Questions & Answers about Sú kona er falleg.
Sú is a feminine demonstrative meaning roughly that (woman), often referring to:
- someone already mentioned in context, or
- someone at some (literal or figurative) distance from the speaker.
Compare:
- sú kona = that woman (more distant / already known in the discourse)
- þessi kona = this woman (nearer to the speaker, more immediately present)
- hún = she (a personal pronoun, not used directly with a noun: you don’t say hún kona)
So:
- Sú kona er falleg. = That woman is beautiful / The woman (we’re talking about) is beautiful.
- Þessi kona er falleg. = This woman is beautiful.
- Hún er falleg. = She is beautiful. (referring to a woman already clear from context)
In Icelandic, determiners (like demonstratives and articles) normally come before the noun they modify.
- sú kona = that woman
- kona sú would be ungrammatical in normal modern Icelandic.
This is similar to English: you say that woman, not woman that, and this man, not man this.
Kona is in the nominative singular.
Reasons:
- It is the subject of the sentence.
- In Icelandic, the subject of a simple “X is Y” sentence normally appears in the nominative case.
- The base nominative singular form of the noun kona (woman) is kona.
If you change the structure, the case changes. For example:
- Ég sé konu. – I see a woman. (konu is accusative singular)
Kona here is:
- Gender: feminine
- Number: singular
- Definiteness: indefinite (there is no definite ending, no -n)
So:
- kona = a woman (indefinite)
- konan = the woman (definite, nominative singular)
In sú kona, the demonstrative sú already carries the definiteness (that woman), so the noun itself stays without the definite -n. You don’t say sú konan in this structure.
Falleg is agreeing with kona in gender, number, and case:
- kona is feminine, singular, nominative.
- fallegur (beautiful) has these basic forms in the nominative singular:
- masculine: fallegur
- feminine: falleg
- neuter: fallegt
So you get:
- Sá maður er fallegur. – That man is beautiful. (masc.)
- Sú kona er falleg. – That woman is beautiful. (fem.)
- Það barn er fallegt. – That child is beautiful. (neut.)
The ending -a (as in fallega) appears in weak adjective forms, usually with definite nouns before the noun:
- sú fallega kona – that beautiful woman
- hin fallega kona – the beautiful woman
- fallega konan – the beautiful woman
After er (the verb to be), adjectives normally appear in these strong forms, so we say konan er falleg, not konan er fallega.
Yes. This is a classic predicate adjective, just like in English:
- English: That woman is beautiful.
- Icelandic: Sú kona er falleg.
In grammar terms:
- Sú kona = subject
- er = linking verb (to be)
- falleg = predicate adjective (describing the subject)
Er is the present tense of the verb að vera (to be), 3rd person singular.
The main present forms of að vera:
- ég er – I am
- þú ert – you are (singular)
- hann / hún / það er – he / she / it is
- við erum – we are
- þið eruð – you are (plural)
- þeir / þær / þau eru – they are
So with sú kona (3rd person singular, feminine), the verb is er.
Yes, Þessi kona er falleg is perfectly correct. The difference is in distance / context:
Sú kona er falleg. – That woman is beautiful.
- more distant (in space, time, or discourse)
- or “the one we talked about earlier”
Þessi kona er falleg. – This woman is beautiful.
- usually someone close by or being directly pointed out
- more “here and now”
In many contexts they both can translate to English that woman, but Icelanders feel a nuance between them.
Yes. If it is clear from context who you are talking about, sú can stand alone as a pronoun:
- Sú er falleg. – That one (fem.) is beautiful.
Here:
- sú refers to some feminine noun already understood (for example, a particular woman, dress, house, etc.),
- falleg still agrees in gender, number, and case with the understood noun.
You need an adjective before the noun with a demonstrative. That triggers the weak adjective ending:
- Sú fallega kona er há. – That beautiful woman is tall.
Breakdown:
- sú – that (feminine)
- fallega – beautiful (weak fem. nom. sg., because of sú
- definiteness)
- kona – woman (indefinite form, but the phrase as a whole is definite because of sú)
- er – is
- há – tall (fem. nom. sg. strong, predicate position)
Yes, but that sounds poetic or emphatic, not neutral everyday speech.
- Sú kona er falleg. – neutral word order.
- Falleg er sú kona. – emphasizes falleg (Beautiful is that woman), like you might hear in poetry, song lyrics, or very expressive speech.
Normal conversation would use Sú kona er falleg.
Approximate pronunciation (IPA and rough English hints):
sú – /suː/
- like soo in English soon, long ú
kona – /ˈkʰɔːna/
- kʰ: strongly aspirated k, like the k in keep
- ó: long vowel between English aught and owe
- stress on the first syllable: KÓ-na
falleg – /ˈfatlɛɣ/ or /ˈfaʰlɛɣ/ (pronunciation can vary slightly)
- f: like English f
- a: like a in father (short)
- ll in this position is often realized with a kind of tl or t‑hl sound
- g at the end is a soft /ɣ/, a voiced velar fricative, not like a hard g
Stress in Icelandic almost always falls on the first syllable, so: SÚ KÓna ER FALleg (primary stress on sú and kó, secondary rhythm on fal).