Questions & Answers about Já, skólinn er lokaður.
Since this lesson is about Yes/No questions, how would I ask "Is the school closed?"
To turn this statement into a Yes/No question, you use what is called "V1 word order". This simply means putting the verb in the first position. By swapping the subject (skólinn) and the verb (er), you get the question: Er skólinn lokaður?
I see skólinn translates to "the school". Where is the word for "the"?
In Icelandic, the word for "the" usually isn't a separate word that goes before the noun. Instead, it attaches to the end of the noun as a suffix. Skóli means "a school", and adding the suffix -nn gives you skólinn ("the school").
Why does the word for closed, lokaður, end in -ur?
Adjectives in Icelandic have to match the gender of the noun they describe. Because skóli is a masculine noun, the adjective takes the masculine ending -ur. If the noun were feminine, like búðin (the store), it would be lokuð.
How do I pronounce the word Já?
The letter á in Icelandic makes an "ow" sound, very similar to the vowel sound in the English word "cow". Combined with the J (which sounds like an English "Y"), Já is pronounced like "yow".