Ég fer til dýralæknis með hundinn.

I go to the veterinarian with the dog.

Breakdown of Ég fer til dýralæknis með hundinn.

• ég: I
• hundurinn: the dog
• fara: to go
• með: with

Questions & Answers about Ég fer til dýralæknis með hundinn.

Why is fer used here for “go,” and what person and tense does it represent?

fer is the first-person singular present tense of að fara (“to go”). In Icelandic there’s no separate future tense, so the present can also convey a near-future action when context makes the timing clear.

Why do we say til dýralæknis instead of til dýralæknir or til dýralækni?

The preposition til requires the genitive case. The base noun is dýralæknir (“veterinarian”). To form its genitive singular, you drop -ir and add -is, giving dýralæknis.

How do we form the genitive of compounds like dýralæknir? Where does the “a” in dýra come from?

dýralæknir is a compound of dýr (“animal”) + læknir (“doctor”). The connecting vowel -a- appears in many Icelandic compounds. For the genitive of the entire word, you leave the compound intact and add the genitive ending to the final element:
dýralæknir → dýralæknis.

Why is hundinn used after með, and shouldn’t it be a different form?