Question 1

Why does fer að mean "is starting to" here instead of "is going to"?

Accepted Answer

The phrase fara að followed by an infinitive verb (like dökkna) is a common way to say that something is "starting to" happen or is "about to" happen. While fara literally means "to go," this specific construction focuses on the very beginning of an action or a change of state.

Question 2

Dökkna looks a lot like the adjective dökkur (dark). Is there a pattern here?

Accepted Answer

Yes! In Icelandic, you can often add the suffix -na to the root of an adjective to create a verb that means "to become [adjective]". So from dökkur (dark), we get dökkna (to darken or become dark). You might have also seen this pattern in verbs like hitna (to get hot) or kólna (to get cold).

Question 3

Why use mikið here instead of mjög?

Accepted Answer

While both can translate to "very" or "a lot", they do different jobs. You use mjög right before an adjective or adverb (for example, mjög dökkur for "very dark"). However, when you want to modify a verb to say that an action is happening "a lot", you generally use mikið. Here, it describes the intensity of the verb dökkna.

Question 4

Why does the word skýið end in -ið?

Accepted Answer

As a quick refresher on definite articles: ský (cloud) is a neuter noun. Because Icelandic attaches "the" to the end of the noun, you add the neuter definite article -ið to get skýið (the cloud). It just takes -ið rather than -nið because the base word ends in a vowel.

Skýið fer að dökkna mikið.

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