Questions & Answers about Ég hitti vinkonu mína í borginni.
Why is it vinkonu and not vinkona in this sentence?
Vinkona is the basic (dictionary) form in the nominative case — that’s what you use for the subject of a sentence.
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”?