Launin mín eru lægri en ég bjóst við.

Because laun is normally a plural noun in Icelandic. Grammatically it means wages/pay, even when English would naturally use salary or pay as a singular idea.

So Icelandic treats it as plural:

• laun = wages/pay
• launin mín eru... = my pay/wages are...

That is why the sentence uses plural agreement later with eru.

The -in is the suffixed definite article, so launin means the wages/the pay.

In Icelandic, when you talk about something specific that belongs to someone, it is very common to use:

• noun + definite article + possessive

So:

• launin mín = literally the wages my
• natural English: my wages / my pay / my salary

This is a very normal Icelandic pattern.

Mín is the possessive pronoun meaning my/mine, but unlike English my, Icelandic possessives change form to match the noun they describe.

Here they agree with launin, which is:

• neuter
• plural
• nominative

So the correct form is mín.

Also, in this common possessive pattern, the possessive usually comes after the noun:

• launin mín
• bíllinn minn
• bókin mín

It does not depend on whether the speaker is male or female. It depends on the noun.

Because the subject is grammatically plural: launin mín.

So Icelandic uses the plural form of vera:

• er = is
• eru = are

Even if English might think of salary as a singular idea, Icelandic is following the grammar of laun, which is plural.

Lægri is the comparative form of lágur, meaning low.

So:

• lágur = low
• lægri = lower

There is a stem change:

• á becomes æ
• and the comparative ending is added

This kind of vowel change is common in Icelandic comparatives.

In this sentence, lægri agrees with the plural subject launin mín. A learner might wonder about lægra, but lægra would be a neuter singular form, not the form used here.

Here en means than.

It introduces the second part of the comparison:

• lægri en... = lower than...

So the structure is:

• Launin mín eru lægri = My wages are lower
• en ég bjóst við = than I expected

Because the sentence is comparing a present situation with an earlier expectation.

• eru lægri describes the current reality: the wages are lower
• ég bjóst við refers to what the speaker expected before learning the actual amount

English works the same way:

• My salary is lower than I expected

So the present and past together make perfect sense:

• present reality
• past expectation

It means I expected.

This comes from the fixed expression búast við, which means to expect / to anticipate.

Useful forms:

• ég býst við = I expect
• ég bjóst við = I expected

So bjóst is the past tense form used here.

This is an idiomatic expression, so it is best learned as a whole:

• búast við = expect

Because við is part of the fixed expression búast við.

So in ég bjóst við, the við does not mean a separate everyday with. It belongs to the verb phrase.

The thing expected is simply left unstated because it is already understood from the sentence. English does something similar:

• lower than I expected

Icelandic keeps the full verb expression:

• en ég bjóst við

If you want to say the expected thing explicitly, you can say things like:

• Ég bjóst við því. = I expected that / I expected it.
• Ég bjóst við því að launin yrðu hærri. = I expected the wages to be higher.

It is fairly close to English in this sentence.

The structure is:

• Launin mín = subject
• eru = verb
• lægri = predicate adjective
• en ég bjóst við = comparison clause

So the sentence is basically:

• My wages are lower than I expected

What feels difficult is not really the word order, but:

• the plural noun laun
• the possessive pattern launin mín
• the comparative lægri
• the fixed expression búast við