Breakdown of Við sendum kvörtunina en fengum enga afsökun.
en
but
við
we
fá
to get
enginn
no one / nobody / no (m/f)
senda
to send
kvörtunin
the complaint
afsökunin
the apology
Questions & Answers about Við sendum kvörtunina en fengum enga afsökun.
How would I change this sentence to say "We neither sent a complaint nor got an apology" using hvorki... né?
You would place hvorki before the first verb and né before the second: Við hvorki sendum kvörtun né fengum afsökun. Notice that when using hvorki... né, you must drop the negative word enga (no) because the "neither/nor" structure already makes the sentence negative.
Why is the word for "no" translated as enga here?
The Icelandic word for "no" or "none" (enginn) must match the gender, number, and case of the noun it describes. Afsökun (apology) is a feminine noun in the accusative case because it is the direct object of the verb fá (to get). The feminine, singular, accusative form of enginn is enga.
Both kvörtun and afsökun are feminine nouns. Why does kvörtunina have an extra ending but afsökun doesn't?
Kvörtunina is in the definite form ("the complaint"), so it has the feminine accusative definite article attached (-ina). Afsökun is indefinite ("an apology"). Feminine nouns ending in -un are very friendly to learners: the core word doesn't change its spelling across the nominative, accusative, and dative cases!
Fengum means "got", but what is the dictionary form of this verb?
The infinitive is fá (to get or receive). It is a strong, irregular verb that changes its vowel and consonants in the past tense. While the singular past tense (I/he/she got) is fékk, the plural past tense (we/they got) uses a different stem, making it við fengum.
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