SHARE
COPY LINK

DANISH WORD OF THE DAY

Danish word of the day: Hver

The word of the day is an everyday word, and can seem to be heard everywhere.

What is hver?

Hver is a determiner or quantifier more or less equivalent to the English “every”. Jeg står op hver dag kl. 6 (“I get up every day at 6am”), for example.

There are a couple of ways in which hver and “every” are used a little differently in terms of grammar.

Specifically, it can mean “each” in certain constructs: tre håndlavet smykker, hver med et unikt design (“three handmade pieces of jewellery, each with a unique design”) or jeg giver julegaver til hver af mine tre ansatte (“I give Christmas presents to each of my three employees”).

So while in English, “each” always refers to an individual thing or person, while “every” refers to a group of things or people grouped together as one, this is not the case in Danish, where hver can do both jobs.

The English expression “each and every”, an emphasised way of saying “every”, is rendered in Danish as hver og en, literally “every and one”, while “every single” is hver eneste, which literally translates to “every only”.

Why do I need to know hver?

It’s not just the subtle grammatical differences from English that make hver an interesting word. It’s also a Danish homophone, a word that is pronounced in the same way as another but has a different meaning.

Hver actually has as many as three homophones: værd (“worth”), vejr (“weather”) and (at) være (“to be”). As such, it can be a common cause of typos and spelling mistakes.

I once had a university professor who was originally from Iraq and would regularly express his frustration at the words skov (“forest”) and sko (“shoe”), which he said were impossible to distinguish.

Hver, værd, vejr and være are arguably even harder work, with each (or is that every?) one of the four homophones having a different meaning.

Have you come across any other confusing Danish homophones? Let us know.

Example:

Det her vejr er ikke noget værd. Det regner hver dag. Jeg gad godt være på ferie lige nu.

This weather’s not worth anything. It rains every day. I’d like to be on holiday right now.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

DANISH WORD OF THE DAY

Danish word of the day: Varmebølge

Here's a Danish word to use when complaining about the hot weather.

Danish word of the day: Varmebølge

What is varmebølge?

Varmebølge means “heatwave” in Danish.

Varme means “heat” or “warmth”, and bølge means “wave”, so it’s an easy translation. You’ll sometimes hear hedebølge used too, using another Danish word for “heat”. The word varme is the more common of the two, and can be used in situations where you might say either “heat” or “warmth” in English. Hede, on the other hand, implies a more extreme type of heat.

For example, the Danish words for “hot water bottle” and “central heating” both use varme rather than heat (varmedunk and centralvarme or just varmen, respectively) and “hot weather” is varmt vejr but the phrase i kampens hede means “in the heat of the battle”. 

Why do I need to know varmebølge?

While the above terms – varmebølge and hedebølge – are synonyms on first glance, there’s an important difference.

Denmark’s national meteorological agency, DMI, defines a varmebølge as a three-day period on which the average highest temperature is over 25 degrees Celsius.

For a hot spell to qualify as a hedebølge, on the other hand, the average highest temperature for the three days in question must exceed 28 degrees Celsius

People from southern parts of Europe might consider either type of Danish heatwave to feel more like regular summer weather – and perhaps this helps explain why extreme weather in southern regions in recent years, related to climate change, has led to speculation Denmark could become an increasingly popular summer destination for foreign holidaymakers.

The phrases also reveal a little about how Denmark’s climate influences language and the way Danes talk about the weather.

READ ALSO: Five Danish phrases you only hear in summer

While almost everyone gets quickly tired of long spells of cool, wet summer weather – like those seen during most of June 2024 – it also doesn’t take much for Danes to begin longing for more moderate temperatures to return once it heats up.

Anything over around 24-25 degrees Celsius is likely to be considered for meget (“too much”) what I would consider a regulation summer temperature of 26 degrees might be described as denne forfærdelige varme (“this dreadful heat”).

SHOW COMMENTS