Breakdown of Læknirinn vinnur á sjúkrahúsinu í dag.
læknirinn
the doctor
á
onto / on / in (static location) / on (a day of the week)
í dag
today
vinna
to work (general labor, to do work)
sjúkrahúsið
the hospital
Questions & Answers about Læknirinn vinnur á sjúkrahúsinu í dag.
Why does the word for hospital end in -inu here?
The base word is the neuter noun sjúkrahús (hospital). Because it follows the preposition á (at) describing a fixed location, it must be in the dative case. In this lesson, you are learning that neuter nouns add -inu to mean the in the dative case, giving us sjúkrahúsinu (at the hospital).
I thought the preposition á sometimes forces the following word into the accusative case. Why is it dative here?
Prepositions like á (on or at) and í (in) are two-way prepositions. They use the dative case when describing a fixed location (where something is), like working at the hospital. They only use the accusative case when describing movement or direction towards a place.
Why is the word for doctor written as læknirinn?
Læknir is a masculine noun meaning doctor. Because the doctor is the subject of the sentence doing the action (nominative case), we add the masculine definite ending -inn to the end of the word to make it læknirinn (the doctor).
Literally translated, does í dag mean in day?
Exactly! Icelandic often uses prepositional phrases for time expressions. Í dag literally means in day but is the standard, everyday way to say today.
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