Breakdown of Þykir þér grænmetið hrátt og beiskt?
og
and
þér
you (dative singular)
grænmetið
the vegetables
þykja
to find (have an opinion)
hrár
raw
beiskur
bitter
Questions & Answers about Þykir þér grænmetið hrátt og beiskt?
Why is "you" expressed as the dative þér here instead of the standard þú?
This is because þykja (to find/think) is a "quirky" verb. The person holding the opinion (the experiencer) must be in the dative case. You can think of the literal structure as "Do the vegetables seem to you raw and bitter?".
What case is grænmetið (the vegetables) in?
It is in the nominative case. With verbs like þykja, while the person having the opinion takes the dative case, the thing being evaluated acts as the grammatical subject and stays in the nominative.
Why do the adjectives hrátt and beiskt end in -t?
They are describing grænmetið, which is a neuter noun. Adjectives in Icelandic must agree in gender and number with the noun they describe, so the standard dictionary forms hrár (raw) and beiskur (bitter) take the neuter singular -t ending here.
In English we say "the vegetables" in the plural. Why is grænmetið singular?
In Icelandic, grænmeti is an uncountable, singular neuter noun. It functions as a collective mass noun, similar to how we use "produce" or "fruit" in English. Therefore, it doesn't take a plural form, which is why the verb þykir and the adjectives are all singular as well.
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