Dagsektin er há.

Because Icelandic usually puts the definite article on the end of the noun instead of using a separate word.

• dagsekt = daily fine
• dagsektin = the daily fine

So the ending -in is doing the job that the does in English.

The base form is dagsekt.

Its dictionary form is dagsekt, and it is a feminine noun. That matters because adjectives in Icelandic change form to match the noun’s gender, number, and case.

Because há is the feminine singular nominative form of the adjective hár.

The adjective has different forms depending on what noun it matches:

• hár = masculine singular nominative
• há = feminine singular nominative
• hátt = neuter singular nominative

Since dagsektin is feminine singular and is the subject of the sentence, the correct form is há.

It is in the nominative case because it is the subject of the sentence.

In Dagsektin er há, dagsektin is the thing being described, so it appears in the nominative. The adjective há also appears in the nominative here because it is a predicate adjective after er.

Because há is not directly attached to the noun inside a noun phrase here. It is part of the pattern noun + er + adjective, where the adjective is a predicate adjective.

So:

• Dagsektin er há = The daily fine is high.

But if you want the adjective directly before the noun, you would say something like:

• há dagsekt = a high daily fine

So this is not a special word-order rule for adjectives in general; it is just how adjectives work after to be.

Er is the present tense, 3rd person singular form of vera, which means to be.

So:

• ég er = I am
• þú ert = you are
• hann/hún/það er = he/she/it is

Because dagsektin is singular, er is the correct form.

Yes. Dagsekt is a compound noun.

It is made from:

• dag- = day / daily
• sekt = fine, penalty

So it is literally something like day-fine, meaning a fine calculated by the day or a daily fine.

Compound nouns are very common in Icelandic, just as they are in English and Germanic languages generally.

Yes. In Icelandic, just like in English, words meaning high and low are often used for amounts, prices, rates, penalties, and similar things.

So há here does not mean physically tall. It means high in amount.

You can think of it the same way as English expressions like:

• a high price
• a high fine
• a high tax

The letter á is a separate vowel letter in Icelandic, not just a normal a with stress.

A useful English approximation is the vowel sound in now or cow, though it is not exactly the same.

So há sounds roughly like how without a strong final glide.

Also, Icelandic words are usually stressed on the first syllable, so:

• DAG-sektin
• HÁ