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Breakdown of Barnið lærir að elska öll dýr.
elska
to love
barnið
the child
að
to
læra
to learn
allur
all
dýrið
the animal
Questions & Answers about Barnið lærir að elska öll dýr.
Why does the sentence use að before elska?
að is the Icelandic infinitive marker (like English “to”). After verbs such as læra (“to learn”), you always place að before another verb to express “to learn to …,” hence lærir að elska (“learns to love”).
Why is barnið written as one word with -ið, instead of having a separate word for “the”?
Icelandic marks the definite article as a suffix. barn means “child,” and attaching -ið (neuter singular definite article) gives barnið = “the child.” There is no separate “the” in Icelandic.
What case are öll dýr in, and how can you tell?
dýr is the direct object of elska, so it’s in the accusative case. Neuter plural nouns have the same form in nominative and accusative (dýr), and the adjective allur inflects to öll in the neuter plural accusative (and nominative).
How do you know dýr is plural (“animals”) and not singular (“an animal”)?
By the adjective öll (“all”), which only makes sense with a plural noun here. If you saw dýrið, that’d be singular definite (“the animal”); dýrin would be plural definite (“the animals”). But öll dýr is indefinite plural.
How are ö in öll and y in dýr pronounced?
ö is a rounded front vowel, similar to German ö in schön or French eu in peur.
y is like the German ü in über—a close, front, rounded vowel.
Is the word order always Subject-Verb-Object in Icelandic?
Yes, the default word order in main clauses is SVO. Here it’s Barnið (subject) lærir (verb) að elska öll dýr (object).
Could you drop að and say Barnið lærir elska öll dýr?
No. In standard Icelandic, að is mandatory before an infinitive following læra. Omitting it would be ungrammatical.
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