Danish/Verbs

The present tense in Danish verbs is expressed by adding an r to the end.

The basic form of a verb is the infinitive. In English these are words preceded by to, such as to go and to be. The Danish translation of to in this case is at. Danish infinitives usually end in e, and you get the present tense by adding -r. There are two major groups of Danish verbs. In one group, you add -de or -ede to the end of the infinitive to create the past tense and -et to the end to create the perfect tense. In the other group, you replace the e at the end of the infinitive with -te to get the past tense, and remove the e from the past tense to get the perfect.

You will experience a lot of examples where these rules don't apply, but they are the most general ones.

Meaning	Infinitive	Present tense	Past tense	Perfect participle	Imperative
to read	at læse	læser	læste	læst	læs
to see	at se	ser	så	set	se
to eat	at spise	spiser	spiste	spist	spis
to hear	at høre	hører	hørte	hørt	hør
to fly	at flyve	flyver	fløj	fløjet	flyv
to like	at kunne lide	kan lide	kunne lide		lid
to love	at elske	elsker	elskede	elsket	elsk
to have	at have	har	havde	haft	hav
to take	at tage	tager	tog	taget	tag
to be	at være	er	var	været	vær

Note that several verbs in the table are irregular.

Note: Imperative is the tense where you give a command like "eat!", "read!", "listen!" etc.