Breakdown of Ég er sérstaklega stoltur af dóttur minni, því hún hjálpar öðrum nemendum.
Questions & Answers about Ég er sérstaklega stoltur af dóttur minni, því hún hjálpar öðrum nemendum.
In Icelandic, adjectives agree with the grammatical gender of the noun (or pronoun) they describe.
- stoltur = masculine, singular, nominative
- stolt = feminine, singular, nominative
The subject ég (I) doesn’t show gender on the pronoun itself, but the speaker has a gender, and the adjective agrees with that:
- A man would say: Ég er sérstaklega stoltur af dóttur minni.
- A woman would say: Ég er sérstaklega stolt af dóttur minni.
So stoltur is correct only if the speaker is grammatically masculine. If the speaker is female, stolt is the correct form.
The adjective stoltur (proud) in Icelandic normally takes the preposition af with the dative case:
- að vera stoltur af e-m = to be proud of someone
- að vera stoltur af e-u = to be proud of something
So the construction is:
stoltur af + [dative noun phrase]
You cannot just put the noun directly after the adjective the way English sometimes can (“proud daughter”). You must use the preposition:
- Ég er stoltur af dóttur minni.
I am proud of my daughter.
Dóttir (daughter) is a feminine noun with irregular case forms.
- dóttir = nominative singular (subject form)
- dóttur = accusative and dative singular
The preposition af always takes the dative case. So we need the dative of dóttir, which is dóttur:
- Nom.: dóttir mín – my daughter (as subject)
- Dat.: af dóttur minni – of my daughter / about my daughter
So af forces dóttur (dative), not dóttir (nominative).
Minn / mín / mitt (my) is a possessive adjective that declines for:
- gender (masc./fem./neut.)
- number (sing./pl.)
- case (nom./acc./dat./gen.)
Here, dóttur is:
- feminine
- singular
- dative
So minn has to match that: feminine, singular, dative → minni.
A mini paradigm (singular only):
- Masculine: minn – minn – mínum – míns
- Feminine: mín – mína – minni – minnar
- Neuter: mitt – mitt – mínu – míns
So:
- Nom.: dóttir mín – my daughter
- Dat.: af dóttur minni – of my daughter
That’s why we get minni here.
In Icelandic, possessives like minn / þinn / sinn / hans / hennar very often come after the noun:
- dóttir mín = my daughter
- vinur minn = my friend
- bókin hans = his book
They can come before the noun, but that usually sounds more emphatic or stylistically marked:
- mín dóttir – sounds like my daughter (as opposed to someone else’s), or very emphatic.
So the neutral, everyday order is:
noun + possessive → dóttur minni
Sérstaklega is an adverb meaning especially, particularly. It modifies the adjective stoltur:
- Ég er sérstaklega stoltur…
I am especially proud…
Typical positions:
- Before the adjective: Ég er sérstaklega stoltur.
- Sometimes at the end, for emphasis: Ég er stoltur, sérstaklega af dóttur minni.
Putting it directly after stoltur (Ég er stoltur sérstaklega) is possible but tends to sound more marked or less natural than placing it before the adjective in this kind of sentence.
Here, því is a conjunction meaning “because”, introducing a reason clause:
- …, því hún hjálpar öðrum nemendum.
…, because she helps other students.
In Icelandic, it is very common (and standard) to put a comma before conjunctions that introduce a new clause, including því, því að, af því að, en, en þó and so on.
So the comma marks the boundary between:
- Main clause: Ég er sérstaklega stoltur af dóttur minni
- Reason clause: því hún hjálpar öðrum nemendum
They look the same in writing but function differently:
því as a pronoun
- Dative singular of það (it/that).
- Example: Ég talaði um það, en ég hugsa ekki meira um því.
því as a conjunction/connector
- Means because or sometimes therefore, depending on context.
- In your sentence, it clearly means because.
In …, því hún hjálpar öðrum nemendum, it’s not a pronoun; it’s a connector meaning because.
Yes, that’s very natural:
- Ég er sérstaklega stoltur af dóttur minni, af því að hún hjálpar öðrum nemendum.
Here:
- af því að = because (literally something like “from that that”).
- It’s slightly more explicit/longer than using bare því, but in everyday language they’re both common.
The core structure and meaning are the same; this is largely a stylistic choice.
Hjálpa is the infinitive (to help). It conjugates in the present tense like this:
- Ég hjálpa – I help
- Þú hjálpar – you help
- Hann / hún / það hjálpar – he/she/it helps
- Við hjálpum – we help
- Þið hjálpið – you (pl.) help
- Þeir / þær / þau hjálpa – they help
The subject is hún (she), third person singular, so we must use the 3rd person singular form:
hún hjálpar – she helps
Two things are happening:
Hjálpa takes the dative case
- In Icelandic, some verbs “govern” a particular case.
- að hjálpa e-m = to help someone (always dative)
The noun phrase is plural
- nemendur = students (nominative plural)
- Dative plural adds -um → nemendum
The adjective annar (other, another) must match the noun in case, number, and gender:
- Masculine nominative plural: aðrir nemendur
- Masculine dative plural: öðrum nemendum
So because of the verb hjálpar, both adjective and noun go into dative plural: öðrum nemendum.
They are different cases of the same noun nemandi (student).
Singular:
- Nom.: nemandi – a student
- Acc.: nemanda
- Dat.: nemanda
- Gen.: nemanda
Plural:
- Nom.: nemendur – students (subject)
- Acc.: nemendur
- Dat.: nemendum – to/for students
- Gen.: nemenda
In your sentence, nemendum is dative plural, required by the verb hjálpa (to help), which governs the dative: hjálpa nemendum – help (the) students.
Grammatically, af minni dóttur is possible, but:
- The neutral, most common order is noun + possessive:
af dóttur minni - af minni dóttur sounds more marked or emphatic, like you are stressing my in contrast to someone else’s daughter:
“(I’m proud) of *my daughter (in particular).”*
So in ordinary, non-contrastive speech, af dóttur minni is preferred.