Learn Hardcore Icelandic: Við höfum verið að afrita gömul skjöl og líma textann í nýtt skjal. - We have been copying old documents and pasting the text into a new document.

Word

Við höfum verið að afrita gömul skjöl og líma textann í nýtt skjal.

Meaning

We have been copying old documents and pasting the text into a new document.

Part of speech

sentence

Pronunciation

Course

Lesson

Breakdown of Við höfum verið að afrita gömul skjöl og líma textann í nýtt skjal.

Why does höfum verið að afrita mean something like have been copying?

This is a very common Icelandic way to express an ongoing action that started in the past and is still relevant now.

It breaks down like this:

So hafa verið að + infinitive often works a lot like English have been + -ing.

In this sentence:

It is not a word-for-word match to English grammar, but the overall meaning is very similar.

Why is there an að before afrita?

Here að is part of the construction vera að + infinitive, which often expresses that something is in progress.

For example:

So the að here is not the ordinary infinitive marker in the same way English to works everywhere. It belongs to this verbal pattern.

Why is there no second að before líma?