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Definite and Indefinite Article

All nouns in Danish are either common or neuter in gender. About 75% of nouns are of common gender, but many very frequently used nouns are neuter.

Indefinite Article (a/an)

A/an is expressed by en with common nouns and by et with neuter nouns. Indefinite plurals are formed by adding -e or -er to the singular.

	singular	plural
common neuter	en bil a car et hus a house	biler cars huse houses

Some nouns remain unchanged in the plural and some others are irregular.

singular	plural
et rum a room en bog a book	rum rooms bøger books

Definite Article (the)

The definite article is tagged onto the end of the noun. In the singular, common nouns take an -en ending, neuter nouns take an -et ending. In the plural, both take an -(e)ne or -(er)ne ending.

	singular	plural
common neuter	bilen the car toget the train	bilerne the cars togene the trains

Here are some more examples with both definite/indefinite and singular/plural forms:

	singular		plural
	indefinite	definite	indefinite	definite
common	en bil a car en skole a school en stol a stool en mus a mouse en chip a chip	bilen the car skolen the school stolen the stool musen the mouse chippen the chip	biler cars skoler schools stole stools mus mice chips chips	bilerne the cars skolerne the schools stolene the stools musene the mice chipsene the chips
neuter	et hotel a hotel et hus a house et år a year	hotellet the hotel huset the house året the year	hoteller hotels huse houses år years	hotellerne the hotels husene the houses åren

Danish Articles and Demonstratives

How to say a, an, the, this, that, these and those in Danish

There are two indefinite articles (corresponding to a and an) in Danish: en and et. En is used with most of the nouns (words denoting people almost always use en), but you will just have to learn which article goes with which noun. The definite article (the) is not a separate word like in most other languages. It is simply a form of the indefinite article attached to the end of the noun. Note that en words ending in a vowel retain that vowel and add an -n instead of adding -en, while et words ending in -e just add a -t.

En words (common)
Indefinite		Definite
en banan	a banana	bananen	the banana
en stol	a chair	stolen	the chair
en gade	a street	gaden	the street

Et words (neuter)
Indefinite		Definite
et bord	a table	bordet	the table
et køkken	a kitchen	køkkenet	the kitchen
et æble	an apple	æblet	the apple

This/that is expressed in Danish by using denne (en words) or dette (et words) and these/those is expressed bydisse. The noun is always in the indefinite form after these demonstratives, except for when these / disse (plural) is used, in which case an er is added (unless the words already ends in an r) after the indefinite demonstrative. this banana = denne banan that table = dette bord these streets = disse gader these apples = disse æbler  ]]>