Personal Pronouns in Danish

In Brief

Danish subject pronouns are jeg, du, han, hun, den, det, vi, I, de: “I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they.” Use du for one person and capital I for two or more people. For English “it,” choose den for an en-word and det for an et-word; unlike English, Danish verbs do not change according to the person: jeg arbejder, du arbejder, de arbejder.

Overview

A subject pronoun is a short word that stands for the person or thing performing an action or being described. In Hun bor i København (“She lives in Copenhagen”), hun is the subject: she is the person who lives there. Pronouns let you avoid repeating a name or noun again and again.

Personal pronouns are among the first building blocks at A1. You need them to introduce yourself, ask someone a question, and say what people or things do. They are also useful when learning verbs such as være (“to be”) and have (“to have”). Danish makes this part relatively simple: the verb has the same form with every person. For example, er means “am,” “are,” or “is,” depending on its subject.

English-speaking learners have two main distinctions to learn. Danish separates singular du from plural I, while English uses “you” for both. Danish also divides “it” into den and det, according to the grammatical gender of the noun being replaced.

How It Works

The subject pronoun set

In grammar, person tells you whether the speaker is referring to themself (first person), the listener (second person), or someone or something else (third person). Singular means one; plural means more than one.

Person	Singular	Meaning	Plural	Meaning
First person	jeg	I	vi	we
Second person	du	you, one person	I	you, two or more people
Third person	han	he	de	they
Third person	hun	she	—	—
Third person	den	it, for an en-word	—	—
Third person	det	it, for an et-word or a whole idea	—	—

The pronoun I is always written with a capital letter, even in the middle of a sentence. This distinguishes it from lowercase i, the preposition meaning “in” or “at”:

• Bor I i Danmark? — “Do you live in Denmark?”
• Jeg taler med jer — “I am speaking with you.” Here jer is an object form, not the subject form I.

One verb form for every person

Danish verbs do not show person agreement—that is, they do not take different forms for “I,” “you,” and “she.” Compare the present tense of arbejde (“to work”):

Subject	Danish	English
jeg	jeg arbejder	I work
du	du arbejder	you work
han/hun/den/det	han/hun/den/det arbejder	he/she/it works
vi	vi arbejder	we work
I	I arbejder	you work
de	de arbejder	they work

The same principle applies to irregular verbs. Danish uses jeg er, du er, hun er, vi er, and de er, where English changes between “am,” “are,” and “is.” Because the verb form normally does not identify the person, Danish usually needs an explicit subject just as English does.

Choosing between han, hun, den, and det

Use han and hun for people when “he” or “she” is appropriate. They can also refer to animals whose sex is known or treated as relevant.

For things, plants, and animals not referred to by sex, the choice usually follows the noun's grammatical gender—the noun class that determines whether Danish uses en or et:

• an en-word takes den: en bil → Den er ny. (“a car” → “It is new.”)
• an et-word takes det: et hus → Det er gammelt. (“a house” → “It is old.”)
• all plural nouns take de: bilerne → De er nye. (“the cars” → “They are new.”)

This is a grammatical distinction, not a claim that a car or a house has a natural sex. When learning a noun, learn its article at the same time—en bil, et hus—so that the correct pronoun follows naturally.

Det has some additional jobs that do not depend on a particular et-word. It can point to a situation or complete idea: Det er svært (“That/It is difficult”). It is also used in weather and time expressions such as Det regner (“It is raining”) and Det er sent (“It is late”).

Basic sentence position

In a neutral statement, the subject normally comes before the finite verb (the verb form that carries tense):

Jeg arbejder hjemme. — “I work at home.”

In a yes-or-no question, the verb comes before the subject:

Arbejder du hjemme? — “Do you work at home?”

If another element starts a main statement, Danish usually places the verb second and the subject after it:

I dag arbejder jeg hjemme. — “Today I am working at home.”

This last pattern is part of Danish word order. At A1, begin with ordinary subject-first statements, but learn to recognise the pronoun after the verb as well.

Examples in Context

Danish	English	Note
Jeg er dansk.	I am Danish.	First-person singular
Du taler engelsk.	You speak English.	One listener
Han læser avisen.	He is reading the newspaper.	Masculine person
Hun bor i København.	She lives in Copenhagen.	Feminine person
Hvor er bilen? Den står udenfor.	Where is the car? It is outside.	En bil takes den
Hvor er huset? Det ligger ved havet.	Where is the house? It is by the sea.	Et hus takes det
Vi arbejder her.	We work here.	The speaker plus others
Kommer I med toget?	Are you coming by train?	More than one listener; capital I
De spiser frokost nu.	They are eating lunch now.	Third-person plural
Er du klar?	Are you ready?	Pronoun follows the verb in a question
I dag arbejder jeg hjemme.	Today I am working from home.	Pronoun follows the verb when another element comes first
Det regner igen.	It is raining again.	Dummy subject in a weather expression
Hvem er det? Det er min nabo.	Who is it? It is my neighbour.	Det identifies a person here
Anna og jeg tager bussen.	Anna and I are taking the bus.	Pronoun is part of a compound subject
Mikkel siger, at han kommer senere.	Mikkel says that he is coming later.	Han refers back to Mikkel

Common Mistakes

Using lowercase i for plural “you”

• Wrong: Bor i her?
• Right: Bor I her?
• Why: The subject pronoun I is always capitalised. Lowercase i is a preposition meaning “in” or “at.”

Using du for several listeners

• Wrong: Kommer du i morgen? when speaking to two friends
• Right: Kommer I i morgen?
• Why: Du addresses one person. Use I when addressing two or more people, even though English uses “you” in both cases.

Treating den and det as interchangeable

• Wrong: Et æble? Den er på bordet.
• Right: Et æble? Det er på bordet.
• Why: Æble is an et-word, so the pronoun is det. An en-word takes den: En appelsin? Den er på bordet.

Dropping the subject as in a note or command

• Wrong: Arbejder her. for “I work here.”
• Right: Jeg arbejder her.
• Why: A complete Danish statement normally has a subject. Danish does omit the subject in commands such as Kom her! (“Come here!”), but that is a different sentence type.

Changing the present-tense verb for different people

• Wrong: I arbejde her as a present-tense statement
• Right: I arbejd*er her.*
• Why: The present-tense form is arbejder with every subject: jeg arbejder, du arbejder, I arbejder, and de arbejder. The infinitive arbejde is the basic “to work” form.

Using an object form as the subject

• Wrong: Mig bor i Odense.
• Right: Jeg bor i Odense.
• Why: Jeg is the subject form. Mig is used when “me” is affected by an action or follows a preposition: Hun ser mig (“She sees me”), med mig (“with me”).

Usage Notes

Everyday address: du and I

Modern Danish uses du widely: with friends, colleagues, strangers, and often in communication from companies and public bodies. I is not more formal than du; it simply addresses more than one person. A teacher speaking to one student says du, but the same teacher speaking to the whole class says I.

Danish also has formal De, written with a capital D, with corresponding forms Dem (“you” as an object) and Deres (“your”). This form survives in some highly formal service encounters, older texts, and speech addressed to royalty, but it is uncommon in ordinary contemporary conversation. Learners will normally be safest using du with one person unless a particular setting clearly uses De.

Written forms and spoken forms

The table gives the standard written forms. In natural speech, common pronouns may be pronounced in reduced ways, especially when they are unstressed, so they may not sound exactly as a learner expects from the spelling. The spelling does not change. Listening to whole combinations such as jeg er, du har, and de kommer is more useful than trying to hear every pronoun in isolation.

Reference must be clear

A pronoun should have a clear referent—the person, thing, or idea it points back to. In Sofie taler med Emma, fordi hun har et spørgsmål, hun could mean Sofie or Emma. Danish does not solve this ambiguity automatically; repeat the relevant name or rewrite the sentence when clarity matters.

Beyond the Basics

You do not need to master all of the following at A1, but these patterns explain why the same familiar pronouns appear in more advanced Danish.

Det as a general pointer

Besides replacing an et-word, det can refer to an action, fact, or situation:

• Han kommer ikke. Det er mærkeligt. — “He is not coming. That is strange.”
• At lære dansk tager tid, men det er sjovt. — “Learning Danish takes time, but it is fun.”

It is also the normal pronoun in identifications such as Det er Maria (“That/It is Maria”) and Det er mine venner (“Those are my friends”). Here det stays singular in form even when the person or people identified after er are plural. This construction presents or identifies someone; it is not simply replacing Maria or mine venner.

Den and det can also mean “that”

Depending on the sentence, den and det may function as demonstrative pronouns—words that point something out—rather than as plain “it”:

• Jeg vil gerne have den. — “I would like that one.”
• Det forstår jeg ikke. — “I do not understand that.”

Stress and context help distinguish a neutral reference from an emphatic “that one.” The grammatical gender distinction still matters when the pronoun stands for a specific noun.

Danish main-clause word order

Danish follows the verb-second rule in main statements: the finite verb normally occupies the second structural position. A pronoun subject therefore moves after the verb when a time, place, or other element is placed first:

• Normalt spiser vi klokken seks. — “Normally we eat at six.”
• På kontoret taler de dansk. — “At the office they speak Danish.”

The subject has not become an object; its position has changed because of word order.

Pronouns for gender and identity

For a person, use the pronoun that person uses. Alongside traditional han and hun, some Danish speakers use singular de or hen as a gender-neutral or nonbinary pronoun. Usage is still developing and varies by person and context. In direct interaction, following someone's stated preference is clearer than trying to infer a pronoun from appearance.

Subject forms are not used everywhere English might expect them

Danish uses object forms after many prepositions and in some complements: med mig (“with me”), til hende (“to her”), and Det er ham (“It is him”). Standard English also often says “It is him” in everyday speech, but learners should notice that Danish requires ham, not subject han, in that last pattern. The full contrast belongs with Danish object pronouns.

Practice Tips

1. Build a nine-line pronoun drill. Choose one common verb and say a sentence with jeg, du, han, hun, den, det, vi, I, and de. Keep the verb unchanged: jeg arbejder, du arbejder, han arbejder … This reinforces the Danish pattern rather than the English “work/works” contrast.
2. Learn nouns with their article and replacement pronoun. Make three-part cards such as en stol → den and et bord → det. Then add the plural: stolene/bordene → de.
3. Change statements into questions and time-first sentences. Start with Du arbejder hjemme, then make Arbejder du hjemme? and I dag arbejder du hjemme. This trains you to recognise the subject even when it does not come first.

Related Concepts

• Build your first verb sentences: Være (to be) — use er with every subject pronoun.
• Another essential verb: Have (to have) — practise har with the full pronoun set.
• Next step: Present Tense — learn why the present form stays the same across persons.
• Contrast the forms: Object Pronouns — compare jeg/mig, han/ham, and vi/os.
• Later reference work: Pronoun Reference (Den/Det/De) — explore how pronouns point back to nouns and ideas.
• Advanced spoken usage: Colloquial Danish — recognise reduced forms and informal patterns in conversation.