Laugardagur er góður dagur.

to be

Breakdown of Laugardagur er góður dagur.

• góður: good
• dagur: the day
• laugardagur: the Saturday

Questions & Answers about Laugardagur er góður dagur.

Why is there no word for “a” in Laugardagur er góður dagur even though the English is “Saturday is a good day”?

Icelandic has no indefinite article (no word for a/an).

• dagur by itself can mean “day” or “a day” depending on context.
• So góður dagur can mean “a good day” in this sentence.
• If Icelandic wants a definite article (“the”), it is usually added as a suffix to the noun:
  
  • dagurinn = “the day”.

Why is Laugardagur capitalized, but dagur is not?

Laugardagur is the name of a weekday, so it’s treated like a proper noun and is capitalized, just like Saturday in English.

dagur just means “day”, a common noun, so it is not capitalized, just like day in English.

So:

• Laugardagur = Saturday (name) → capitalized
• dagur = day (ordinary noun) → lowercase

Both Laugardagur and dagur end in -ur. Does that mean something?