Gangan hjálpar mér að slaka á.

Gangan is the noun ganga used in the definite nominative singular.

• ganga = walking, a walk
• gangan = the walk / the walking

That final -n is the Icelandic definite article attached to the noun, rather than written as a separate word like English the.

So the subject of the sentence is Gangan. Depending on context, it can sound like:

• a specific walk
• the activity of walking, treated as a known thing

A learner should also know that Icelandic sometimes uses a noun here where English might prefer an -ing form.

Here it is a noun.

That can be confusing because að ganga is also a verb, meaning to walk or to go in some contexts.

Compare:

• Gangan hjálpar mér að slaka á.
  Here Gangan is a noun: the walking / the walk.

• Ég geng á hverjum degi.
  Here geng comes from the verb að ganga: I walk every day.

So in your sentence, Gangan is not the verb to walk. It is the thing doing the helping.

Because hjálpar is the present tense form that agrees with a third-person singular subject.

The subject is Gangan, which is singular, so the verb must also be singular:

• að hjálpa = to help
• hjálpar = helps

So:

• Gangan hjálpar ... = Walking / the walk helps ...

If the subject were plural, the verb form would change:

• Göngurnar hjálpa ... = The walks help ...

Because hjálpa takes the dative case, not the accusative.

So að hjálpa einhverjum means to help someone, where someone is in the dative.

For the pronoun ég:

• nominative: ég = I
• accusative: mig = me
• dative: mér = me

That is why Icelandic says:

• hjálpar mér = helps me

not:

• hjálpar mig

This is one of the most important things to memorize with Icelandic verbs: many of them require a specific case.

Here að is the normal infinitive marker, like English to.

So:

• að slaka á = to relax

After hjálpa, Icelandic commonly uses this pattern:

• hjálpa einhverjum að gera eitthvað
  = help someone do something

So in your sentence:

• hjálpar mér að slaka á
  = helps me relax

Literally, it is something like helps me to relax.

Because slaka á is a fixed verb expression, similar in some ways to an English phrasal verb.

The core verb is slaka, and á belongs with it in this meaning:

• slaka á = relax, unwind

So you should learn it as one unit:

• að slaka á
• ég slaka á
• við slökum á

Even though á is also a very common preposition meaning on, here it is part of the verb expression, not just a separate word with its usual literal meaning.

Because in slaka á, the particle á often stays after the verb phrase, and in an infinitive phrase it naturally comes at the end.

So:

• að slaka á

is the normal form.

This is completely natural in Icelandic. If you are an English speaker, it may help to think of it a bit like the position of particles in English verbs such as calm down, sit down, or wind down.

In this sentence, the whole ending:

• að slaka á

works together as one infinitive phrase.

Yes. That is a very natural alternative.

• Að ganga hjálpar mér að slaka á. = To walk / Walking helps me relax.

This version uses the infinitive phrase að ganga as the subject, which is often very straightforward for learners.

Compared with Gangan hjálpar mér að slaka á, the infinitive version can feel a bit more directly like English walking helps me relax.

So both are useful to recognize, but they are built differently:

• Gangan = noun subject
• Að ganga = infinitive subject

The sentence has the normal straightforward order:

• Gangan — subject
• hjálpar — finite verb
• mér — indirect object in dative
• að slaka á — infinitive phrase

So the pattern is basically:

• Subject + verb + object + infinitive phrase

That said, Icelandic does allow other word orders for emphasis, but the finite verb in a main clause still follows Icelandic V2 rules. For a learner, the given sentence is the safest and most neutral order to use.

It can depend on context.

In many situations, Gangan may suggest:

• a specific walk
• the walking activity understood from context
• something like the walking as a known routine

If you want to express the idea very generally, many learners find Að ganga hjálpar mér að slaka á easier to understand and use.

So the important point is:

• Gangan = noun-based way of saying it
• Að ganga = verb-based way of saying it

Both can point to the same general idea, but the grammar is different.