Hjúkrunarfræðingurinn skoðar handlegginn minn og spyr hvort mér sé illt.

It is a very typical Icelandic compound noun.

• hjúkrun = nursing, care
• fræðingur = specialist, learned person
• together, hjúkrunarfræðingur = nurse
• -inn / -urinn = the definite article attached to the noun

So hjúkrunarfræðingurinn means the nurse.

Icelandic often builds long words by joining smaller meaningful parts together, much more freely than English does.

That ending is the definite article: the.

In Icelandic, the is usually attached to the end of the noun instead of standing as a separate word.

• hjúkrunarfræðingur = a nurse
• hjúkrunarfræðingurinn = the nurse

The exact form of the article changes depending on gender, number, and case. Here the noun is masculine, singular, nominative, so you get -inn, and because the noun already ends in -ur, the full result is -urinn.

Not necessarily.

hjúkrunarfræðingur is grammatically masculine, but grammatical gender in Icelandic does not always tell you the real-life gender of the person. Professional titles are often grammatically masculine even when they can refer to anyone.

So in many contexts, hjúkrunarfræðingurinn can simply mean the nurse, without specifically saying whether the nurse is a man or a woman.

Because handlegginn is the accusative singular definite form.

• handleggur = an arm
• handlegginn = the arm

The verb skoða means to examine / inspect / look at, and it takes a direct object in the accusative case. Since my arm is the thing being examined, Icelandic uses the accusative:

• skoðar handlegginn minn = examines my arm

So the noun changes from dictionary form handleggur to accusative handlegginn.

That is the normal Icelandic pattern with possessives when the noun is definite.

• handlegginn minn = my arm
• literally something like the arm my

This sounds odd in English, but it is completely normal in Icelandic.

A possessive before the noun is possible in some contexts, but it is much less neutral and often feels emphatic, poetic, or contrastive. For ordinary everyday speech, handlegginn minn is the natural choice.

Because this expression uses the dative case.

In Icelandic, many feelings, bodily states, and experiences are expressed with a dative pronoun:

• mér er kalt = I am cold
• mér er heitt = I am hot
• mér er illt = I am in pain / it hurts

So mér here is not a direct object. It is the experiencer in an impersonal construction. English says I am in pain, but Icelandic says something closer to to me is painful.

Because sé is the subjunctive form of vera (to be).

• er = is
• sé = be / is, in the subjunctive

After verbs like spyr (asks) and in indirect questions introduced by hvort, Icelandic often uses the subjunctive, especially in more careful or standard written language.

So:

• direct question: Er þér illt? = Are you in pain?
• indirect question: spyr hvort mér sé illt = asks whether I am in pain

In everyday speech, you may sometimes hear er in places where formal grammar would prefer sé, but sé is the form learners should recognize and aim to understand here.

Because this is an impersonal expression, and Icelandic normally uses the neuter singular adjective in this pattern.

• mér er illt = I am in pain / it hurts
• mér er kalt = I am cold
• mér er heitt = I am hot

So illt is the neuter singular form of the adjective illur.

It does not agree with mér, because mér is not a nominative subject here. The whole expression is impersonal, so the neuter singular is used by default.

Also, illa would be an adverb, so it would not fit this structure.

Here hvort means whether.

It introduces an indirect yes/no question:

• spyr hvort mér sé illt = asks whether I am in pain

This is different from a question word like hvað (what) or hvenær (when). It is used when the embedded question can be answered with yes or no.

This is a very common learner question because English often uses if for both ideas.

In Icelandic:

• hvort = whether
• ef = if, in the sense of on the condition that

So in careful Icelandic, an indirect yes/no question takes hvort:

• Hann spurði hvort ég kæmi. = He asked whether I was coming.

But a condition takes ef:

• Ég kem ef ég hef tíma. = I will come if I have time.

In casual speech, people sometimes use ef where formal grammar would prefer hvort, but in a sentence like this, hvort is the standard choice.

Because subordinate clauses in Icelandic do not usually follow the same verb-second pattern as main clauses.

In a main clause, Icelandic often puts the finite verb in second position. But after a subordinating word like hvort, the clause has more typical subordinate-clause order.

So:

• mér sé illt is the natural subordinate structure here

Also, mér comes early because it is the experiencer of the impersonal expression mér er illt.

Because Icelandic does not need to say it here.

The clause hvort mér sé illt already tells us what the nurse is asking about, and the context makes it clear who is being asked. So spyr can stand without an explicit object:

• spyr hvort mér sé illt = asks whether I am in pain

You could also say spyr mig hvort mér sé illt if you want to make me explicit, but it is not necessary.

Not literally, no.

The Icelandic structure is closer to:

• to me is painful
• or it is painful for me

But the natural English meaning is usually:

• I am in pain
• it hurts
• I have pain

This is a good example of how Icelandic often expresses physical states differently from English, especially with dative experiencers like mér.