Breakdown of Við sitjum í stofu.
við
we
sitja
to sit
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
stofan
the living room
Questions & Answers about Við sitjum í stofu.
Why is the word for "living room" spelled stofu here instead of its dictionary form stofa?
Because of the preposition í (in). When í describes a fixed location (like sitting still in one place), the noun that follows it must take the dative case. For the feminine noun stofa, the dative form changes the ending from -a to -u, making it stofu.
The translation says "in a living room". How would I say "in the living room"?
Icelandic doesn't have a separate word for "a" or "an", so a bare noun like stofu just means "a living room". To say "the living room", you add the definite ending to the word. In the dative case, that makes it stofunni.
The English translation is "are sitting", but there is no word for "are" in the Icelandic sentence. Why?
Icelandic doesn't use a separate "to be" verb for actions happening right now like English does. The single present tense verb sitjum covers both "sit" and "are sitting".
Is the -um ending on sitjum specific to the word við?
Yes! In Icelandic, verbs change their endings depending on who is doing the action. Whenever the subject is við (we), the present tense verb almost always ends in -um.