Vaskurinn er í eldhúsinu.

The sink is in the kitchen.

Breakdown of Vaskurinn er í eldhúsinu.

• vera: to be
• í: in
• eldhúsið: the kitchen
• vaskurinn: the sink

Questions & Answers about Vaskurinn er í eldhúsinu.

Why does vaskurinn end with -inn?

In Icelandic, the definite article is not a separate word like the in English but a suffix attached to the noun. For masculine singular nouns in the nominative (the subject form), the definite suffix is -inn. So the indefinite noun vaskur (sink) becomes vaskurinn (the sink).

Why is eldhúsinu in the dative case?

The preposition í (in/inside) governs the dative case when it denotes a static location—answering the question “where?” Since the sink is located inside the kitchen, eldhús (kitchen) takes the dative singular definite form eldhúsinu.

How is eldhúsinu formed from eldhús?

eldhús is a neuter, strong noun. You form its dative singular indefinite by adding -i:
 eldhús → eldhúsi
To make it definite, you then add the suffix -nu (or think of it as the full definite dative ending -inu) to the stem:
 eldhúsi + nu → eldhúsinu

Why use í here, and not á, and why dative rather than accusative?