Ég hata vondan mat og ég hata kalda súpu.

I

Breakdown of Ég hata vondan mat og ég hata kalda súpu.

• maturinn: the food
• kaldur: cold
• súpan: the soup

Questions & Answers about Ég hata vondan mat og ég hata kalda súpu.

Why is it vondan mat instead of vondur matur, which is what I see for “bad food” in the dictionary?

Dictionaries usually give you the nominative singular form of words (the “base” form).

• vondur matur = bad food in the nominative (used for subjects).
• In the sentence Ég hata vondan mat, mat is the direct object of hata (“I hate food”), so it must be in the accusative case.
• The accusative of matur is mat, and the adjective has to match the noun in gender, number and case:
  • matur is masculine singular
  • accusative masculine singular of vondur is vondan

So:

• nominative: vondur matur – “(the) bad food” (as a subject)
• accusative: vondan mat – “(the) bad food” as an object, as in Ég hata vondan mat

What case are mat and súpu, and why do they use that case?