Hún leitar að nýju starfi og les auglýsingar á netinu.

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Breakdown of Hún leitar að nýju starfi og les auglýsingar á netinu.

• lesa: to read
• á: on
• og: and

Questions & Answers about Hún leitar að nýju starfi og les auglýsingar á netinu.

Why is it leitar að nýju starfi and not just leitar nýtt starf for “is looking for a new job”?

In modern Icelandic, leita in the sense of look for / search for almost always appears as the phrase leita að e-u (look for something).

• leita að + dative = to look for / to search for
  
  • Hún leitar að nýju starfi. – She is looking for a new job.

If you say leitar nýtt starf, it sounds ungrammatical or at least very odd. Without að, leita tends to mean search / examine and usually takes a genitive object in more formal or older style (e.g. leita hjálpar – seek help), not what you want here.

So að is simply required by this verb in this meaning, and it forces the next noun phrase (nýju starfi) into the dative case.

What case is nýju starfi in, and why?

nýju starfi is dative singular neuter.

• The noun is starf (n.) – job, work.
• Its main singular cases (indefinite) are:
  • Nom.: starf
  • Acc.: starf
  • Dat.: starfi
  • Gen.: starfs

The preposition að in the construction leita að e-u always takes the dative case. Because of that:

• starf must appear as starfi (dative singular).
• The adjective nýr (“new”) must agree with starfi in gender, number, and case, so it takes the dative singular neuter form nýju.

Hence: að nýju starfi = for a new job (literally “at new job-DAT”).