Questions & Answers about Ég er frjáls í dag.
What does each word in Ég er frjáls í dag literally mean?
Word by word:
- Ég = I
- er = am (present tense of vera – to be)
- frjáls = free
- í = in
- dag = day
So literally it is I am free in day, which corresponds to natural English I’m free today. The phrase í dag is an idiomatic time expression meaning today, not in the day in normal usage.
Why is it frjáls and not frjálst or some other ending?
Frjáls is an adjective, and in Icelandic adjectives agree with the noun (or pronoun’s referent) in gender, number, and case.
The basic forms of frjáls in the nominative singular are:
- masculine: frjáls
- feminine: frjáls
- neuter: frjálst
In Ég er frjáls í dag, frjáls is describing ég (I). The pronoun ég can refer to a male or a female person, but grammatically it behaves like masculine/feminine here, so you use frjáls, not frjálst.
You would use:
- Húsið er frjálst = The house is free (neuter noun → neuter adjective ).