Herbergið er kalt.

to be

Breakdown of Herbergið er kalt.

• kalt: cold
• herbergið: the room

Questions & Answers about Herbergið er kalt.

Why does herbergið end in -ið instead of having a separate word for “the”?

Icelandic marks definiteness with a suffix rather than a separate article. For neuter nouns in the nominative singular, the definite ending is -ið. So herbergi (“room”) + -ið gives herbergið (“the room”).

What gender is herbergi, and how can I recognize it?

Herbergi is a neuter noun. A common clue is the -i ending in the base form, and its definite form ends in -ið (characteristic of neuter nominative singular). In the plural you’ll also see neuter patterns: indefinite plural herbergi, definite plural herbergin.

Why is the adjective kalt and not kaldur or köld?

Adjectives in Icelandic agree in gender, number, and case with their noun. The masculine base is kaldur (“cold”), the feminine nominative is köld, and the neuter nominative singular is kalt. Since herbergið is neuter singular, we use kalt.

Is kalt here an attributive or predicative adjective, and does that affect its form?

Here kalt is predicative (it follows the verb er = “is”). Predicative adjectives always take the strong inflection, matching gender/number/case (neuter nom. sg. → ). Attributive adjectives in front of a definite noun would take the weak form (e.g. in “the cold book”).