# Danish : Man skal gøre sit bedste.



## multivac_

hey everybody! im new here, fighting with danish 
im learning on some free sites, but they are short on explanations and error prone, so i hope some of you can help with my doubts.
i came across this sentence "Man skal gøre sit bedste" wich i understand means "one must do one´s best" but i dont get the use of "sit"; shouldn´t it be "sin" since "man" is common gender.
thanks in advance to anyone who can shed some light on this!

edit: never mind, i just realised the sit refers to "bedste" which I gather is neuter. sorry about that
leaving this here as an introduction!


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## Sepia

Funny, you pattern of thinking is probably what makes some Danes get this one wrong to - or some Danish dialects simply have different grammar.

Let't take it from the top:

Manden har en bil - the man has a car.
Det er hans bil - it is his car

So far Danish is almost like English and also very similar to Castellano

Det er min bil, sagde manden - it is my car, said the man

Still like like English, also very much like Castellano because it would still be - mi coche, mi casa, mi cuchillo.
However, here is the first difference: my/min/mi is not a genitive of a personal pronoun any more. Since it ist still my/mi in English/Castellano no matter if it is mi casa or mi cuchillo you probably never noticed.

But in Danish

Det er min bil - it is my car
Det er mit hus - it is my house
Han tog min bil - he took my car
Han solgte mit hus - he sold my house

So the possesive pronoun works just the way the article does.

sin / sit works just the same way. 

Han tog sin hat - he took his hat
Hun tog sin hat - she took her hat

han tog hendes hat - he took her hat
hun tog hans hat - she took his hat

So obviously what you need sin/sit for is to indicate that the man is handling something that belongs to himself.

In fact, years ago, in Jutland you commonly heard,

Han tog hans hat - which actually meant - han tog sin hat. Just like in English.
But you might be tempted to beleive he took somebody elses hat.

So: at goere sit beste/han goer sit beste - "sit" of course is neutrum.


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## multivac_

Hey Sepia! thank you so much for that awesome answer! after posting i felt pretty silly for asking that question, but danish is so different from the languages i know, it will take some time for my puny mind to get used to it 
i have to say though, its an awesome language. i like the way possesive pronouns work because they are less confusion prone.

i have a question though, when you say "Det er min bil" shouldnt it be "Den er min bil"?
thanks again!


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## Dan2

multivac_ said:


> when you say "Det er min bil" shouldnt it be "Den er min bil"?


I've never studied Danish so let me just point out something related in English:
If you are visiting me and suddenly a girl appears at the door, I might well say, "It's my daughter!".  Note the "it" in spite of the fact that "daughter" is a feminine noun, usually referred to with "she".  ("She is my daughter" is also grammatical, and would be used in other contexts.)


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## multivac_

hey dan, that is a great point! and i was expecting that as a possible answer ( that even if its not gramatically "correct", it is used). i asked mainly to know if it "should" be den, as it "should" be she in your example, or Im missing something absolutely basic.

thanks!


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## Dan2

multivac_ said:


> as it "should" be she in your example


I don't agree that it "should" be "she" in "It's my daughter".  The latter is a perfectly grammatical, perfectly common, sentence of English.  In fact, in the context I gave "she" would  be _wrong_, because the girl hasn't been referred to yet.  Note that we would say:
_It's my daughter.  She gets home from school about this time._
Once "daughter" has been mentioned, _then _"she" becomes appropriate.


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## Sepia

All


multivac_ said:


> Hey Sepia! thank you so much for that awesome answer! after posting i felt pretty silly for asking that question, but danish is so different from the languages i know, it will take some time for my puny mind to get used to it
> i have to say though, its an awesome language. i like the way possesive pronouns work because they are less confusion prone.
> 
> i have a question though, when you say "Det er min bil" shouldnt it be "Den er min bil"?
> thanks again!




You are just wonderful! Basically it would be logical, the way you see it - still "Det er min bil" is correct, but you made me think closer about why. Something which I never did untill today.

It is very similar to the discussion now taking place between the Anglophones here - it is my daughter ... / she is my daughter  - mean two different things, at least what the situation or the circumstances are concerned.

The point is that "det er" not really refers to "bil" - it is a constellation of words that describe a set of circumstances. Like in

det er morgen, det er koldt, det er nat, det er fedt, noget lort, det er min datter, det er min bil, det er mit.
it is morning, ... cold, ... night, ... cool, ... sucks, ... my daughter, ... my car, ... belongs to me.

It is similar to, but should not be confused with "der er" -
der er mange biler paa gaden - hay muchas coches en la calle. "der er" like "hay" refers to the general existence of something while "det er" refers to the circumstances, something that you would describe with a number of verbs like hacer, ser etc. But to get the general feeling of it "hay muchas coches en la calle" is a good example to compare with. You probably never gave it a thought either that "hay" is a verb in singular - until maybe a foreign studend asked you,
- How can that be singular when "muchas coches" is plural?
Works the same way with "det er" and "der er".

That is the reason why "det er min bil" is correct.

So the dialogue could go like this

- Hvis bil er det? (general situation - he sees a car and wants to know who it belongs to.)
Maybe it blocks the driveway ...
- Hvis bil er det, der staar foran udkoerslen?

And the owner answers -
- Det er min.
or
- Det er min bil.

- Hvilken bil er din? (Out of several cars he wants to know which one belongs to the guy he is talking to).
Den dér er min bil. (He may even point to it - this one (there) - this refers to the car itself, therefore it is "den". For some inexplicable reason you never say "den er min bil".)

This is about as exact as I can explain it. But you will probably come across a few other surprises along the way. While writing several came to my mind.


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## bicontinental

This is commonly referred to as a 'dummy subject/pronoun' or the anticipatory 'it', in case you'd like to do an online search.

Bic.


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## multivac_

Sepia said:


> For some inexplicable reason you never say "den er min bil".)


hehe to be honest, this is the explanantion i was looking for. though i did a search on @bicontinental´s sugention (thanks for that btw!) and the (wikipedia) explanation is pretty clarifying. this made me think on the example of "It's my daughter". I feel I would use that frase only if the person im talking to doesn´t know in advance I´m refering to a human, or a woman,(for example if my daughter was making some noises while out of sight) otherwise id use "that is my daughter", or "she is my daughter". but i dont pretend to start a discussion on this topic at all.
as awesome as your explanation is, it generated more doubts
in the course im doing it was explained that "den der" is generally used in spoke language, while "den" is used in written language when saying "that". just like  " den her" and  "denne" for "this".
so i have two questions :
1. if you where saying "this is my car" you would say "den her er min bil" or alternatively you could write "denne er min bil" ?
2.if you where saying "that is my car", you would absolutely say "den der er min bil"?

Also just a minor correction sepia "coches" is masculine so you would say "muchos coches".
tak allesammen!

edit: a bit of a mix up on my part.


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## Sepia

multivac_ said:


> hehe to be honest, this is the explanantion i was looking for. though i did a search on @bicontinental´s sugention (thanks for that btw!) and the (wikipedia) explanation is pretty clarifying. this made me think on the example of "It's my daughter". I feel I would use that frase only if the person im talking to doesn´t know in advance I´m refering to a human, or a woman,(for example if my daughter was making some noises while out of sight) otherwise id use "that is my daughter", or "she is my daughter". but i dont pretend to start a discussion on this topic at all.
> as awesome as your explanation is, it generated more doubts
> in the course im doing it was explained that "den der" is generally used in spoke language, while "den" is used in written language when saying "that". just like  " den her" and  "denne" for "this".
> so i have two questions :
> 1. if you where saying "this is my car" you would say "den her er min bil" or alternatively you could write "denne er min bil" ?
> 2.if you where saying "that is my car", you would absolutely say "den der er min bil"?
> 
> Also just a minor correction sepia "coches" is masculine so you would say "muchos coches".
> tak allesammen!
> 
> edit: a bit of a mix up on my part.




You are right - I checked that up later, but you got the point. Spanish is way down the line on my list anyway - Position six actually.


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## multivac_

awesome! thanks so much for the effort!


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