Á morgnana smyr ég tvær brauðsneiðar og rista þær svo.

Á morgnana means in the mornings or on mornings in general. It describes a habit or repeated action.

It is different from á morgun, which means tomorrow.

So:

• á morgun = tomorrow
• á morgnana = in the mornings / every morning

Grammatically, morgnana is the definite plural form, which fits the idea of repeated mornings rather than one specific morning.

This is because Icelandic normally follows the V2 rule in main clauses: the finite verb usually comes in second position.

Here, Á morgnana is placed first as a time expression, so the verb smyr has to come next:

• Á morgnana smyr ég ...

If the subject came first, then you would get:

• Ég smyr ...

So the pattern is:

• first element: Á morgnana
• second element: smyr
• then the subject: ég

This is very common in Icelandic and is one of the biggest word-order differences from English.

The dictionary form is að smyrja.

In this sentence, smyr is the present tense, first person singular:

• ég smyr = I spread / I butter

Here it means something like I butter or I spread something on the bread slices.

A useful thing to notice is that the form smyr may look quite different from the infinitive smyrja. That is just part of how this verb is conjugated.

Because Icelandic numbers from 1 to 4 change form to match the gender (and often the case) of the noun they go with.

The noun brauðsneið is feminine, so two must also be in the feminine form:

• masculine: tveir
• feminine: tvær
• neuter: tvö

Since brauðsneiðar is feminine plural, tvær is the correct form.

Brauðsneiðar is the plural of brauðsneið, which means slice of bread.

It is a compound noun:

• brauð = bread
• sneið = slice

So literally it is something like bread-slice.

The -s- in the middle is very common in Icelandic compounds. It often comes from an older/genitive linking pattern, and English speakers usually just need to learn that many Icelandic compound words are formed this way.

So:

• brauðsneið = a slice of bread
• brauðsneiðar = slices of bread

It is in the accusative plural.

Why? Because it is the direct object of the verb smyr:

• ég smyr tvær brauðsneiðar = I butter/spread two slices of bread

In Icelandic, direct objects are often in the accusative, and that is what is happening here.

This also helps explain the form of the noun and the pronoun later in the sentence.

Þær means them, and it refers back to tvær brauðsneiðar.

Icelandic pronouns agree with the grammatical gender of the noun they refer to. Since brauðsneiðar is feminine plural, the pronoun is also feminine plural:

• brauðsneiðar → þær

This is important because Icelandic uses grammatical gender even for things that are not people. So þær does not mean the bread slices are somehow feminine in a real-world sense; it just matches the noun’s grammar.

Because the same subject, ég, is understood for both verbs.

The structure is basically:

• Á morgnana smyr ég tvær brauðsneiðar og [ég] rista þær svo.

Icelandic, like English, often leaves out the repeated subject in this kind of coordination when it is obvious.

Compare English:

• In the mornings I butter two slices of bread and toast them afterwards.

We do not need to repeat I before toast, and Icelandic works similarly here.

Here it is a present-tense finite verb, not an infinitive.

It means I toast.

This can confuse learners because for some Icelandic verbs, the infinitive and the 1st person singular present look the same in writing:

• infinitive: að rista = to toast
• present: ég rista = I toast

In this sentence, it has to be the present-tense verb, because it is coordinated with smyr and shares the subject ég.

Here svo means something like then, after that, or afterwards.

It shows the order of actions:

1. butter/spread the slices
2. toast them afterwards

So svo is linking the two actions in time.

In other contexts, svo can also have other meanings, but here the natural translation is then/afterwards.

It is talking about a habit or routine.

The clue is Á morgnana = in the mornings. That time expression makes the present tense habitual:

• Á morgnana smyr ég ... = In the mornings, I butter/spread ...

So this is not necessarily describing one action happening at this exact moment. It describes what the speaker usually does.