Breakdown of Hann er farinn að grána, en hann er ekki gamall.
vera
to be
hann
he
en
but
gamall
old
ekki
not
fara
to go
að
to (infinitive marker)
grána
to turn grey
Questions & Answers about Hann er farinn að grána, en hann er ekki gamall.
How does er farinn að differ from using a verb like byrja (to start)?
While byrja means to start an action, vera farinn að (literally 'to be gone to') is an idiomatic way to express continuous inception. It highlights that a state or process has begun and is now ongoing. It is incredibly common in spoken Icelandic for things that are gradually happening, like turning grey, getting tired, or the weather changing.
Why is the past participle farinn used here instead of the neutral supine form farið?
Unlike the standard present perfect which uses hafa + supine (e.g., hann hefur farið), the vera farinn að construction uses the verb vera. Here, the past participle acts like an adjective and must agree with the subject in gender, number, and case. Since hann is masculine, singular, and nominative, we use farinn. If the subject were feminine, it would be hún er farin að.
What does the -na ending in grána tell us about the verb?
Why is the adjective gamall in this specific form?
Just like farinn earlier in the sentence, the adjective gamall (old) is a subject complement following the verb vera. It must agree with the subject hann, so it takes the masculine, singular, nominative form.
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