Breakdown of Hún kom til baka eftir klukkutíma.
hún
she
koma
to come
klukkutíminn
the hour
eftir
after / for (waiting for)
Questions & Answers about Hún kom til baka eftir klukkutíma.
Why do we use til baka here instead of aftur?
English speakers often confuse these because both can translate to "back" in English. However, til baka is used for physical movement returning to a starting place. Aftur means "again". If you said Hún kom aftur, it would mean "She came again."
Why is the word for "hour" written as klukkutíma rather than klukkutími?
The preposition eftir forces the following noun into the accusative case when it is used to talk about time. Because klukkutími is a weak masculine noun (ending in -i in its dictionary form), its accusative form changes the ending to -a.
Does eftir always trigger the accusative case?
It depends on the meaning! When eftir means "after" in terms of time (like in this sentence), it takes the accusative case. But when it means "along" (like walking along a street) or "according to", it triggers the dative case.
I've also seen the word stund translated as "hour". Could I use that here?
It is much more natural to use klukkutíma here. Klukkutími (literally "clock-time") refers specifically to a literal 60-minute hour. Stund usually translates to a "while" or a "moment", though you will see it used for specific blocks of time in compound words, like kennslustund (a lesson or class hour).