Börnin fá köku eftir kvöldmat.

the child

Breakdown of Börnin fá köku eftir kvöldmat.

• eftir: after
• kvöldmaturinn: the dinner
• kakan: the cake

Questions & Answers about Börnin fá köku eftir kvöldmat.

What exactly does börnin mean, and how is it formed from barn?

Barn means child (a child).
Its plural is börn (children), with a vowel change a → ö. This type of vowel change in the plural is very common in Icelandic.

To say the children, Icelandic adds a definite ending to the noun instead of using a separate word:

• barn = child
• börn = children
• börn + in → börnin = the children

So börnin is börn (children) + the definite article -in → the children.
Grammatically, börnin is neuter plural nominative (the subject of the sentence).

Why isn’t there a separate word for the before börnin?

Icelandic normally does not use a separate article like English the in front of nouns. Instead, the definite article is a suffix attached to the end of the noun (or sometimes to an adjective+noun group).

So:

• English: the children
• Icelandic: börnin (one word, with -in marking definiteness)

There is also no indefinite article (a / an) in Icelandic. Context tells you whether you mean a child or the child, unless you add the definite ending.