Learn Icelandic: Kaffið er í skáp. - The coffee is in a cabinet.

Kaffið er í skáp.

The coffee is in a cabinet.

Breakdown of Kaffið er í skáp.

in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)

skápurinn

the cabinet

Questions & Answers about Kaffið er í skáp.

Why is the word for cabinet skáp here instead of skápur?

The word skápur (a cabinet) is a masculine noun. In this sentence, it comes after the preposition í (in). Because the coffee is just resting there (a static location with no movement), í forces the noun into the dative case. To make the dative form of many masculine nouns ending in -ur, you simply drop the -ur. That leaves us with the bare form skáp.

Does í skáp mean "in a cabinet" or "in the cabinet"?

It means "in a cabinet". Icelandic doesn't have a separate word for "a" or "an", so a bare, ending-less noun like skáp is indefinite. If you wanted to say "in the cabinet", you would need to add the masculine dative definite ending (-num) to make it í skápnum.

Why does Kaffið have -ið at the end?

Kaffi is a neuter noun meaning "coffee". In Icelandic, the word for "the" is attached directly to the end of the noun. For neuter words, that attached ending is -ið, making Kaffið translate to "the coffee".

If I wanted to say the coffee is "on" a cabinet, would the grammar change?