Bankinn er á vinstri hönd og apótekið er til hægri.

Because Icelandic usually puts the definite article onto the end of the noun, and the ending changes with the noun’s gender and pattern.

• banki = bank

• bankinn = the bank

• apótek = pharmacy
• apótekið = the pharmacy

So both words are definite, but they do not take the same article ending.

In Icelandic, the is very often a suffix, not a separate word.

So:

• bankinn = the bank
• apótekið = the pharmacy

This is one of the first big differences from English: Icelandic often builds definiteness directly into the noun.

Literally, it means on the left hand.

But in normal English, the natural meaning is on the left or on the left-hand side.

So this is best understood as an idiomatic location phrase rather than translated word-for-word every time.

Because Icelandic often uses more than one common fixed expression for left/right location.

In this sentence:

• á vinstri hönd = on the left
• til hægri = on the right

That may feel uneven to an English speaker, but both are natural Icelandic expressions. You should learn them as chunks rather than expecting perfect symmetry.

In this sentence, it means location: on the right.

Even though til often suggests to/toward, the whole expression til hægri is very commonly used to describe where something is, not just movement.

So here:

• apótekið er til hægri = the pharmacy is on the right

Vinstri means left and is modifying hönd (hand).

So vinstri hönd is literally left hand. In the full phrase á vinstri hönd, the whole expression means on the left-hand side.

A learner should know that Icelandic adjectives can change form depending on grammar, but in this case the safest approach is to learn á vinstri hönd as a set phrase.

In til hægri, the whole phrase functions like an adverbial expression: on the right.

So although hægri is related to the adjective right, in this sentence til hægri works as a fixed location phrase, not like a normal adjective directly describing a noun.

Because the sentence has two coordinated clauses:

• Bankinn er á vinstri hönd
• og apótekið er til hægri

Each clause has its own subject and its own verb er (is). That is normal and natural in Icelandic.

The basic order here is:

• subject + verb + location phrase

So:

• Bankinn = subject
• er = verb
• á vinstri hönd = location

and then again:

• apótekið = subject
• er = verb
• til hægri = location

This is a normal Icelandic main-clause pattern.