Breakdown of Hjónin búa í húsinu við höfnina.
húsið
the house
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
búa
to live (in a place), to dwell
höfnin
the harbor
hjónin
the married couple
Questions & Answers about Hjónin búa í húsinu við höfnina.
Why is the verb búa in the plural form when the English translation says "lives" in the singular?
In Icelandic, the word for a married couple, hjón, is always a grammatically plural noun. Because of this, it must take a plural verb like búa (they live). English often treats words like "couple" as a single unit, but Icelandic strictly treats this word as plural.
Does hjónin refer to any romantic couple?
No, hjón specifically means a married couple. If you want to talk about an unmarried romantic couple, you would use the neuter word par (or parið for "the couple").
Both í and við describe a location here. Why is one followed by the dative case and the other by the accusative?
The preposition í takes the dative case when describing a static, fixed location, so we get the dative form húsinu. However, the preposition við is a common exception to the location rule; when it means "by" or "next to" a place, it almost always takes the accusative case, giving us höfnina.
How do the definite articles attach to húsinu and höfnina?
Both words have the definite article ("the") attached to the end, but their endings depend on their gender and case. hús is a neuter noun in the dative case here, so it gets the -inu ending. höfn is a feminine noun in the accusative case, so it takes the -ina ending.
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