Learn Hardcore Icelandic: Ég hitti vinkonu mína í borginni.

In Ég hitti vinkonu mína í borginni, vinkonu mína is the direct object (“(my) friend” is the one being met), so Icelandic puts it in the accusative case.

Feminine nouns ending in -a (like vinkona) usually have -u in the singular accusative:

nominative: vinkona – “(a) (female) friend” (as subject)
accusative: vinkonu – “(a) (female) friend” (as object)

So you need vinkonu here because it is the object of hitti (“met / meet”).

What exactly does vinkona mean, and how is it different from vinur?

Icelandic distinguishes the gender of “friend”:

vinur – a (male) friend, grammatically masculine
vinkona – a (female) friend, grammatically feminine

So:

Ég hitti vinkonu mína… = I met my female friend …
Ég hitti vin minn… = I met my male friend …

If you don’t care about the friend’s gender in English, you still have to choose one in Icelandic.

Why does mína come after vinkonu instead of before it, like English “my friend”?

In Icelandic, possessive pronouns (my, your, his, etc.) most often come after the noun:

vinkona mín – my friend
vinkonu mína – my friend (as object)
húsið mitt – my house
bókin þín – your book

So vinkonu mína is the normal order: noun + possessive pronoun.

You can sometimes put the possessive before the noun (e.g. mín vinkona), but that is marked or emphatic, more like “my friend (as opposed to someone else’s)”. The neutral, everyday pattern is noun first, then possessive.

Why does mína end in -a? Why not mín?

Possessive pronouns in Icelandic behave like adjectives: they agree in gender, number, and case with the noun they refer to.

Here the noun phrase is:

vinkonu mína

Details:

vinkonu is feminine singular accusative
Therefore, mína must also be feminine singular accusative

Forms of mín (my) in the singular:

feminine nominative: mín
feminine accusative: mína
feminine dative: minni
feminine genitive: minnar

So with vinkonu (accusative), you need mína, not mín.

Why is it í borginni and not just í borg?

Two separate things are happening in í borginni:

Case after the preposition í
- í means “in” (location) or “into” (movement).
- With location (“in the city”), í takes the dative case.
- The dative of borg (“city”) in the definite form is borginni.
Definiteness (“the city”)
Icelandic usually doesn’t use a separate word for “the”. Instead, it puts a definite ending on the noun:
- borg – a city
- borgin – the city (nominative)
- borginni – the city (dative)

So í borginni literally is “in the-city (dative)”, i.e. in the city.

What does the ending -inni in borginni tell me?

The ending -inni does two jobs at once:

It marks the definite article (“the”):
- borg – city
- borgin – the city (nominative)
- borgina – the city (accusative)
- borginni – the city (dative)
It marks the dative case:
- Preposition í expressing location (“in”) takes dative, so borg must appear in dative: borginni.

So from -inni you can read:

feminine
singular
definite
dative

Could I also say Ég hitti mína vinkonu í borginni? Is that wrong?

It’s not grammatically wrong, but it sounds marked and more emphatic.

Ég hitti vinkonu mína í borginni.
Neutral, normal: “I met my (female) friend in the city.”
Ég hitti mína vinkonu í borginni.
Emphatic on mína: something like “I met my (female) friend in the city”, perhaps contrasting with someone else’s friend, or stressing that she is your friend in particular.

For everyday neutral speech, stick to vinkonu mína (noun + possessive).

Is hitti present or past tense here, and how do I know?

Formally, hitti can be either present or past tense of hitta (“to meet”):

ég hitti – I meet / I am meeting (present)
ég hitti – I met (past)

They look the same in 1st person singular. You normally know from context (time expressions, surrounding sentences, what’s being talked about).

In isolation, teachers often gloss Ég hitti vinkonu mína í borginni as “I met my (female) friend in the city” (past), but grammatically the form hitti itself is ambiguous between present and past in 1st person singular.

How is the verb hitta conjugated in the present and past?

Indicative present of hitta (to meet):

ég hitti – I meet
þú hittir – you meet (sing.)
hann / hún / það hittir – he / she / it meets
við hittum – we meet
þið hittið – you meet (pl.)
þeir / þær / þau hitta – they meet

Indicative past of hitta:

ég hitti – I met
þú hittir – you met (sing.)
hann / hún / það hitti – he / she / it met
við hittum – we met
þið hittuð – you met (pl.)
þeir / þær / þau hittu – they met

So the 1st person singular (ég hitti) looks the same in both present and past; context tells you which is meant.

Why is í borginni at the end? Could I move that phrase in the sentence?

The neutral word order is very similar to English: Subject – Verb – Object – Adverbial:

Ég (subject)
hitti (verb)
vinkonu mína (object)
í borginni (adverbial phrase = where)

So Ég hitti vinkonu mína í borginni is the most natural order.

You can move í borginni for emphasis or style:

Í borginni hitti ég vinkonu mína.
“In the city, I met my (female) friend.” (emphasis on in the city)

But for a beginner, stick with subject – verb – object – place as in the original sentence.

What changes in meaning if I say Ég hitti vinkonu mína í borgina instead of í borginni?

Here you are changing both case and meaning:

í borginni – dative, meaning “in the city” (location)
í borgina – accusative, meaning “into the city” (movement towards)

So:

Ég hitti vinkonu mína í borginni.
I met my friend in the city (the meeting takes place inside the city).
Ég fór í borgina.
I went into the city (movement from outside to inside).

With hitta (“meet”), you usually want location, so í borginni is the natural choice in the original sentence.

Why do we use the possessive at all? Could I say Ég hitti vinkonu í borginni?

Yes, you can say:

Ég hitti vinkonu í borginni.
= I met a (female) friend in the city.

The difference:

vinkonu mína = my (female) friend – specific, and marked as belonging to you
vinkonu alone = a female friend – someone’s friend, but we don’t specify whose (could be yours, could just be some friend)

So use mína when you want to say “my friend”, not just “a friend”.

How would the sentence change if the friend were male, or if I met more than one friend?

Male friend (singular)
Noun: vinur (male friend), accusative singular vin
Possessive: minn (masc. acc. sg.)
- Ég hitti vin minn í borginni.
  = I met my (male) friend in the city.
Several female friends
Noun: vinkonur (plural), accusative plural also vinkonur
Possessive: mínar (fem. acc. pl.)
- Ég hitti vinkonur mínar í borginni.
  = I met my (female) friends in the city.
Several male friends
Noun: vinir (plural), accusative plural vini
Possessive: mina (masc. acc. pl.)
- Ég hitti vini mína í borginni.
  = I met my (male) friends in the city.

The pattern is the same: the noun changes for gender/number/case, and the possessive pronoun agrees with it.