Við kvörtum ekki, þó að röðin sé löng.

to be

Breakdown of Við kvörtum ekki, þó að röðin sé löng.

• ekki: not
• við: we
• langur: long

Questions & Answers about Við kvörtum ekki, þó að röðin sé löng.

What form is kvörtum, and what verb does it come from?

Kvörtum is the present tense, 1st person plural form of the verb kvarta (to complain).

• infinitive: að kvarta
• present (we): við kvörtum
  It’s a regular pattern for many Icelandic verbs: -um often marks we in the present tense.

Do I always need to say við (we), or can it be dropped?

In modern Icelandic you normally keep the subject pronoun (við) if you mean we. Icelandic verb endings do show person/number, but not so uniquely that speakers reliably drop pronouns the way Spanish speakers often can. Dropping við would sound unusual or poetic in most everyday contexts.

Why is ekki placed after the verb: kvörtum ekki?

In a normal main clause Icelandic has verb-second (V2) word order, so the finite verb comes early, and ekki typically comes right after the finite verb (or after the subject + finite verb).
So you get:

• Við kvörtum ekki (We do not complain)

You’ll also see ekki after an auxiliary if there is one, e.g. Við getum ekki kvarta (We cannot complain).

What does þó að do in this sentence?