Breakdown of Hundasleðakeppnin er harðneskjuleg um veturinn.
vera
to be
um
over / during (a period of time)
veturinn
the winter
hundasleðakeppnin
the dog sled race
harðneskjulegur
grueling
Questions & Answers about Hundasleðakeppnin er harðneskjuleg um veturinn.
Why do we use um veturinn to mean "during the winter" instead of í vetur?
The preposition um followed by the accusative case is used to talk about broad, general time periods, so um veturinn means "during the winter" as a general season. If you used í vetur, it would specifically mean "this winter" (the current or upcoming one).
Is veturinn in the accusative case here?
Yes. The preposition um requires the accusative case when talking about time periods. The masculine noun vetur is one of those words where the nominative and accusative forms are identical, which is why it looks just like the nominative veturinn here.
How does the compound word hundasleðakeppnin break down?
Why does the adjective harðneskjuleg end in -leg and not -legur?
Adjectives must agree in gender, number, and case with the noun they describe. Because the subject here (hundasleðakeppnin) ends in the feminine noun keppni, the adjective takes the feminine nominative singular form (-leg) rather than the masculine form (-legur).
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