Breakdown of Ég er of þreyttur til að ættleiða óþekkan hvolp úr dýraathvarfinu.
vera
to be
ég
I
þreyttur
tired
að
to (infinitive marker)
úr
out of
til
to
hvolpurinn
the puppy
of
too
ættleiða
to adopt
óþekkur
naughty
dýraathvarfið
the animal shelter
Questions & Answers about Ég er of þreyttur til að ættleiða óþekkan hvolp úr dýraathvarfinu.
The lesson mentions the structure of + adjective + til þess að + infinitive, but this sentence just uses til að. Where did þess go?
In Icelandic, til þess að and til að both mean "in order to" or just "to". While til þess að is slightly more formal or emphatic, it is very common to drop the þess in everyday speech and writing, exactly as done here in the excessive degree construction.
If a woman were saying this sentence, would þreyttur change?
Yes! Adjectives following að vera (to be) must agree with the subject's gender. þreyttur is masculine. A female speaker would say Ég er of þreytt, and a non-binary speaker would use the neuter Ég er of þreytt.
Why is it óþekkan hvolp instead of just óþekkur hvolpur?
The phrase "naughty puppy" is the direct object of the verb ættleiða (to adopt). Therefore, both the adjective and the noun must be in the accusative case. The masculine nominative óþekkur hvolpur changes to the accusative óþekkan hvolp.
Why use úr rather than frá for "from the animal shelter", and why does the word end in -inu?
While both prepositions can translate to "from", úr implies taking something out from the inside of a place. Since the puppy is housed inside the shelter, you are taking it out of there. úr forces the following noun into the dative case. The neuter noun dýraathvarf becomes dýraathvarfi in the dative, and adding the definite article "the" gives us dýraathvarfinu.
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