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Questions & Answers about Ég er enn hér.
How do you pronounce the sentence and each word?
A careful IPA rendering is roughly: [jɛːɣ ɛr ɛnː hjɛːr]. In everyday speech you may hear the g in Ég weaken or drop: [jɛː ɛr ɛnː çɛːr].
- Ég “I”: [jɛːɣ] (often just [jɛː]); the g is a soft fricative and may be very light or disappear.
- er “am/is/are”: [ɛr].
- enn “still/yet”: [ɛnː] with a long n.
- hér “here”: often pronounced like “hyair,” [hjɛːr]; many descriptions transcribe the initial sound as [ç] (like German “ich”).
What do the parts of speech and forms here look like?
- Ég: 1st-person singular nominative pronoun (“I”).
- er: present tense of vera (“to be”), finite verb.
- enn: adverb meaning “still/yet.”
- hér: deictic adverb meaning “here.”
What does the accent on é mean?
In Icelandic, accented vowels are separate letters with distinct sounds, not just stress marks. É/é is pronounced roughly like a y + short e, [jɛ] (often long in a one-syllable word before a single consonant, as in Ég and hér). So:
- Ég starts with a y-glide: “yeh…”
- hér similarly sounds like “hyair.”
Why is it enn with double n and not en?
Because they’re different words:
- enn (double n) = “still, yet” (adverb).
- en (single n) = “but” (conjunction). Mixing them up changes the meaning.
Where does the adverb enn go? Could I say Ég er hér enn?
Neutral placement is after the finite verb and before the place adverbial: Ég er enn hér. You can also say Ég er hér enn; it’s grammatical, but it tends to make “here” the focus (“I’m here still”), and is a bit less common in neutral speech.
What’s the difference between enn and ennþá?
Both mean “still/yet.”
- enn is a bit more concise/formal and common in writing.
- ennþá is very common in speech and can feel a touch more colloquial or emphatic. All of these are fine: Ég er enn hér. / Ég er ennþá hér. / Ég er hér ennþá.
How does word order work if I front something? Icelandic is said to be verb-second (V2).
Yes, the finite verb stays in second position. If you front an adverb or place word, the verb follows it:
- Hér er ég enn. (Here am I still.)
- Enn er ég hér. (Still am I here.) Your original sentence has the subject first, so the verb appears second: Ég [1] er [2] enn hér.
Is Icelandic a “pro-drop” language? Can I omit Ég?
No. Icelandic normally requires an explicit subject. Saying just Er enn hér is ungrammatical in standard Icelandic. Keep Ég.
How do I negate variations like “I’m not here yet,” “I’m still not here,” and “I’m no longer here”?
- “I’m not here yet”: Ég er ekki hér enn / Ég er ekki hér ennþá.
- “I’m still not here”: Ég er enn ekki hér. (Often you’d rephrase to a verb of arrival: Ég er ekki kominn/komin enn(þá) = “I haven’t arrived yet.”)
- “I’m no longer here”: Ég er ekki lengur hér or Ég er ekki hér lengur. Key patterns:
- ekki … enn/ennþá = not yet
- enn ekki = still not
- ekki lengur = no longer
What’s the difference between hér, hérna, þarna, and þar?
- hér = “here” (neutral).
- hérna = “right here/around here” (more deictic/colloquial).
- þarna = “there” (near you or in sight).
- þar = “there” (more general/over there). So: Ég er enn hér (I’m still here), or more colloquially on the spot: Ég er ennþá hérna.
Do I capitalize Ég the way English capitalizes “I”?
No. Icelandic doesn’t capitalize the first-person pronoun by default. It’s lowercase ég, except at the start of a sentence (like here) or in titles, etc.
Is er only for “I am,” or does it serve other persons too?
In the present tense of vera:
- ég er (I am)
- þú ert (you are, sg.)
- hann/hún/það er (he/she/it is)
- við erum (we are)
- þið eruð (you are, pl.)
- þeir/þær/þau eru (they are) So er appears with 1st and 3rd singular (and in other tenses/moods, forms change).
Any quick tip about how the words run together in speech?
Yes. In fast speech, Ég er often sounds like one unit, and the g in Ég may vanish: [jɛːr]. Also, the n in enn is long ([nː]), which you’ll hear before hér: [ɛnː hjɛːr].
Can enn mean other things?
Two common extras:
- With comparatives, enn means “even/still”: enn betri = “even better.”
- In older/poetic style, enn can mean “but” (now usually en). In modern everyday prose, keep “but” as en and “still/yet” as enn.
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