Breakdown of Ég er búinn að vera að toga í snúruna.
vera
to be
ég
I
að
to (infinitive marker)
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
búinn
finished
snúran
the cable
toga
to pull
Questions & Answers about Ég er búinn að vera að toga í snúruna.
Why do we use both búinn að and vera að in this sentence?
This combination is how Icelandic expresses the present perfect continuous tense (have been doing). The phrase vera búinn að acts like the regular present perfect (have done), and nesting the continuous marker vera að inside it adds the ongoing, continuous meaning.
Would the word búinn change if the speaker were female?
Yes. Because búinn acts as an adjective in the vera búinn að construction, it must agree in gender with the subject ég. Here, the speaker is masculine. A female speaker would say ég er búin, and a non-binary speaker would say ég er búið.
Why do we say toga í snúruna instead of just toga snúruna?
The verb toga (to pull) is usually paired with the preposition í to express pulling or tugging on something. In this phrasal usage, í dictates the accusative case, which is why we see the accusative form snúruna instead of the dative snúrunni.
If I add a result clause like "so it snapped" to the end of this sentence, how does þannig að work here?
You would add it using the indicative mood, for example: þannig að hún slitnaði. Because the pulling led to an actual, factual event (the snapping) rather than just an intended goal, þannig að is followed by the indicative. This is exactly the rule covered in the current lesson.
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