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Learn Hardcore Icelandic: Ég elska vinnu mína. - I love my job.

Hardcore Icelandic
/Lesson 27
/Ég elska vinnu mína.

Ég elska vinnu mína.

Word

Ég elska vinnu mína.

Meaning

I love my job.

Part of speech

sentence

Pronunciation

Course

Hardcore Icelandic

Lesson

Breakdown of Ég elska vinnu mína.

Questions & Answers about Ég elska vinnu mína.

How do you pronounce Ég elska vinnu mína?

Rough pronunciation (English-style):

Ég ≈ "yegh" (with a slightly soft g)
elska ≈ "ELL-ska"
vinnu ≈ "VIN-nu" (short i as in bit, u like German ü)
mína ≈ "MEE-na"

In IPA (careful, “standard-ish”):

Ég: [jɛːɡ] (often realized as [jɛːɣ] or [jɛːk] in speech)
elska: [ˈɛlska]
vinnu: [ˈvɪnːʏ]
mína: [ˈmiːna]

Whole sentence: [jɛːɡ ˈɛlska ˈvɪnːʏ ˈmiːna]

Stress is always on the first syllable of each Icelandic word: ÉG ELSka VINnu MÍna.

What does each individual word mean, and what part of speech is it?

Ég – personal pronoun, 1st person singular nominative → “I”
elska – verb, 1st person singular present indicative → “(I) love”
vinna is the base noun meaning “work” / “job”, but here it appears as vinnu
- vinnu – noun, feminine, singular accusative form of vinna
mína – possessive adjective “my”, feminine singular accusative form of (from the paradigm )

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mín

minn / mín / mitt

So grammatically it’s:
I (ég) love (elska) work-ACC (vinnu) my-ACC-FEM (mína).

Why is it vinnu and not vinna?

Because of case.

The basic (dictionary) form is vinna (feminine noun: “work, job”).
In this sentence, work is the direct object of the verb elska (“to love”).
Direct objects of verbs are typically in the accusative case in Icelandic.

Declension of vinna (singular):

Nominative: vinna – used for the subject (Vinnan er erfið – “The work is hard.”)
Accusative: vinnu – used for (most) direct objects (Ég elska vinnu mína – “I love my work.”)
Dative: vinnu
Genitive: vinnu

So elska takes its object in the accusative, hence vinnu.

Why is it mína and not mín or minn?

The possessive adjective has to agree with the noun it modifies in:

Gender
Number
Case

Here the noun is vinnu:

Gender: feminine
Number: singular
Case: accusative

The possessive “my” declines like an adjective, from the base forms minn (masc), mín (fem), mitt (neut). For feminine singular accusative, the correct form is mína.

Relevant forms of mín:

Nominative fem. sg.: mín (e.g. Þetta er mín bók – “This is my book.”)
Accusative fem. sg.: mína (e.g. Ég elska bók mína – “I love my book.”)

Since vinnu is feminine, singular, accusative, the possessive must be mína:
vinnu (fem sg acc) mína (fem sg acc).

Why does mína come after vinnu instead of before it, like in English?

Icelandic has two common positions for possessive adjectives:

After the noun (postposed):
- vinna mín / vinnu mína – “my work” / “my work (as object)”
- This is very common and neutral.
Before the noun (preposed):
- mín vinna / mína vinnu
- Grammatically correct, but it often gives extra emphasis or can sound a bit more marked, sometimes closer to “this work of mine” or “my own work” in tone.

So:

Ég elska vinnu mína is the most neutral, everyday version.
Ég elska mína vinnu is possible, but can sound more emphatic or contrastive, like stressing my in “I love my job (as opposed to someone else’s)”.

Is vinna a noun or a verb here? I’ve seen vinna meaning “to win”.

Here it is a noun.

Icelandic has both:

vinna (noun, feminine) – “work, job”
- Nominative: vinna
- Accusative: vinnu (used here)
vinna (verb) – “to win”
- Infinitive: að vinna – “to win” or “to work” (verb meaning “to work” also exists, same form)
- 1st person sg. present: ég vinn – “I win” / “I work” (context decides)

In Ég elska vinnu mína, the shape vinnu (not vinn) clearly marks it as the noun in the accusative, not the verb. So the meaning is “my work / my job”, not “my winning”.

Does Ég always have to be written with a capital letter and can it be dropped like in some other languages?

Capitalization:
- At the start of a sentence, Ég is capitalized simply because it is the first word, not as a special rule for “I” like in English.
- In the middle of a sentence, it would be ég.
Dropping the subject:
- In Icelandic, you normally do not drop the subject pronoun.
- So Ég elska vinnu mína is the normal form; saying just Elska vinnu mína sounds incomplete or wrong in standard speech, unless it’s some very clipped or poetic style.

So:

Use ég (lowercase) for “I”.
Capitalize it only when sentence-initial: Ég elska vinnu mína.

Is elska as strong as English “love”? When would I use elska vs something softer like “like”?

Yes, elska is typically as strong as English “love” and is not the default way to say you simply “like” something.

Ég elska vinnu mína ≈ “I love my job.”
- Sounds enthusiastic or strong, not just neutral.

For a milder, more usual “like”, Icelandic often uses líka við:

Mér líkar við vinnuna mína. – “I like my job.” (literally “To me pleases my work.”)
Colloquially more common: Mér líkar vinnan mín. or Mér líkar vel við vinnuna mína.

So:

Use elska when you really mean love (very positive, strong).
Use líka við (or related constructions) for normal “like”.

How does the verb elska change with different subjects, for example “We love our work”?

Elska is a regular (weak) verb. Present tense:

ég elska – I love
þú elskar – you (sg) love
hann / hún / það elskar – he / she / it loves
við elskum – we love
þið elskið – you (pl) love
þeir / þær / þau elska – they love

So:

Ég elska vinnu mína. – I love my work.
Við elskum vinnu okkar. – We love our work.

Note that okkar is the possessive for “our” (1st person plural), and it does not change for gender/number/case the same way as minn/mín/mitt does – it stays okkar.

What’s the difference between Ég elska vinnu mína and Ég elska vinnuna mína?

The difference is mainly definiteness and a nuance in meaning:

Ég elska vinnu mína.
- vinnu = indefinite “work / (type of) job”
- Often feels a bit more general: “I love my work (the work I do, my line of work, my job situation).”
Ég elska vinnuna mína.
- vinnuna = definite accusative of vinna
  - Nom. sg. definite: vinnan
  - Acc. sg. definite: vinnuna
- Sounds more like one specific job: “I love my (particular) job.”

In everyday speech, Ég elska vinnuna mína is very common when talking about your specific job position. Ég elska vinnu mína is also correct but leans slightly more toward “I love the kind of work I do.”

Could I say Ég elska starfið mitt instead of Ég elska vinnu mína?

Yes, and that’s actually a very natural way to say “I love my job.”

starf – noun, neuter, often used for a job/position/post
Accusative singular definite: starfið
Neuter possessive: mitt (“my”)

So:

Ég elska starfið mitt. – “I love my job (position).”

Comparing:

Ég elska vinnu mína. – I love my work / my line of work (quite strong, enthusiastic).
Ég elska starfið mitt. – I love my particular job (post), more concrete.

Both are correct; starf / starfið mitt is often the more specific-job way to phrase it.

Why is there no word for “the” or “a” in Ég elska vinnu mína?

Icelandic handles articles differently from English:

No separate word for “a/an”
- The indefinite article is simply absence of a definite marker.
- So vinna / vinnu can correspond to “work”, “a job”, etc., depending on context.
“The” is usually a suffix on the noun
- Instead of a separate word the, Icelandic usually adds a definite ending:
  - vinna → vinnan (“the work”, nominative)
  - vinnu → vinnuna (“the work” as object, accusative)

So Ég elska vinnu mína has:

vinnu – indefinite “work / job” (as object)
mína – “my”

If you want to express “the job” more explicitly, you use the suffixed definite form:

Ég elska vinnuna mína. – “I love my (specific) job.”

The lack of a separate “the” or “a” is normal Icelandic grammar.

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