Breakdown of Mikið hoppar trúðurinn vel! Hann er mjög fimur.
vera
to be
hann
he
mjög
very
mikið
a lot
vel
well
hoppa
to jump (hop)
trúðurinn
the clown
fimur
agile
Questions & Answers about Mikið hoppar trúðurinn vel! Hann er mjög fimur.
Why does the verb hoppar come before the subject trúðurinn?
When you use Mikið to start an exclamative sentence (meaning "How...!" or "Boy, does..."), it triggers inverted word order. This means the verb (hoppar) must come immediately after Mikið, and the subject (trúðurinn) follows right after the verb.
If I wanted to use En hvað instead of Mikið, how would the first sentence change?
You would say En hvað trúðurinn hoppar vel! The key difference in this lesson is that En hvað takes normal word order (subject followed by verb), whereas Mikið takes inverted word order (verb followed by subject).
Why do we use vel here instead of góður or gott?
Vel is the adverb for "well", and it modifies the verb hoppar (jumps). You use it to describe how he performs the action. Góður or gott (good) are adjectives, which you would only use to describe a noun (for example, if you wanted to say he is a good clown).
Why does the adjective fimur end in -ur?
Fimur (agile) describes the pronoun Hann, which refers back to trúðurinn (the clown). Because trúður is a masculine noun, the adjective must be in the masculine singular nominative form, which takes the -ur ending here.
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