Ég verð pirruð þegar fólk hlustar ekki á mig.

Because verða means to become / to get, while vera means to be.

So:

• Ég er pirruð = I am annoyed
• Ég verð pirruð = I get annoyed / I become annoyed

In this sentence, the idea is that this is something that happens when a certain situation occurs: when people do not listen, the speaker gets annoyed.

The adjective agrees with the gender of the speaker.

• pirraður = masculine singular
• pirruð = feminine singular
• pirrað = neuter singular

So if a woman is speaking, she says:

• Ég verð pirruð

If a man is speaking, he would usually say:

• Ég verð pirraður

This kind of agreement is very common in Icelandic with adjectives.

Verð is the 1st person singular present tense of verða.

So:

• ég verð = I become / I get
• þú verður = you become
• hann/hún/það verður = he/she/it becomes

In this sentence, Ég verð means I get.

Be careful not to confuse it with the noun verð, which can also mean price in other contexts.

Because fólk is grammatically singular in Icelandic, even though it refers to many people collectively.

So Icelandic treats it like:

• fólk hlustar = people listen / the people listen

not like a plural subject.

This is similar to how some collective nouns work in English, though Icelandic is more consistent about it here.

A useful thing to remember:

• fólk = people, folk, a group of people
• grammatically: neuter singular

That is why the verb is hlustar (3rd person singular), not a plural form.

Because the Icelandic verb hlusta normally takes the preposition á.

So:

• hlusta á einhvern = listen to someone
• hlusta á tónlist = listen to music
• hlusta á mig = listen to me

You cannot usually just say hlusta mig for listen to me. The preposition is part of how the verb works.

This is something English speakers often have to memorize, because prepositions do not always match one-to-one between the two languages.

Because after the preposition á, Icelandic uses the accusative case here.

The pronoun forms are:

• ég = I
• mig = me

So:

• á mig = to me / at me / on me, depending on the expression
• with hlusta á, it means listen to me

This is just like English using me instead of I after a preposition:

• to me, not to I

Þegar means when.

It introduces the time clause:

• þegar fólk hlustar ekki á mig = when people do not listen to me

So the whole sentence has two parts:

• Ég verð pirruð = I get annoyed
• þegar fólk hlustar ekki á mig = when people do not listen to me

Together: I get annoyed when people do not listen to me.

In Icelandic, ekki usually comes after the finite verb.

So:

• fólk hlustar ekki á mig = people do not listen to me

Compare:

• Ég skil ekki = I do not understand
• Hann kemur ekki = He is not coming / He does not come

For English speakers, this can feel different because English uses do not before the main verb, while Icelandic often simply puts ekki after the finite verb.

In this sentence, it functions as an adjective meaning annoyed / irritated.

The pattern is:

• verða + adjective
• literally: become + annoyed

So Ég verð pirruð is structurally like:

• Ég verð þreytt = I get tired
• Ég verð glöð = I become happy

Even though forms like this may historically relate to participles, for a learner it is most useful to treat pirruð here as an adjective agreeing with the speaker.

Yes, but the meaning shifts slightly.

• Ég verð pirruð þegar fólk hlustar ekki á mig
  = I get annoyed when people don't listen to me
• Ég er pirruð þegar fólk hlustar ekki á mig
  = I am annoyed when people don't listen to me

The first version emphasizes the change of state: the situation causes annoyance. The second describes the state more directly.

In many contexts, both are natural, but verð often sounds especially good when you mean I end up becoming annoyed.

Because fólk can be used in a general sense, like people in English.

So:

• fólk hlustar ekki á mig = people do not listen to me

This is a general statement, not necessarily the people in a specific identified group.

If context made a specific group important, Icelandic could express that differently, but here the bare noun is the natural choice.

Not exactly, though it often translates that way.

Fólk is a collective singular noun meaning people / folk / persons as a group.

So while English people is plural, Icelandic fólk is singular in grammar:

• fólk er = people are
• fólk hlustar = people listen

This is one of those places where the meaning matches English well, but the grammar does not.

A male speaker would usually say:

• Ég verð pirraður þegar fólk hlustar ekki á mig.

The only change is the adjective:

• pirruð → feminine
• pirraður → masculine

Everything else stays the same.

The main clause is:

• Ég verð pirruð
• Subject + verb + adjective

The subordinate clause is:

• þegar fólk hlustar ekki á mig
• þegar
  • subject + verb + negation + prepositional phrase

So the overall structure is:

• [Main clause] + [when-clause]

This is a very common and useful pattern in Icelandic:

• Ég verð leið/leiður þegar... = I get sad when...
• Ég verð stressuð/stressaður þegar... = I get stressed when...
• Ég verð reið/reiður þegar... = I get angry when...

So this sentence is a great model to learn from.