Salurinn er stærri en ég hélt, og sætin eru þægileg.

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Breakdown of Salurinn er stærri en ég hélt, og sætin eru þægileg.

• vera: to be
• þægilegur: comfortable
• og: and

Questions & Answers about Salurinn er stærri en ég hélt, og sætin eru þægileg.

Why is it salurinn and sætin instead of just salur and sæti?

Because Icelandic usually adds the definite article to the end of the noun instead of using a separate word like the.

• salur = hall
• salurinn = the hall
• sæti = seat
• sætin = the seats

So this sentence is talking about a specific hall and specific seats.

Why is the form stærri used here?

Stærri is the comparative form of stór.

• stór = big / large
• stærri = bigger / larger
• stærstur = biggest / largest

So Salurinn er stærri... means The hall is bigger/larger...

This is an irregular comparison, so it is not built in a fully predictable way from stór.

What does en mean here? I thought en could mean but.

Yes, en can mean but, but here it means than because it follows a comparative adjective: stærri.

So:

• stærri en... = bigger than...

The comparative adjective tells you that en is being used as than, not but.

Why does hélt mean ? Doesn’t usually mean ?