Breakdown of Hjartað í henni slær hratt.
hún
she
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
hratt
fast
hjartað
the heart
Questions & Answers about Hjartað í henni slær hratt.
Why do we say hjartað í henni instead of hjartað hennar?
For internal body organs like the heart, stomach, or brain, Icelandic uses inalienable possession. Instead of a normal possessive like hjartað hennar, you use the definite noun followed by the preposition í and a dative pronoun. You are literally saying the heart in her.
Is hjarta a neuter noun? I thought most neuter nouns add -ið for the definite article.
Yes, hjarta is neuter. Most neuter nouns end in a consonant and take -ið, but because hjarta is a weak noun that already ends in a vowel, it just adds -ð to become hjartað.
The verb slær means beats here. Is this the same verb used for hitting something?
Exactly! It comes from the verb slá, which means to hit or to strike. Just like in English, a heart strikes when it beats. Notice that it has an irregular vowel change in the present tense: ég slæ, þú slær, hún slær.
Why is the word for fast hratt here?
It is acting as an adverb describing how the heart beats. In Icelandic, you usually make an adverb out of an adjective by using its neuter singular form. Here, the adjective hraður becomes the adverb hratt.