Learn Hardcore Icelandic: Vinkona sem ég tala oft við hjálpar mér með erfiðar áskoranir. - A female friend that I often talk to helps me with difficult challenges.

Vinkona can mean a (female) friend (indefinite)
Context tells you whether it’s “a friend” or “the friend”. If you want to make it clearly definite, you usually add a definite ending or a possessive:
- vinkonan – the (female) friend
- vinkonan mín – my (female) friend

Here, Vinkona sem ég tala oft við… is naturally understood as “A (female) friend who I often talk to…”.

What does sem do in this sentence? Is it like “who/that” in English?

Yes. Sem is a relative pronoun / conjunction here, like English who / that.

In Vinkona sem ég tala oft við hjálpar mér…:

vinkona – the noun being described
sem ég tala oft við – the relative clause: “who(m) I often talk to”

So sem introduces the clause that describes which friend:
“A (female) friend who I often talk to helps me…”

Note: sem doesn’t change form for gender/case/number. It stays sem in all these situations.

Why is the preposition við at the end of the clause (sem ég tala oft við)? Isn’t that strange word order?

It feels natural in Icelandic in exactly this kind of sentence.

tala við = to talk to / to speak with

In a normal, non‑relative sentence, you’d say:

Ég tala oft við vinkonu mína. – I often talk to my (female) friend.

When you make vinkona the thing you’re describing with a relative clause, you “pull it out” in front and replace it with sem:

Vinkona sem ég tala oft við…
literally: Friend that I talk often to…

The preposition við stays with its verb tala at the end of the clause. This is very natural word order in Icelandic relative clauses, even though English normally avoids ending with the preposition (“friend who I often talk to” is actually quite similar).

More formal/very careful Icelandic sometimes tries to keep the preposition before sem, but in real usage …sem ég tala oft við is very common and fully acceptable.

In hjálpar mér, why is it mér and not mig?

Because the verb hjálpa (“to help”) takes the dative case, not the accusative.

mig = “me” in accusative (þolfall)
mér = “me” in dative (þágufall)

The verb patterns:

að hjálpa einhverjum – to help someone (dative)

So you must say:

Hún hjálpar mér. – She helps me.
Vinkona … hjálpar mér… – A (female) friend … helps me…

Using mig here would be ungrammatical in standard Icelandic.

Why is it vinkona and not vinkonu? Shouldn’t it be in some object form?

Vinkona is the subject of the main verb hjálpar, so it must be in the nominative case (nefnifall).

Structure:

Vinkona sem ég tala oft við – subject (who does the helping)
hjálpar – verb
mér – indirect object (dative)

Inside the relative clause sem ég tala oft við, that same friend is the object of tala við, but there she’s represented only by sem (which doesn’t show case). So:

Main clause role of “friend” = subject → vinkona (nominative)
Relative clause role of “friend” = object of tala við → reflected through sem

So vinkona must be nominative because it’s doing the action hjálpar.

What tense and person are tala and hjálpar, and how would they change with different subjects?

Both verbs are in the present tense.

ég tala – I speak / I talk
- 1st person singular, present
hjálpar – helps
- 3rd person singular, present (from að hjálpa)

Some forms:

tala (to speak) – present:

ég tala – I speak
þú talar – you speak (sg)
hann/hún/það talar – he/she/it speaks
við tölum – we speak
þið talið – you speak (pl)
þeir/þær/þau tala – they speak

hjálpa (to help) – present:

ég hjálpa
þú hjálpar
hann/hún/það hjálpar
við hjálpum
þið hjálpið
þeir/þær/þau hjálpa

So if the subject were plural:

Vinkonur sem ég tala oft við hjálpa mér…
(Friends who I often talk to help me…)

the verb would change to hjálpa (3rd person plural).

How does erfiðar agree with áskoranir? Why that specific ending?

Erfiðar áskoranir = difficult challenges.

áskorun – challenge (singular), feminine
áskoranir – challenges (plural), nominative/accusative plural feminine
erfiður – difficult (base form of the adjective)

Adjectives have to agree with the noun in gender, number, and case. Here:

gender: feminine
number: plural
case: nominative plural (as the complement of með, it’s actually accusative plural, but for feminine nouns the nominative and accusative plural forms are the same: áskoranir.)

For a strong adjective before an indefinite feminine plural noun, erfiður becomes:

erfiðar (fem. nom./acc. plural, strong)

So you get erfiðar áskoranir.

Why isn’t it áskoranirnar (with a definite ending)? When would I use that form?

Áskoranir = challenges (indefinite)
Áskoranirnar = the challenges (definite, with a suffixed article -nar)

In the sentence:

hjálpar mér með erfiðar áskoranir
→ helps me with difficult challenges (some challenges, not specifically identified)

If you mean specific, known challenges, you could say:

hjálpar mér með hinar erfiðu áskoranirnar – helps me with the difficult challenges
more simply in everyday language, often: hjálpar mér með erfiðu áskoranirnar

The original sentence is talking more generally: “difficult challenges” rather than “the difficult challenges we already know about”.

How is the whole sentence structured in terms of main clause and relative clause?

Sentence: Vinkona sem ég tala oft við hjálpar mér með erfiðar áskoranir.

Breakdown:

Vinkona sem ég tala oft við
- A noun phrase consisting of a head noun (vinkona)
- plus a relative clause (sem ég tala oft við) describing that noun
hjálpar – the main verb, 3rd person singular present
mér – indirect object (dative)
með erfiðar áskoranir – prepositional phrase:
- með – with
- erfiðar áskoranir – object of “with”: “difficult challenges”

So the main clause skeleton is:

[Subject] vinkona sem ég tala oft við
[Verb] hjálpar
[Indirect object] mér
[Prep. phrase] með erfiðar áskoranir

This respects the typical Icelandic verb‑second pattern: the main finite verb (hjálpar) comes after the first major constituent (here, the whole subject phrase).

Could I rephrase the sentence without a relative clause?

Yes, by turning the relative clause into an independent sentence, for example:

Ég tala oft við vinkonu sem hjálpar mér með erfiðar áskoranir.
– I often talk to a (female) friend who helps me with difficult challenges.

Or, with two separate sentences:

Ég tala oft við vinkonu mína. Hún hjálpar mér með erfiðar áskoranir.
– I often talk to my (female) friend. She helps me with difficult challenges.

The original just packs the information more tightly into one sentence by placing the relative clause directly after vinkona.

Can I say sem að instead of just sem here?

You might hear sem að in some colloquial / dialectal Icelandic, but in standard written Icelandic the correct and neutral form here is simply:

Vinkona sem ég tala oft við…

Using just sem is what you should learn and use in writing and in careful speech.