Breakdown of Ég sé um börnin á kvöldin.
ég
I
barnið
the child
á kvöldin
in the evenings
sjá um
to take care of, to be in charge of
Questions & Answers about Ég sé um börnin á kvöldin.
Why does sé mean "take care of" here? Doesn't it mean "see"?
You are right! By itself, sjá (the infinitive form of sé) means "to see". But when you pair it with the preposition um, it creates a fixed phrase. Sjá um means "to take care of", "to see to", or "to be responsible for".
Why do both börnin and kvöldin end with -in?
Both barn (child) and kvöld (evening) are neuter nouns. In this sentence, they are in the plural form with the attached definite article ("the"). For neuter words, the plural definite ending in the accusative case is -in. So, börnin means "the children" and kvöldin means "the evenings".
Why do we use á instead of í for "in the evenings"?
In Icelandic, time expressions related to parts of the day usually use the preposition á. When you want to say you do something regularly during that time, you use á plus the plural definite form of the noun. So á kvöldin translates to "in the evenings", and similarly, you would say á morgnana for "in the mornings".
What case do the prepositions um and á trigger in this sentence?
They both trigger the accusative case here. The preposition um almost always takes the accusative, which is why we say um börnin. The preposition á can take either the accusative or the dative, but when it is used for a recurring time expression like á kvöldin, it always takes the accusative.
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