Questions & Answers about Líf okkar er gott.
Word by word:
- líf – life
- okkar – our / of us
- er – is (3rd person singular of vera, “to be”)
- gott – good (neuter form of the adjective “good”)
So literally: “Life of-us is good.” → “Our life is good.”
The structure is:
- Subject: Líf okkar (“our life”)
- Verb: er (“is”)
- Complement (predicative adjective): gott (“good”)
So it’s a simple Subject–Verb–Complement sentence, very similar to English “Our life is good.”
- líf is a neuter noun in Icelandic.
- In this sentence it is the subject, so it is in the nominative case.
Adjectives must agree with the noun in gender, number, and case, so:
- neuter, singular, nominative noun (líf)
→ neuter, singular, nominative adjective gott.
That is why you see gott, not some other form of “good”.
The basic forms of “good” in Icelandic are:
- góður – masculine (e.g. maðurinn er góður – “the man is good”)
- góð – feminine (e.g. konan er góð – “the woman is good”)
- gott – neuter (e.g. barnið er gott – “the child is good”)
Because líf is a neuter noun, the correct agreeing form is gott.
So: Líf okkar er gott.
okkar is the genitive plural form of the personal pronoun við (“we”).
- Literally it means “of us”, and it is used as the normal word for “our”.
- It does not change its form for the gender or case of the noun; it is always okkar:
- húsið okkar – our house
- bíllinn okkar – our car
- líf okkar – our life
So it’s a possessive form meaning “our” / “of us”.
In Icelandic, the most neutral and common position for possessive pronouns like okkar is after the noun:
- líf okkar – our life
- bíllinn okkar – our car
- vinir okkar – our friends
Putting the possessive before the noun is also possible but usually adds emphasis (see next question).
So the normal way to say “our life” is líf okkar, not okkar líf.
Yes, Okkar líf er gott is grammatically correct.
The difference is mainly in emphasis:
- Líf okkar er gott. – neutral: “Our life is good.”
- Okkar líf er gott. – emphasizes our: “Our life is good” (as opposed to someone else’s).
So you would use Okkar líf if you want to stress whose life you are talking about.
Both are usually translated as “Our life is good.”
Líf okkar er gott.
- Literally “Life of us is good.”
- Often feels a bit more general: life (for us) is good.
Lífið okkar er gott.
- Lífið = “the life” (definite form: líf + -ið)
- Feels a bit more like “our (particular) life is good”.
In many everyday contexts, speakers might use either without a strong difference, but Lífið okkar sounds slightly more clearly definite/specific.
For the plural, the noun líf actually looks the same in the nominative singular and plural (it’s a neuter noun with no ending in the plural nominative).
What changes is the verb and the adjective:
- Líf okkar eru góð. – “Our lives are good.”
Changes compared to the singular:
- er → eru (plural “are”)
- gott → góð (neuter plural form of “good”)
So:
- Líf okkar er gott. – Our life is good.
- Líf okkar eru góð. – Our lives are good.
er is the present tense form of vera used with:
- ég er – I am
- hann / hún / það er – he / she / it is
- (and also in some other fixed uses)
Full present tense of vera:
- ég er – I am
- þú ert – you (sg.) are
- hann / hún / það er – he / she / it is
- við erum – we are
- þið eruð – you (pl.) are
- þeir / þær / þau eru – they are
In Líf okkar er gott, líf okkar behaves like “it”, so the correct form is er (“is”).
A rough pronunciation guide:
- Líf – like “leaf” in English, but with a long i: LEE-f (the f is a bit harder/voiceless)
- okkar – roughly OCK-ar:
- kk is pronounced like hk, so you might hear something like OHK-ar
- er – like “air” but shorter: ehr with a tapped/trilled r
- gott – roughly goht with a short, hard t at the end
All together: something like “LEE-f OCK-ar ehr goht”, with main stress on Líf and okkar.
Líf is capitalized here only because it is the first word of the sentence.
In Icelandic:
- Nouns are not normally capitalized.
- Only sentence-initial words and proper names (e.g. Ísland, Anna) are capitalized.
So inside a sentence you would write líf, not Líf.