Ég sé að bíllinn er nýr.

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Breakdown of Ég sé að bíllinn er nýr.

• vera: to be
• bíllinn: the car
• sjá: to see

Questions & Answers about Ég sé að bíllinn er nýr.

Why is the present-tense form of sjá written as sé instead of something more intuitive like sý?

Because sjá is an irregular strong verb. Its first-person singular present indicative is ég sé. Although it looks like a subjunctive form, here it functions as the normal “I see.”

Why do we need the word að before “bíllinn er nýr”?

In Icelandic, subordinate clauses—especially after verbs of perception or thought—are introduced with að (equivalent to English “that”). So Ég sé að bíllinn er nýr literally means “I see that the car is new.”

Should there be a comma before að as in English?

No. Modern Icelandic generally does not use a comma before að when it introduces a subordinate clause. Commas are more sparingly applied than in English.

Why is bíllinn in the nominative case and why does it end in -inn?

Inside the clause bíllinn er nýr, bíllinn (“the car”) is the subject, so it takes the nominative. The suffix -inn is the definite article attached to the noun (Icelandic does not have a separate word “the”).

Why is the adjective nýr not inflected as or ?