Ég skrifa stutta dagbók á íslensku á kvöldin.

I write a short diary in Icelandic in the evenings.

Breakdown of Ég skrifa stutta dagbók á íslensku á kvöldin.

• ég: I
• skrifa: to write
• stuttur: short
• á: in
• kvöldið: the evening
• íslenskan: the Icelandic language
• dagbókin: the diary

Questions & Answers about Ég skrifa stutta dagbók á íslensku á kvöldin.

Why is the subject Ég and not Mig in this sentence?

Icelandic pronouns change form depending on case (their grammatical role). For “I” you have:

• Ég – nominative (subject case)
• Mig – accusative (direct object)
• Mér – dative (indirect object)
• Mín – genitive (possessive “of me”)

The subject of a normal sentence must be in the nominative case, so you say:

• Ég skrifa… – I write…

Using Mig skrifa… would be like saying “Me write…” in English: ungrammatical in standard Icelandic.

Why does skrifa cover both “I write” and “I am writing”?

Icelandic does not have a separate continuous/progressive tense like English “am writing.”

The present tense form skrifa can mean both:

• a habitual action:
  Ég skrifa stutta dagbók á íslensku á kvöldin.
  = I (usually) write a short diary in Icelandic in the evenings.

• an action happening right now, if the context makes that clear.

If you really want to emphasize that it is happening right now, Icelandic often uses vera + að + infinitive:

• Ég er að skrifa stutta dagbók á íslensku.
  = I am (in the process of) writing a short diary in Icelandic.

Why does the verb appear as skrifa here and not skrifar or skrifi?

Skrifa is a regular verb, and in the present tense its forms are:

• Ég skrifa – I write
• Þú skrifar – you (sing.) write
• Hann/hún/það skrifar – he/she/it writes
• Við skrifum – we write
• Þið skrifið – you (pl.) write
• Þeir/þær/þau skrifa – they write

So the 1st person singular (with ég) always ends in -a:

• Ég skrifa… (not ég skrifar, not ég skrifi)

Why is it stutta dagbók and not stutt dagbók or stuttur dagbók?

The adjective stuttur (“short”) must agree with the noun dagbók (“diary”) in:

• gender
• number
• case

Here:

• dagbók is feminine, singular, accusative (it is the direct object).
• The adjective must match that, so we use the feminine accusative singular form of stuttur, which is stutta.

Very simplified:

• Feminine nominative singular: stutt
  
  • Stutt dagbók er leiðinleg. – A short diary is boring.
• Feminine accusative singular: stutta
  
  • Ég skrifa stutta dagbók. – I write a short diary.

Stuttur dagbók is wrong because stuttur is masculine.
Stutt dagbók would be nominative, but we need accusative here.

What case is dagbók in, and how does this noun decline?

In the sentence, dagbók is the direct object of skrifa, so it is in the accusative singular.

Basic cases in Icelandic:

• Nominative – subject: Dagbókin er ný. – The diary is new.
• Accusative – direct object: Ég skrifa dagbók.
• Dative – indirect object / “to, for”: Ég skrifa í dagbók.
• Genitive – “of”: Titill dagbókarinnar – the title of the diary.

Dagbók (feminine) declines approximately like this:

• Singular

  • Nominative: dagbók
  • Accusative: dagbók
  • Dative: dagbók
  • Genitive: dagbókar

• Plural

  • Nominative: dagbækur
  • Accusative: dagbækur
  • Dative: dagbókum
  • Genitive: dagbóka

So in the sentence, you have feminine accusative singular dagbók as the direct object.

Why is there no word for “a” or “the” before dagbók? How would I say “the diary”?

Icelandic does not use a separate word for the indefinite article (“a/an”). If a noun is indefinite, you just use the bare noun:

• dagbók – a diary
• stutta dagbók – a short diary

For “the”, Icelandic usually attaches a definite ending to the noun instead of using a separate word:

• dagbókin – the diary

So:

• Ég skrifa stutta dagbók. – I write a short diary.
• Ég skrifa dagbókina. – I write the diary.

In your sentence, the diary is indefinite, so it’s simply dagbók with no separate “a.”

Why is it á íslensku and not í íslensku or just íslenska?

A few things are going on here:

1. The preposition

   To say “in Icelandic” (in that language) you use á, not í:

   • á íslensku – in Icelandic
   • á ensku – in English
   • á þýsku – in German

   So for writing/reading/singing in a language, á is the normal preposition.

2. The case

   The noun for the language is íslenska (feminine).
   With this meaning of á (“in a language”), Icelandic uses the dative case, which for this word is íslensku.

   Rough pattern (singular):

   • Nominative: íslenska – Íslenska er erfitt tungumál.
   • Accusative/dative/genitive: íslensku

   So á + dative → á íslensku.

3. Why not just íslenska?

   You can use the bare noun with some verbs:

   • Ég tala íslensku. – I speak Icelandic.

   Here íslensku is the object of tala (accusative).

   But when you say you do something in a language (write, read, watch a film, etc.), Icelandic normally uses á + dative:

   • Ég skrifa á íslensku. – I write in Icelandic.
   • Ég les bók á íslensku. – I read a book in Icelandic.

Why is íslensku not capitalized, when Icelandic is capitalized in English?

Capitalization rules are different:

• In English, names of languages and nationalities are capitalized: English, Icelandic, German.

• In Icelandic, names of languages are not capitalized unless they start the sentence:

  • Ég tala íslensku. – I speak Icelandic.
  • Íslenska er fallegt tungumál. – Icelandic is a beautiful language.

So íslensku is correctly written with a lowercase í inside the sentence.

What exactly does á kvöldin mean grammatically, and why does kvöldin have that form?

Kvöld means “evening” and is a neuter noun.

• Singular nominative/accusative: kvöld – an evening
• Plural nominative/accusative: kvöld – evenings
• Definite plural nominative/accusative: kvöldin – the evenings

In á kvöldin:

• á is a preposition that, in this time expression, governs the accusative.
• kvöldin is definite plural accusative: literally “the evenings.”

So á kvöldin is literally “on the evenings”, but idiomatically it means:

• “in the evenings” (regularly, as a habit).

Similar patterns:

• á morgnana – in the mornings
• á sumrin – in the summers

This definite plural with a time expression is a common way in Icelandic to talk about repeated/habitual actions.

Can I change the word order, for example put á kvöldin at the beginning?

Yes, you have some flexibility, but Icelandic has a verb-second (V2) rule in main clauses: the finite verb must be the second element in the sentence.

Your original sentence:

• Ég skrifa stutta dagbók á íslensku á kvöldin.
  [Ég] – 1st element, [skrifa] – 2nd element (the verb).

If you move the time phrase to the front for emphasis:

• Á kvöldin skrifa ég stutta dagbók á íslensku.
  [Á kvöldin] – 1st element, [skrifa] – 2nd element, [ég] – 3rd.

Both are correct; they just differ in what is emphasized.

Other natural variants include reordering the two prepositional phrases:

• Ég skrifa stutta dagbók á kvöldin á íslensku.
• Ég skrifa á kvöldin stutta dagbók á íslensku. (possible, but less neutral)

As a learner, a safe default is:

• Subject – verb – object – other information
  → Ég skrifa stutta dagbók á íslensku á kvöldin.

Where would the negative ekki go in this sentence?

The normal rule is: ekki comes right after the finite verb in a simple main clause.

So:

• Ég skrifa ekki stutta dagbók á íslensku á kvöldin.
  = I don’t write a short diary in Icelandic in the evenings.

If you want to emphasize that the time phrase is being negated, you can move ekki later:

• Ég skrifa stutta dagbók á íslensku, ekki á kvöldin.
  = I do write a short diary in Icelandic, just not in the evenings.

But the neutral, unmarked position is after the verb: skrifa ekki.

How do you pronounce Ég skrifa stutta dagbók á íslensku á kvöldin, roughly in English terms?

Rough approximations (Icelandic has some sounds English doesn’t):

• Ég – roughly like “yeah” but with a slightly longer vowel and a soft g sound at the end: something like “yeh-gh”.
• skrifa – “SKRIV-ah” (short i like in “sit”, final f sounds like v: skriv-a).
• stutta – roughly “STUHT-ta” (the u is between English “u” in “put” and German “ü”, and the tt has a little breath before it).
• dagbók – roughly “DAHG-boke” (the á is like “ah”, ó like the “o” in “go”, final k is fairly hard).
• á – like “ow” in “cow”, but usually a bit shorter.
• íslensku – roughly “EES-len-sku” (first syllable stressed, í like “ee”, final u like “u” in “put”).
• kvöldin – roughly “KVEULT-in”:
  
  • kv together, like k
    • v;
  • ö is like German “ö”, somewhere between “e” and “u”;
  • ld is a single cluster;
  • final -in like “in”.

In IPA (approximate, and with some regional variation):

• Ég skrifa stutta dagbók á íslensku á kvöldin
  ≈ [jɛːɣ ˈskrɪva ˈstʏhtːa ˈtaɣˌpouk aː ˈiːs­lɛns­kʏ aː ˈkʰvœl̥tɪn]

The main things to remember as a learner:

• Stress is always on the first syllable of each word.
• á is like “ow”, í like “ee”, and ö (in kvöldin) is a rounded vowel not found in English.