Breakdown of Hann var feginn að vinkona hans gat bjargað deginum með því að sækja börnin.
vera
to be
dagurinn
the day
barnið
the child
hann
he
geta
to be able
að
that
hans
his
vinkonan
the (female) friend
með því að
by
sækja
to pick up
feginn
glad
bjarga
to save
Questions & Answers about Hann var feginn að vinkona hans gat bjargað deginum með því að sækja börnin.
Why is feginn used here?
Feginn means glad, pleased, or often relieved about a particular situation. In the pattern vera feginn að..., it matches English to be glad that... very naturally. Icelandic also has glaður, but feginn often feels especially suitable when someone is happy that something worked out well.
Why is it feginn and not some other form of the adjective?
Icelandic adjectives agree with the noun or pronoun they describe. Here the subject is hann, which is masculine singular nominative, so the adjective also appears in the masculine singular nominative form: feginn. If the subject were different, the adjective form would change too.
What does the first að mean?
Here að means that and introduces a subordinate clause: að vinkona hans gat bjargað deginum... So the structure is basically He was glad that.... This is different from the later að in með því að, which belongs to a different construction.
Why is it vinkona hans and not vinkona sín?
Because sinn/sín/sitt normally refers back to the subject of its own clause. In the clause að vinkona hans gat..., the subject is vinkona, not hann. So if you used sín, it would point back to the friend herself, not to he. Since the possessor is he, Icelandic uses hans.
Why does hans come after vinkona instead of before it?
That is the normal Icelandic position for third-person possessives like hans, hennar, and þeirra. So vinkona hans is the usual way to say his friend. This is one of those places where Icelandic word order differs from English.
What exactly is gat?
Gat is the past tense of geta, which means can or be able to. So gat means could or was able to. In this sentence it refers to a specific past situation, not a general ability.
Why is it bjargað instead of bjarga?
After geta, Icelandic uses the verb form often called the supine: geta bjargað, geta hjálpað, geta farið, and so on. So gat bjargað means was able to save. Even though bjargað looks like a form also used in the perfect tense, this sentence is not a perfect-tense sentence.
Why is deginum in the dative case?
Because the verb bjarga takes a dative object. So you learn it as bjarga einhverju. Here dagur becomes deginum, giving bjargað deginum. This is a very common kind of thing in Icelandic: the verb determines the case of its object.
Is bjarga deginum basically the same as English save the day?
Yes. It is both literal and idiomatic in much the same way as in English. So bjarga deginum works very well as the Icelandic equivalent of save the day.
What does með því að mean?
Með því að is a fixed expression meaning by doing or by means of doing. After it, Icelandic uses að + verb. So með því að sækja börnin means by picking up the children.
What does sækja mean here?
Here sækja means fetch, collect, or pick up. With people or children, it often means going somewhere to get them and bring them back. So it fits very naturally in this sentence.
Why is it börnin?
The singular is barn (child), but the plural is irregular: börn (children). When you add the definite article, it becomes börnin = the children. In this sentence it is the object of sækja.
Why is the word order að vinkona hans gat... and not að gat vinkona hans...?
In main clauses, Icelandic often follows the verb-second pattern. But in subordinate clauses introduced by að, the word order is usually more straightforward: subject + verb. So að vinkona hans gat... is the normal structure here.
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