What is to draw nineteen?
Figuratively, the same as the English expression “to draw the short straw”, or to be given the most unwanted task or lot, presumably as a result of bad luck.
To pull is the Danish verb meaning “to pull” and can be used in most of the same contexts as the English counterpart, such as pull up the pants (pull your trousers up) or extract a tooth (pull out a tooth).
It can also be used in formulations that feel very Danish, like I had to pull the bike (“I had to walk [literally, ‘pull along’] my bicycle”) — a common situation for people dealing with a flat tyre, steep hill or vicious headwind.
Doors leading into public buildings will usually have the the words TRÆK (“PULL”) and TRYK (“PUSH”) fixed to them (unless they open automatically). I found this confusing at first because the two Danish words resemble each other. A more common word for “push” is push, but this isn’t used on doors — for some reason, convention prefers pressure, which usually means something closer to “press”.
As a result of this, I occasionally find myself giving a hard shove to a Danish door which should be pulled open, and vice versa.
Why do I need to know to draw nineteen?
None of the above has much to do with to draw nineteen (I apologise for going off-topic). As mentioned, you “draw” something you don’t want, in the same way you’d draw a “short straw” in English, and thereby end up in an unwanted situation.
Nineteen usually means the number 19, but that is not the case in this expression. Instead, it’s the definite form of a rivet, which comes from the Dutch word not, a noun meaning “nothing”.
You can also find rivet in Danish in rivet gun, a lottery number that doesn’t give you a winning ticket.
Therefore, if you draw the rivet, you get the lot nobody wanted.
Pronunciation
Nineteen can be pronounced in almost the same way as the English word “kitten”, but don’t enunciate the “tt”. Instead, the two ts should pronounced in a shortened, softened form that makes them sound more like a “d”.
The “kk” in drag sounds like a hard “g” (is it does in most Danish words: talk and bakke to name a couple of others).
In past tense, you would just say drew nineteen and in this case trak (“drew”) is pronounced as it is written.
Example
I thought I was going to relax all evening, but I pulled nineteen and had to do all the dishes.
I thought I was going to relax all evening, but drew the short straw and had to do all the washing up.