Learn Icelandic: Margir eru á móti breytingunni.

Margir eru á móti breytingunni.

Many are against the change.

Breakdown of Margir eru á móti breytingunni.

the change (alteration)

á móti

against, opposed to (+ Dative)

Questions & Answers about Margir eru á móti breytingunni.

Why is margir in the masculine form here if it just means "many"?

When referring to a general group of people, Icelandic defaults to the masculine plural. Using the masculine margir is the standard way to say "many people" unless you are specifically talking only about a group of women, which would be margar.

Why is breytingunni in the dative case?

The phrase á móti (against) acts as a preposition that always requires the noun following it to be in the dative case.

How does the word breytingunni get its ending?

The base word is the feminine noun breyting (change). Because it must be in the dative case here, it changes to breytingu. To say "the change", we add the dative feminine definite article suffix -nni, giving us the final word breytingunni.

Could I drop the noun and just say Margir eru á móti?

Yes, if the context is already clear from the conversation, you can leave out the noun entirely. Margir eru á móti works perfectly as a standalone sentence meaning "Many are against [it]."