Hællinn brotnaði í gær, svo ég fór með skóna til skósmiðs í morgun.

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Breakdown of Hællinn brotnaði í gær, svo ég fór með skóna til skósmiðs í morgun.

• til: to
• í gær: yesterday
• svo: so

Questions & Answers about Hællinn brotnaði í gær, svo ég fór með skóna til skósmiðs í morgun.

Does hællinn mean the heel of a shoe or the heel of a person?

By itself, hæll can mean either kind of heel. In this sentence, because it later mentions skóna and skósmiðs, it clearly means the heel of the shoe.

Why is it hællinn and not just hæll?

The ending -inn is the suffixed definite article, so:

• hæll = heel
• hællinn = the heel

Here hællinn is the subject of the sentence, so it is in the nominative singular.

Why is the verb brotnaði used here?

brotna means to break, become broken in an intransitive sense. It describes something ending up broken without focusing on who did it.

So:

• Hællinn brotnaði = the heel broke / got broken

This is different from brjóta, which is transitive and means to break something.

• Ég braut hælinn = I broke the heel

So brotnaði is the natural choice when the heel is the thing that broke.

What do í gær and í morgun mean, and why do they use í?