Æfingin er stutt, en hún hjálpar mér mikið.

Because æfingin is the definite form of the noun: the exercise.

In Icelandic, the definite article is usually attached to the end of the noun instead of being a separate word like the in English.

• æfing = exercise
• æfingin = the exercise

Here, the sentence is talking about a specific exercise, so the definite form is used.

Also, æfing is a feminine noun, and -in is the definite ending here.

Because æfing is a feminine noun in Icelandic.

Icelandic nouns have grammatical gender: masculine, feminine, or neuter. When you refer back to a noun with a pronoun, the pronoun must match the noun’s grammatical gender.

So:

• æfingin = feminine
• therefore hún = she/it for feminine nouns

In English, we usually say it for things, but in Icelandic the pronoun still reflects grammatical gender. So hún here really means it, not she in a personal sense.

Because stutt is the adjective short, and it agrees with æfingin.

Since æfingin is:

• feminine
• singular
• nominative

the adjective must match that.

This sentence uses er + adjective, which works like is short in English. The adjective is a predicate adjective, but it still agrees with the subject in gender and number.

So:

• masculine: often stuttur
• feminine: stutt
• neuter: stutt

That is why you get Æfingin er stutt.

En means but.

It is a coordinating conjunction, joining two clauses:

• Æfingin er stutt
• hún hjálpar mér mikið

Unlike some other words in Icelandic, en does not force inversion. So the second clause keeps normal word order:

• hún = subject
• hjálpar = verb
• mér = object
• mikið = adverb

So the structure is straightforward: but it helps me a lot.

Because hjálpar is the present tense, 3rd person singular form of the verb hjálpa (to help).

The subject is hún (it), which is third person singular, so the verb must match:

• ég hjálpa = I help
• þú hjálpar = you help
• hann/hún/það hjálpar = he/she/it helps

So in this sentence:

• hún hjálpar = it helps

Because the verb hjálpa takes the dative case in Icelandic, not the accusative.

That is something English speakers often have to memorize, because English just uses me without showing case clearly in this way.

The pronoun forms are:

• ég = I
• mig = me (accusative)
• mér = me (dative)

Since hjálpa requires dative, you must say:

• hjálpa mér = help me

not hjálpa mig.

This is a very important pattern to remember:

• að hjálpa einhverjum = to help someone
  with someone in the dative.

Here mikið means a lot or greatly.

It is modifying the verb hjálpar, not the noun. So it tells you how much it helps.

• hún hjálpar mér mikið = it helps me a lot

Although mikill/mikil/mikið is basically an adjective meaning big/great/much, the neuter singular form mikið is very commonly used adverbially in Icelandic.

So you can think of it here as functioning like an adverb.

Because Icelandic, like English, often uses a pronoun to avoid repetition.

So instead of saying:

• Æfingin er stutt, en æfingin hjálpar mér mikið

Icelandic uses:

• Æfingin er stutt, en hún hjálpar mér mikið

This sounds more natural and smoother. The pronoun hún clearly refers back to æfingin.

Usually no, not in normal standard Icelandic.

Icelandic generally requires an expressed subject in a sentence like this. So the second clause needs hún:

• en hún hjálpar mér mikið

Leaving out the subject would sound incomplete to most learners and would not be the normal full form.

So unlike some languages where the subject can be dropped more freely, Icelandic usually keeps it.

The basic order is:

• hún = subject
• hjálpar = verb
• mér = indirect object/dative object
• mikið = adverb

So the pattern is basically:

Subject + Verb + Object + Adverb

That is very close to natural English order in this sentence:

• it helps me a lot

This makes the clause relatively easy to understand once you know that mér is dative.

A rough guide is:

Æfingin ≈ EYE-fi-gin

A few helpful pronunciation notes:

• Æ is pronounced roughly like eye
• f is just f
• the g in -gin- is not always a hard English g; in careful speech it is softer than English learners may expect
• the stress in Icelandic usually falls on the first syllable

So the word begins with strong stress on Æ-.

If you are aiming for a beginner-friendly approximation, EYE-fi-gin is a useful starting point.

Yes, in this adjective it is.

For stuttur (short), the nominative singular forms are:

• masculine: stuttur
• feminine: stutt
• neuter: stutt

So both feminine singular and neuter singular use stutt here.

That is why learners sometimes wonder whether it is feminine or neuter, but in this sentence you know it is feminine because it agrees with æfingin, which is a feminine noun.

Because the sentence joins two full clauses:

• Æfingin er stutt
• hún hjálpar mér mikið

Putting a comma before en (but) is very common and natural in Icelandic writing when two independent clauses are connected.

So the comma helps show the break between the two parts:

• first idea: the exercise is short
• second idea: but it helps a lot

It works much like English punctuation in a sentence like The exercise is short, but it helps me a lot.