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Questions & Answers about Fjölskylda vinnur saman.
What does each word in the sentence "Fjölskylda vinnur saman" mean?
Fjölskylda means family, vinnur is the third-person singular present form of vinna (meaning to work, thus translating as works), and saman means together.
Why is the verb vinnur in the singular form even though a family consists of multiple people?
In Icelandic, fjölskylda is treated as a collective noun. Even though a family is made up of several individuals, it is considered a single unit for grammatical purposes, so the verb remains in the singular form as vinnur.
Why doesn’t the sentence include a separate word for "the" before fjölskylda?
Icelandic expresses definiteness by attaching a suffix to the noun rather than using a separate word like "the." For example, to refer to a specific family, you would say fjölskyldan (with the suffix -n). In statements like this that speak about family in a general sense, the indefinite form fjölskylda is commonly used.
How does this sentence illustrate typical Icelandic sentence structure?
The sentence follows a Subject-Verb-Adverb order, which is common in Icelandic. Fjölskylda is the subject, vinnur serves as the verb, and saman functions as an adverb describing how the action is performed (i.e., together).