Ég get hreyft fingurinn, en ökklinn er ekki eins góður og hann var í gær.

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Breakdown of Ég get hreyft fingurinn, en ökklinn er ekki eins góður og hann var í gær.

• vera: to be
• góður: good
• ekki: not

Questions & Answers about Ég get hreyft fingurinn, en ökklinn er ekki eins góður og hann var í gær.

Why is it get hreyft and not get hreyfa?

After geta meaning can / be able to, Icelandic normally uses the supine form of the next verb. That is why you get hreyft here, not the dictionary infinitive hreyfa.

So:

• að hreyfa = to move
• ég get hreyft = I can move

This is a very common pattern, and you will see it with many verbs after geta.

What exactly does hreyfa mean here?

Here hreyfa means to move something, not just to move in general.

That matters because Icelandic often distinguishes:

• hreyfa = move something
• hreyfast = move, be moving, budge

So Ég get hreyft fingurinn means I can move the finger, while Fingurinn hreyfist would mean the finger is moving / moves.

Why do fingurinn and ökklinn end in -inn?

The -inn is the suffixed definite article, so it means the.

• fingur = finger

• fingurinn = the finger

• ökkull = ankle
• ökklinn = the ankle

Icelandic usually attaches the to the end of the noun instead of writing it as a separate word.