Breakdown of Hvar er síminn? Hann er í skúffu.
vera
to be
hann
he
hvar
where
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
síminn
the telephone
skúffan
the drawer
Questions & Answers about Hvar er síminn? Hann er í skúffu.
Why does the second sentence start with Hann (he) instead of a word for "it"?
In Icelandic, nouns have a grammatical gender (masculine, feminine, or neuter). The word for phone, sími, is masculine. When replacing a masculine noun with a pronoun, you use hann, even for objects!
Why is the word for drawer spelled skúffu here instead of its dictionary form skúffa?
This is because of the preposition í (in). When í describes a static location (where something is currently resting), it forces the following noun into the dative case. For the feminine noun skúffa, the dative form changes the ending to -u.
How does í skúffu translate to "in a drawer" without a separate word for "a"?
Icelandic does not have an indefinite article like the English words "a" or "an". Because the noun is bare and does not have a "the" ending attached to it, it naturally translates to "a drawer" in English.
What is the base dictionary form of síminn?
The base word for phone is sími. The -nn at the end is the attached definite article, which changes the meaning from "a phone" to "the phone".
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