Questions & Answers about Ég skipulegg daginn minn.
The sentence breaks down like this:
- Ég – “I” (1st person singular subject pronoun)
- skipulegg – “organize / plan” (1st person singular present tense of the verb skipuleggja – “to organize, to plan”)
- daginn – “the day” (accusative singular of dagur – “day”, with the definite ending -inn)
- minn – “my” (masculine singular possessive pronoun agreeing with daginn)
Literal structure: I organize the-day my → “I organize my day.”
Dagur is the nominative form (used for subjects of a sentence).
Here, daginn is the direct object of the verb skipulegg, so it must be in the accusative case. For dagur (masculine):
- Nominative singular: dagur – used for the subject
- Accusative singular: dag – basic object form
- Definite accusative singular: daginn – “the day”
Since we want “the day” as an object, we use the definite accusative: daginn.
Singular forms of dagur:
- Nominative: dagur – (subject) “a/the day”
- Accusative: dag – (object) “a/the day”
- Dative: degi – “to/for the day”
- Genitive: dags – “of the day”
With the definite article in the singular:
- Nominative: dagurinn – “the day”
- Accusative: daginn – “the day” (object form used in your sentence)
- Dative: deginum
- Genitive: dagsins
Icelandic often places possessive pronouns after the noun, especially when the noun has a definite ending:
- dagurinn minn – “my day”
- húsið mitt – “my house”
In your sentence, the noun is in the accusative, so you get:
- daginn minn – “my day” (as an object)
You can also put the possessive before the noun:
- minn dagur (nominative)
- minn dag (accusative)
But preposed possessives (minn dagur, mín bók, etc.) usually sound more emphatic or contrastive, like “my day (not someone else’s)”. The more neutral, everyday way to say “my X” is often:
[definite noun] + [possessive] → daginn minn, bókin mín, húsið mitt.
The possessive pronoun has to agree with the noun in:
- Gender
- Number
- Case
Here the noun daginn is:
- Gender: masculine
- Number: singular
- Case: accusative
The masculine singular forms of minn are:
- Nominative: minn
- Accusative: minn
- Dative: mínum
- Genitive: míns
So for masculine accusative singular you also use minn, matching daginn.
Examples with other genders:
- bókin mín – “my book” (feminine)
- húsið mitt – “my house” (neuter)
Yes, Ég skipulegg minn dag is grammatically correct.
Subtle differences:
Ég skipulegg daginn minn
– neutral, very natural; basically “I organize my day.”Ég skipulegg minn dag
– sounds a bit more contrastive or emphatic, like “my day (not yours)” or “I (habitually) organize my own day.”
Both are fine, but daginn minn is the more typical everyday pattern.
Yes, Ég skipulegg daginn is correct Icelandic.
However, the meaning shifts slightly:
- Ég skipulegg daginn minn – clearly “I organize my day.”
- Ég skipulegg daginn – “I organize the day” (could be today, or the day of some event; not automatically understood as “my day”).
In many real contexts, people would infer you mean your own day, but grammatically the possessor is not expressed if you drop minn.
The infinitive is skipuleggja – “to organize, to plan”.
Present tense conjugation:
- ég skipulegg – I organize
- þú skipuleggur – you (sg.) organize
- hann / hún / það skipuleggur – he / she / it organizes
- við skipuleggjum – we organize
- þið skipuleggið – you (pl.) organize
- þeir / þær / þau skipuleggja – they organize
Your sentence uses ég skipulegg: 1st person singular present.
Skipuleggja is a verb that ends in -ja in the infinitive, and in the present tense its stem changes slightly:
- Infinitive: skipuleggja
- Stem in present: skipulegg-
Then person endings are added to that stem:
- ég skipulegg
- þú skipuleggur
- við skipuleggjum, etc.
This kind of stem change is regular for many -ja verbs in Icelandic (e.g. spyrja → ég spyr, vilja → ég vil), though the exact patterns vary from verb to verb.
Yes, Ég er að skipuleggja daginn minn is also correct.
Difference in nuance:
Ég skipulegg daginn minn.
– simple present; can mean a general habit (“I organize my day”) or something you’re doing today, depending on context.Ég er að skipuleggja daginn minn.
– literally “I am at organizing my day”, used a lot like the English present continuous “I am organizing my day (right now).”
So er að + infinitive often highlights an ongoing action at this moment.
Yes, Icelandic allows some flexible word order for emphasis, but the finite verb normally stays in second position (the “V2” rule).
Variants:
- Ég skipulegg daginn minn. – neutral, subject first.
- Daginn minn skipulegg ég. – puts Daginn minn in front for emphasis or contrast (e.g. “My day I organize…”).
Both are grammatical; the second sounds more marked/emphatic, and is less common in everyday speech, but it’s used in certain contexts (storytelling, contrast, style).
Very rough English-based approximation (stressed syllables in CAPS):
- Ég – roughly like yeh with a longer vowel
- skipulegg – SKI-pu-legg
- ski like “skip” without the p at the end
- pu like “puh”
- legg with a hard g (like “leg” but with a clearly doubled g)
- daginn – DA-yin
- da as in “da” in “dark” (but shorter)
- -ginn is roughly “yin”
- minn – like English min in “mince” but with a clear nn
Main points:
- Stress is on the first syllable of each word: ÉG SKI-pu-legg DA-ginn MINN.
- The g in Ég is usually a soft consonant, not like a hard “g” in “go”; it can sound almost like a soft fricative or fade after the vowel.
Yes, depending on style and nuance:
- Ég skipulegg daginn minn. – neutral, maybe a bit on the “organize/structure” side.
- Ég plana daginn minn. – uses plana (a borrowed, more casual verb) → “I plan my day.”
- Ég geri áætlun fyrir daginn minn. – “I make a plan for my day” (more formal or explicit).
- Ég tek til í deginum mínum. – literally “I tidy up in my day”; more metaphorical and less common for this meaning.
For ordinary speech about planning your schedule, Ég skipulegg daginn minn or Ég plana daginn minn are the most typical.