Common Irregular Verbs in Danish

In Brief

Danish irregular verbs do not form the past and past participle with one reliable ending, so learn their principal parts together: gå → gik → gået, se → så → set, komme → kom → kommet, gøre → gjorde → gjort, and sige → sagde → sagt. The good news is that each tense uses the same form for every person: jeg gik, hun gik, and vi gik.

Overview

Irregular verbs are verbs whose forms cannot be produced entirely by the usual Danish patterns. Many change their stem vowel in the past, while others also shorten or otherwise change the stem. These verbs are extremely common: you need them to talk about going somewhere, seeing something, arriving, doing a task, or saying something.

This topic begins at A1 because the verbs appear in everyday conversation from the start. At this stage, the most useful strategy is not to memorize a large historical classification. Instead, learn each verb as a short set of principal parts: the key forms from which you build sentences. For Danish, the essential set is the infinitive (the dictionary form), present, simple past, and past participle.

English also has irregular sets such as “go–went–gone” and “see–saw–seen,” so the basic idea will feel familiar. Danish is simpler in one important respect: a verb does not change according to its subject (the person or thing performing the action). There is no Danish contrast like English “I see” versus “she sees”; both use ser.

How It Works

Learn four forms, not one

The infinitive is the dictionary form, usually shown with at (“to”): at gå, at se. The simple past describes a past situation or completed event: Jeg gik hjem (“I went home”). The past participle is a form normally used with an auxiliary verb (a helping verb), especially har or er: Jeg har set filmen (“I have seen the film”), Hun er kommet (“She has arrived”).

The five central verbs in this lesson have the following forms:

Meaning	Infinitive	Present	Simple past	Past participle
go, walk	at gå	går	gik	gået
see, watch	at se	ser	så	set
come, arrive	at komme	kommer	kom	kommet
do, make	at gøre	gør	gjorde	gjort
say	at sige	siger	sagde	sagt

A change in the stem vowel is easy to see in gå–gik–gået and se–så–set. The sets gøre–gjorde–gjort and sige–sagde–sagt show why it is better to learn complete sets than to look only for vowel patterns. There is no single ending that will correctly produce all five past forms.

The present tense still needs its own form

Most Danish present-tense forms end in -r, including these verbs. Do not use the bare infinitive after the subject:

Subject	Danish	English
jeg	Jeg går.	I go.
du	Du går.	You go.
han/hun	Hun går.	She goes.
vi	Vi går.	We go.
I	I går.	You go.
de	De går.	They go.

The same principle applies in the past: jeg så, hun så, vi så. Once you know the tense form, you already know it for every grammatical person.

Simple past and past participle have different jobs

The simple past can stand as the main verb of a sentence:

• Han kom klokken otte. — “He came at eight.”
• Jeg gjorde det i går. — “I did it yesterday.”
• Hun sagde nej. — “She said no.”

A past participle normally cannot stand alone as the sentence's verb. It combines with a present-tense auxiliary to form the present perfect (a form connecting a past event with the present):

• Han er kommet. — “He has arrived.”
• Jeg har gjort det. — “I have done it.”
• Hun har sagt nej. — “She has said no.”

This distinction is especially worth drilling in pairs: så versus har set, gjorde versus har gjort, and sagde versus har sagt.

Choosing har or er in the perfect

Most verbs form the perfect with har. The movement verbs gå and komme often use er when the focus is arrival, departure, or a change of location.

Danish	English	Focus
Jeg har set filmen.	I have seen the film.	har + set
Vi har gjort arbejdet.	We have done the work.	har + gjort
Hun har sagt det.	She has said it.	har + sagt
Han er kommet hjem.	He has come home.	arrival at a destination
De er gået.	They have left.	departure/change of location
Jeg har gået ti kilometer.	I have walked ten kilometers.	the activity or distance walked

For a beginner, learn er kommet and er gået as useful chunks. The finer contrast between movement as an activity and movement as a transition becomes easier after you have met the perfect tense in full.

Negation and Danish word order

In a simple main clause, ikke (“not”) normally follows the verb that carries the tense:

• Jeg så ikke bilen. — “I did not see the car.”
• Han kom ikke i går. — “He did not come yesterday.”
• Vi har ikke gjort det. — “We have not done it.”

In the last example, har carries the present tense, so ikke follows har and comes before gjort. This pattern helps you identify which form is doing which job.

Examples in Context

Danish	English	Note
Jeg går på arbejde hver morgen.	I go to work every morning.	Present habit with går
I går gik vi hjem klokken ti.	Yesterday we went home at ten.	Simple past of gå
De er gået for fem minutter siden.	They left five minutes ago.	er gået focuses on departure
Kan du se skiltet?	Can you see the sign?	Infinitive after the modal kan
Hun så en gammel ven på stationen.	She saw an old friend at the station.	Simple past of se
Har du set mine nøgler?	Have you seen my keys?	har + set
Bussen kommer om ti minutter.	The bus comes in ten minutes.	Present used for a schedule
Han kom for sent til mødet.	He came late to the meeting.	Simple past of komme
Gæsterne er kommet.	The guests have arrived.	er + kommet
Hvad gør du nu?	What are you doing now?	Present of gøre
Jeg gjorde rent i køkkenet.	I cleaned the kitchen.	gøre rent means “clean”
Alt er gjort klar.	Everything has been made ready.	gjort in a result construction
Hun siger altid godmorgen.	She always says good morning.	Present of sige
Lars sagde, at han var træt.	Lars said that he was tired.	Simple past of sige
Jeg har allerede sagt tak.	I have already said thank you.	har + sagt

Notice that Danish often uses one simple verb where English chooses a phrase or a different verb. Gøre rent literally contains “do,” but the natural translation is “clean.” Learning the whole expression is more useful than translating each word separately.

Common Mistakes

1. Adding a regular past ending

• Wrong: I går gåede jeg hjem.
• Right: I går gik jeg hjem.
• Why: Gå has the irregular past gik. It does not take the regular -ede ending.

The same warning applies to invented forms such as seede and kommede. Use så and kom.

2. Using the participle as a simple past verb

• Wrong: Jeg set ham i går.
• Right: Jeg så ham i går.
• Also right: Jeg har set ham.
• Why: Set is the past participle and normally needs an auxiliary. The simple past is så.

3. Mixing up gjorde and gjort

• Wrong: Vi har gjorde det.
• Right: Vi har gjort det.
• Why: After har, use the past participle gjort. Use gjorde without that auxiliary: Vi gjorde det i går.

4. Mixing up sagde and sagt

• Wrong: Hun har sagde nej.
• Right: Hun har sagt nej.
• Why: Sagde is the simple past; sagt is the participle. Learn the contrast as two complete frames: hun sagde and hun har sagt.

5. Copying English person endings

• Wrong: Jeg gå på arbejde, men hun går hjemmefra senere.
• Right: Jeg går på arbejde, men hun går hjemmefra senere.
• Why: Danish uses går with every subject. Unlike English, it does not reserve an -s-type form for the third-person singular.

6. Always using har with movement

• Less natural for completed departure: De har gået.
• Natural: De er gået.
• Why: When gå means “leave” and the change of location matters, Danish normally uses er. Use har gået when the activity itself is central, as in De har gået hele dagen (“They have walked all day”).

Usage Notes

Gå covers more than English “walk”

Gå can mean “walk,” “go,” “leave,” or “function,” depending on context. Jeg går hjem means “I am going home” and often implies going on foot, while Toget går klokken ni means “The train leaves at nine.” In Hvordan går det? (“How is it going?”), no physical movement is involved. English speakers should therefore avoid forcing the same English verb into every translation.

Se can mean “see” or “watch”

Danish commonly says se en film and se tv, where English normally uses “watch.” The irregular forms stay the same: Vi så en film and Vi har set tv.

Gøre appears in many fixed expressions

Useful combinations include gøre rent (“clean”), gøre klar (“prepare” or “make ready”), gøre ondt (“hurt”), and Det gør ikke noget (“It doesn't matter”). In such expressions, translating gøre mechanically as “do” or “make” may produce unnatural English.

Sige and fortælle do not match “say” and “tell” perfectly word for word

Use sige for the words or message: Hun sagde nej (“She said no”) and Han sagde, at han kom (“He said that he was coming”). When the listener is expressed, Danish can use sige noget til nogen (“say something to someone”). Fortælle is common for telling someone information or telling a story. This is mainly a vocabulary distinction, but it helps you use sagde and sagt naturally.

Beyond the Basics

You do not need to master the following points at A1, but they explain forms you will meet later.

Many prefixed verbs preserve the irregular pattern of the basic verb. For example, indgå (“enter into”) has indgik–indgået; overse (“overlook”) has overså–overset; ankomme (“arrive”) has ankom–ankommet; and afgøre (“decide”) has afgjorde–afgjort. This makes known patterns useful, but always check a new verb because compounds are not guaranteed to behave exactly as you expect.

Past participles also occur in passive and result constructions. Compare Arbejdet er gjort (“The work is done”), which describes a resulting state, with Arbejdet blev gjort i går (“The work was done yesterday”), which presents the event. Here er or blev is the verb carrying tense, while gjort remains the participle.

The choice between har and er with movement is about meaning, not simply a list of “movement verbs.” Han er gået hjem presents a transition and resulting absence; Han har gået hjem mange gange presents repeated walking as an activity. At first, memorize the most frequent combinations. Later, pay attention to whether a sentence highlights the activity or the change of place.

Finally, several other high-frequency Danish verbs have comparable irregular sets: få–fik–fået (“get”), tage–tog–taget (“take”), give–gav–givet (“give”), and blive–blev–blevet (“become/remain”). Learn these in small families only after the five core sets above are secure.

Practice Tips

1. Use four-slot cards. Write at se | ser | så | set on one side and the meaning plus one sentence on the other. Saying the forms aloud as a rhythm makes the contrast easier to retrieve.
2. Transform one sentence three ways. Start with Jeg ser filmen, then make Jeg så filmen i går and Jeg har set filmen. Repeat with gøre and sige. This trains meaning and grammar together instead of testing an isolated list.
3. Listen for complete chunks. In Danish audio, collect phrases such as er kommet, er gået, har set, har gjort, and har sagt. Mark the auxiliary and participle separately, then reuse the chunk in a sentence about your own day.

Related Concepts

• Prerequisite: Present Tense — explains the present forms and why one verb form works with every subject.
• Next step: Simple Past (Datid) — develops the use of past forms in complete narratives.
• Next step: Perfect Tense (Førnutid) — explains how har and er combine with past participles.