toward the next named hour. For 4:30, say halv fem.

Adding a preposition before klokken

• Wrong: Mødet starter på klokken ni.
• Right: Mødet starter klokken ni.
• Why: klokken ni itself functions like English “at nine”; no extra preposition is needed.

Capitalizing days and months like English

• Wrong: Mandag den 4. Marts
• Right: mandag den 4. marts
• Why: Danish normally writes weekdays and months with lowercase letters.

Leaving out the ordinal marker in a written date

• Wrong: den 1 maj
• Right: den 1. maj
• Why: The period shows that 1. is read as the ordinal første, not the cardinal en.

Confusing i morgen and om morgenen

• Wrong: Jeg kommer om morgenen when you mean “I’m coming tomorrow.”
• Right: Jeg kommer i morgen.
• Why: i morgen means “tomorrow”; om morgenen means “in the morning.”

Usage Notes

Spoken Danish number words can sound much shorter than their spelling suggests. In particular, the endings and consonants in words such as tredive, halvtreds, and halvfjerds may be difficult to hear at first. Learn from audio as well as print, but keep the standard written forms shown here.

Both the conversational clock and the 24-hour clock are normal. A friend may say Vi ses halv otte, while a ticket displays 19.30. When there is any risk of confusion, repeat the time in 24-hour form or add om morgenen, om eftermiddagen, or om aftenen.

The phrase på mandag usually points to Monday as a specific upcoming occasion; the exact interpretation depends on when the conversation takes place. Hver mandag is safer for “every Monday.” For past weekdays, forms such as i mandags, i tirsdags, and i fredags are common everyday Danish.

Beyond the Basics

You do not need to master the history of the higher tens at A1, but recognizing it can make the apparently irregular forms less mysterious. Tres and firs are historically connected with three and four groups of twenty; halvtreds, halvfjerds, and halvfems reflect “halfway to” the next whole multiple in that old system. In modern Danish, however, these are ordinary fixed words, not calculations speakers perform while talking.

Exact clock time can be phrased in more than one way. Around the half-hour, traditional conversational Danish may use fem i halv fire for 3:25 and fem over halv fire for 3:35. Learners can understand the system by locating halv fire at 3:30 and moving five minutes backward or forward. In formal scheduling, tre femogtyve or a 24-hour form may avoid ambiguity, though actual choices vary with situation and speaker.

Danish writing uses a decimal comma, as in 12,5, rather than the decimal point common in English. A dot can therefore have other jobs, including marking an ordinal in 3. april. Telephone numbers, years, decimals, and larger numbers introduce their own reading conventions; learn them as separate extensions once the 0–100 pattern is secure.

Dates beyond the first few days require more ordinal forms and occasional spelling patterns. They also appear in phrases about deadlines and durations. Continue with ordinal numbers for the complete date system, then temporal expressions for contrasts such as “in two hours,” “for two hours,” and “two hours ago.”

Practice Tips

1. Build the tens as a spoken ladder. Say tyve, tredive, fyrre, halvtreds, tres, halvfjerds, firs, halvfems forward and backward. Then add one unit to each: enogtyve, enogtredive, and so on.
2. Translate clock faces, not English phrases. Pick five random times and locate the next hour before saying a Danish half-hour expression. Write 3:30 beside halv fire until the forward-looking pattern becomes automatic.
3. Use a real weekly calendar. Each day, say the weekday, date, and one appointment aloud: I dag er det fredag den tiende juli. Jeg har et møde klokken halv to. This combines three systems in a useful context.

Related Concepts

• Next step: Ordinal Numbers — learn the full forms used for dates, floors, and sequences.
• Next step: Temporal Expressions — express “yesterday,” “in a moment,” durations, and how long ago something happened.