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Questions & Answers about Kirkjan er til vinstri.
Why is the word for "the church" kirkjan instead of kirkjin?
Kirkja (church) is a feminine noun. For most feminine nouns, you add -in to the end to say "the". However, because kirkja already ends in a vowel (it is a "weak" feminine noun), you drop the i and simply add -n to make kirkjan.
Since the preposition til forces the following word into the genitive case, why doesn't vinstri change its ending?
The words for directions like vinstri (left) and hægri (right) are special adjectives in Icelandic. They are "indeclinable," meaning they never change their form regardless of gender, number, or case. So, even though til demands the genitive case, vinstri stays exactly the same.
Can I translate "on the left" word-for-word as á vinstri?
No, Icelandic doesn't use á (on) in this exact way. You use til vinstri (to the left). If you want to emphasize that something is located on the left side, you would typically use the set phrase vinstra megin instead.