Bollakakan var sæt, en ég borðaði bara hálfa.

The cupcake was sweet, but I only ate half of it.

Breakdown of Bollakakan var sæt, en ég borðaði bara hálfa.

• ég: I
• vera: to be
• borða: to eat
• en: but

Questions & Answers about Bollakakan var sæt, en ég borðaði bara hálfa.

Why is Bollakakan written as one word?

Because Icelandic usually adds the definite article to the end of the noun instead of using a separate word like the. So bollakaka is the basic noun, and bollakakan means the bollakaka. Long compound-looking words are also very normal in Icelandic.

Why do var and borðaði both refer to the past, even though they look so different?

They are both past tense forms, but from different kinds of verbs. var is from vera = to be, and it is irregular. borðaði is from borða = to eat, and it follows a regular weak-verb pattern with the past ending -aði. So the difference is mainly regular versus irregular conjugation.

How do I know that bollakaka is feminine?

You mainly learn a noun’s gender as part of the word, but there are clues here. bollakaka is a feminine noun, and the agreement in sæt and hálfa shows that. Also, many Icelandic nouns ending in -a are feminine, although that is not a perfect rule, so it is best to memorize gender with each noun.

Why is the adjective sæt and not sætur or sætt?