Ég sæki dóttur mína í leikskóla.

Sækja is the infinitive: to fetch / to pick up / to seek, depending on context.

Sæki is the 1st person singular present tense: I fetch / I pick up.

So:

• að sækja = to fetch
• ég sæki = I fetch / I am picking up

That is why the sentence starts with Ég sæki... and not Ég sækja....

It can mean several things, so context matters.

Common meanings of sækja include:

• fetch / pick up
• seek
• apply for
• sometimes attend or go to regularly, depending on the object

In Ég sæki dóttur mína..., because the direct object is my daughter, the meaning is naturally I pick up / fetch my daughter.

Because dóttur is the accusative singular, and the verb sækja takes a direct object.

Here:

• dóttir = nominative singular, daughter
• dóttur = accusative singular, daughter as the object of the verb

So:

• Dóttir mín kemur. = My daughter comes.
• Ég sæki dóttur mína. = I pick up my daughter.

This noun is a bit irregular, so it is worth memorizing:

• dóttir → nominative
• dóttur → accusative

Because the possessive minn must agree with the noun in gender, number, and case.

Here, dóttur is:

• feminine
• singular
• accusative

So the matching form is mína.

Compare:

• dóttir mín = my daughter (nominative)
• dóttur mína = my daughter (accusative)

So mína is not random; it is there because the grammar of the noun requires it.

Both are possible, but they do not sound equally neutral.

• dóttur mína is the more natural, everyday order here
• mína dóttur is possible, but it usually feels more emphatic, contrastive, or stylistically marked

So a learner should treat noun + possessive as a very common pattern in Icelandic.

In other words:

• Ég sæki dóttur mína... = neutral, natural
• Ég sæki mína dóttur... = possible, but more marked

With kinship terms like dóttir, Icelandic very often uses the noun without the suffixed definite article when a possessive is present.

So dóttir mín / dóttur mína is completely normal.

This is especially common with close family words such as:

• móðir mín = my mother
• faðir minn = my father
• sonur minn = my son
• dóttir mín = my daughter

With many other nouns, Icelandic more often uses the definite article together with a following possessive, for example bílinn minn = my car.

So this is one of those patterns learners need to get used to:

• family words often behave a little differently

This is a very common thing that confuses English speakers.

With sækja, Icelandic often says fetch someone í + place, where English would usually say pick someone up from + place.

So in this sentence:

• sækja dóttur mína í leikskóla

means pick up my daughter from/at kindergarten.

The Icelandic structure is simply different from the English one. You should learn it as a pattern:

• sækja einhvern í skólann / í vinnu / í leikskóla

Even if English wants from, Icelandic often uses í in this kind of expression.

This is a slightly tricky point, because the form leikskóla looks the same in both the accusative singular and the dative singular.

So the word form itself does not tell you which case it is.

The general rule for í is:

• í + accusative = motion into / to
• í + dative = location in / at

But in a sentence like this, many learners are best off treating í leikskóla as a common expression used with sækja.

What matters most at first is:

• í can govern different cases
• with leikskóli, those singular forms happen to look the same: leikskóla

So the phrase is grammatically normal even though the case is not visible on the surface.

Because Icelandic often uses a bare noun for institutions or general place-types, especially after prepositions.

So í leikskóla can mean something like:

• at kindergarten
• to kindergarten
• from kindergarten, in this idiomatic sækja pattern

It sounds more general and less tied to explicitly naming the specific kindergarten building.

If you wanted to be more specific, you could use the article:

• í leikskólann = into/to the kindergarten
• í leikskólanum = in/at the kindergarten

But the version without the article is very natural in everyday Icelandic.

The sentence can be rearranged, but not freely.

The neutral order here is:

• Ég sæki dóttur mína í leikskóla.

Icelandic main clauses follow the V2 rule, which means the finite verb usually stays in second position.

So if you move another element to the front, the verb still comes second:

• Í leikskóla sæki ég dóttur mína.
• Dóttur mína sæki ég í leikskóla.

These are grammatical, but they are more marked and give special emphasis to the fronted part.

So for everyday use, the original order is the best one to learn first.

In Icelandic, the accent marks do not mainly show stress the way English learners sometimes expect.

A few useful points:

• Icelandic stress is usually on the first syllable
• the accent marks mainly help show which vowel sound the word has

Very rough approximations:

• é sounds roughly like ye
• í sounds roughly like ee
• ó sounds roughly like o
• æ sounds roughly like eye

So:

• Ég begins with a sound roughly like y-
• sæki contains æ, which is very different from plain a or e

The accent marks are therefore important for pronunciation and spelling, not just decoration.