Questions & Answers about Hann skoðar bækur í bókasafninu.
Skoðar is the present‐tense form of að skoða, which means “to look at,” “to examine,” or “to browse.” It implies a more cursory or visual inspection.
Lesa means “to read” in the sense of processing the text for content. If you say Hann les bækur, you’re focusing on reading them; Hann skoðar bækur suggests he’s looking through or examining the books, perhaps browsing titles or pictures.
The preposition í can govern either dative or accusative depending on meaning:
- Dative for static location (“in” somewhere)
- Accusative for movement or direction (“into” somewhere)
Here, í bókasafninu means “in the library” (location), so bókasafninu is dative.
Icelandic attaches the definite article as a suffix. For a strong neuter noun like bókasafn (“library”):
- Dative singular indefinite = bókasafni
- Dative singular definite = bókasafninu (that is, bókasafni
- -nu for the definite)
You’d use the accusative after í to show movement:
Hann fer í bókasafnið
Here, bókasafnið is the accusative singular definite form.
- æ is a diphthong [ai], so bækur sounds roughly like “BYEH-kur.”
- ó is a long [ou] sound, so bóka- is pronounced like “BOH-ka.”
Icelandic generally follows a V2 (verb second) word order in main clauses. Here:
- Subject (Hann)
- Verb (skoðar)
- Object (bækur)
- Adverbial/prepositional phrase (í bókasafninu)
This mirrors English SVO order but still respects the requirement that the finite verb stays in the second “slot.”