Breakdown of Stelpan er falleg en hún er ekki ung.
vera
to be
hún
she
en
but
stelpan
the girl
ekki
not
ungur
young
fallegur
beautiful
Questions & Answers about Stelpan er falleg en hún er ekki ung.
Why is ekki placed after er in the second half of the sentence?
In basic Icelandic sentences, the negative word ekki (not) usually comes directly after the verb. Since er (is) is the verb here, ekki follows right behind it. This matches the exact word order we use in English for this specific sentence!
Why do we use the exact forms falleg and ung here?
Adjectives in Icelandic change their endings to match the gender of the noun they describe. Because Stelpan (the girl) and the pronoun hún (she) are feminine words, we must use the feminine singular forms of the adjectives: falleg (beautiful) and ung (young).
How does Stelpan mean the girl if there is no separate word for the?
Icelandic doesn't use a separate word for the like English does. Instead, it attaches an ending directly to the noun. The base word is stelpa (girl), and adding the suffix -n makes it stelpan (the girl).
Could we just leave out hún and say en er ekki ung?
No, just like in English, you usually need to include the subject pronoun after the word en (but). You must say en hún er (but she is) rather than dropping the word for she.
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