Ég á systur og bróður.

I have a sister and a brother.

Breakdown of Ég á systur og bróður.

• ég: I
• eiga: to have
• og: and
• systirin: the sister
• bróðirinn: the brother

Questions & Answers about Ég á systur og bróður.

Why is the verb á used here instead of hafa?

In Icelandic, possession of things and family members is normally expressed with the verb eiga (first‐person singular á), not hafa. So you say ég á bíl (I have a car) or ég á systur (I have a sister). hafa exists but is mainly used in abstract or idiomatic contexts (for example hafa tíma = to have time), not for saying “I have a sister.”

What case are systur and bróður, and why do they take that case?

The verb eiga governs the dative case in Icelandic. That means its objects must be in dative. systur is the dative singular of systir (sister) and bróður is the dative singular of bróðir (brother). So ég á systur og bróður literally is “I have sister-DAT and brother-DAT.”

Why are they spelled systur and bróður instead of systir and bróðir?

These are just the regular dative-singular forms:

• systir → systur (a feminine -ir noun replaces -ir with -ur in the dative)
• bróðir → bróður (an irregular masculine -ir stem whose genitive and dative both are -uðr)

Why is there no article like a or the before systur and bróður?

Icelandic has no separate indefinite article (a/an). When you mean “a sister,” you simply use the noun bare in the right case. If you really want to stress “one,” you can add the numeral eina: ég á eina systur, but ég á systur is automatically understood as “I have a sister.”

How do you pronounce Ég á systur og bróður?

Roughly: “yek ow SIS-tuhr og BROH-thur”

• Ég: “yek” (the g sounds like the y in “yes”)
• á: “ow” as in “cow,” held a bit longer
• systur: “SIS-tuhr” (y like i in “sit,” u like ü in German “über”)
• og: “og” (o as in “log,” g as in “go”)
• bróður: “BROH-thur” (ó like o in “boat,” ð like th in “this”)

How do you turn this into a yes/no question?

Invert the verb and subject, just like in English: Á ég systur og bróður? (“Have I a sister and a brother?”), with rising intonation at the end.

How do you say “I don’t have a sister and a brother” in Icelandic?

The most natural way is with hvorki … né:
Ég á hvorki systur né bróður.
Literally “I have neither sister nor brother.” You could also say ég á enga systur og engan bróður, but hvorki…né is the standard correlative negation for two items.