Breakdown of Vinkonan hennar hjálpar henni þegar henni leiðist og hún er einmana.
Questions & Answers about Vinkonan hennar hjálpar henni þegar henni leiðist og hún er einmana.
Vinkonan hennar literally means “the friend of hers” or more naturally “her friend.”
- vin-kona = female friend (base form, nominative singular: vinkona)
- vinkon-an = the female friend (-an is the definite ending for feminine nouns in nominative singular)
- hennar = her (genitive of hún, used for possession)
So:
- vinkonan = the (female) friend
- vinkonan hennar = her (female) friend / the friend of hers
Icelandic often uses the definite form (vinkonan) plus a possessive (hennar) to refer to a specific, known person: “her (particular) friend.”
Icelandic has different forms of “she” depending on grammatical case. For hún (she):
- Nominative: hún (subject)
- Accusative: hana (direct object)
- Dative: henni (indirect object, certain verbs)
- Genitive: hennar (possession)
In vinkonan hennar, we need the genitive to show possession, like English “her friend” or “the friend of hers.” So hennar is exactly the possessive form here.
Very roughly, you can map it to English like this:
- hún ≈ she
- hana ≈ her (object)
- henni ≈ to her / for her
- hennar ≈ her / of her (possessive)
With pronoun possessives (my/your/his/her etc.), Icelandic almost always puts the possessive after the noun:
- vinkonan hennar = her friend
- bróðir minn = my brother
- húsið þeirra = their house
Hennar vinkona is not standard Icelandic; it sounds wrong or at best very marked/poetic. So the normal pattern is:
[noun + definite ending] + [possessive pronoun in genitive]
vinkonan hennar, vinurinn hans, foreldrarnir okkar, etc.
The reflexive possessive sinn / sín / sitt refers back to the subject of the clause.
Here, the subject is vinkonan hennar (her friend), not henni (to her).
- Vinkonan hennar hjálpar henni…
= Her friend helps her…
Here, hennar refers to the person being helped (henni), i.e. “it is her friend helping her.”
If we used the reflexive:
- Vinkonan sín hjálpar henni…
would mean Her own friend helps her… but grammatically, sín would refer back to the subject (the friend), which doesn’t make sense: the friend’s own friend helps her.
Because the possessor is not the subject, you must use hennar, not sín.
Hjálpar henni = “helps her”, but literally “helps to her.”
The verb að hjálpa (to help) takes an object in the dative case in Icelandic:
- Ég hjálpa þér. = I help you. (þér = dative of þú)
- Hann hjálpar mér. = He helps me. (mér = dative of ég)
- Vinkonan hennar hjálpar henni. = Her friend helps her. (henni = dative of hún)
So henni is required by the verb hjálpa; it’s the normal pattern for this verb, not a special “to” word.
Yes, it’s the same word and same form all three times: henni (dative singular of hún).
The sentence:
Vinkonan hennar hjálpar henni þegar henni leiðist og hún er einmana.
- henni after hjálpar → dative required by hjálpa
- henni in þegar henni leiðist → dative required by leiðast
- hún in og hún er einmana → nominative, subject of er
So the pattern is:
- henni = to her / for her (dative, used by certain verbs)
- hún = she (nominative, doing the action or being described)
The repeated henni just reflects that two different verbs (hjálpa, leiðast) both take the dative for the “experiencer.”
Henni leiðist = “she is bored” or “she gets bored”, literally “(something) bores her.”
The verb að leiðast is an impersonal (or “experiencer”) verb:
- Structure: something leiðist to someone (dative)
- You almost always see it with a dative pronoun:
- Mér leiðist. = I am bored.
- Honum leiðist. = He is bored.
- Henni leiðist. = She is bored.
If you said hún leiðist, it would sound like “she bores (someone)” (rare, and not what you mean). The person who feels boredom is in the dative, so it must be henni here.
These are two common ways to say someone is bored:
Henni leiðist.
- Very common, short, neutral.
- Literally: it bores her.
Henni er leiðinlegt.
- Literally: to her is boring (i.e. “it is boring for her”).
- Slightly more descriptive, often about a situation, place, event, etc.
In everyday speech, henni leiðist is a very natural, compact way to say “she is bored.” Both use henni (dative) as the experiencer.
Einmana means “lonely”.
- It behaves like an indeclinable adjective in modern usage: it doesn’t change for gender, number, or case when used predicatively with “vera” (to be).
- So you say:
- Ég er einmana. = I am lonely.
- Hún er einmana. = She is lonely.
- Þau eru einmana. = They are lonely.
In the sentence:
…og hún er einmana.
= “…and she is lonely.”
Einmana here is just the predicate adjective describing hún.
Both are possible, but they emphasize slightly different things.
The original:
…hjálpar henni þegar henni leiðist og hún er einmana.
This is naturally read as referring to two conditions that tend to go together:
- when she is bored (þegar henni leiðist)
- and (when) she is lonely (og hún er einmana)
Icelandic is happy to omit the second “þegar” when it’s clear from context. It’s a bit like English:
- “She helps her when she’s bored and (when she’s) lonely.”
If you say:
…þegar henni leiðist og þegar hún er einmana.
that’s also correct, just a bit more explicit and a little heavier in style.
Icelandic commonly uses the present tense for habitual or general actions, much like English simple present:
- Vinkonan hennar hjálpar henni
= Her friend helps her (regularly, in general) - þegar henni leiðist og hún er einmana
= when she is bored and (is) lonely (whenever that happens)
English often chooses either:
- “when she is bored and lonely” (simple present), or
- “when she gets bored and lonely” (to stress the change of state).
Icelandic doesn’t usually introduce that extra “get”–type verb; present tense alone covers both “is” and the habitual sense “gets (whenever that situation arises).”
In isolation, hún could refer to either female person in the sentence. However, by default, Icelandic speakers will usually interpret pronouns to refer to the most salient or last-mentioned appropriate referent, and also by what makes sense.
The two possible feminine referents are:
- The friend (vinkonan hennar)
- The person being helped (henni)
Context (which we don’t see here) normally clarifies it. If the intended meaning is:
- The friend helps her when she (the one helped) is bored and lonely,
then hún is understood to refer to that same “she” (the experiencer of boredom and loneliness).
If you absolutely needed to remove ambiguity, you might rephrase or add context, but in everyday use, speakers usually know who hún is from the broader discourse.
Sure:
Vinkon-an
- vinkona = (female) friend
- -n (here written -an after vowel) = definite article “the”
- Case: nominative singular, subject
hennar
- Genitive of hún = “her” / “of her” (possessive)
- Modifies vinkonan → “her friend”
hjálp-ar
- Verb að hjálpa = to help
- 3rd person singular present = “(she) helps”
henni
- Dative of hún = “to her / for her”
- Indirect object of hjálpar
þegar
- Subordinating conjunction = “when”
henni
- Dative of hún again = “to her”
- Experiencer of leiðist
leiðist
- 3rd person singular present of að leiðast = “to be bored” / “(something) bores (someone)”
og
- Coordinating conjunction = “and”
hún
- Nominative of hún = “she”
- Subject of er
er
- 3rd person singular present of að vera = “is”
einmana
- Adjective = “lonely” (indeclinable here)
- Predicate complement of er
Putting it together:
Vinkonan hennar (her friend) hjálpar henni (helps her) þegar henni leiðist (when she is bored) og hún er einmana (and she is lonely).