Word
Veðrið var kalt en maturinn var heitur.
Meaning
The weather was cold but the food was hot.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Veðrið var kalt en maturinn var heitur.
Why do we use var for both the weather and the food?
Var is the past tense of vera (to be) for the third-person singular (he, she, or it). Since both veðrið (the weather) and maturinn (the food) act as "it", they both use var.
Why does "cold" end in -t (kalt) but "hot" ends in -ur (heitur)?
Adjectives in Icelandic change to match the gender of the noun they describe. Veðrið is a neuter noun, so its adjective gets the neuter ending -t. Maturinn is a masculine noun, so its adjective gets the masculine ending -ur.
If the dictionary form of "cold" is kaldur, why is it spelled kalt here instead of "kaldt"?
When a word ending in -ld gets the neuter -t ending added to it, the d is dropped to make it easier to say. So kaldur (masculine) becomes kalt (neuter).
Where are the words for "the" in this sentence?
In Icelandic, "the" is usually an article attached to the end of the noun rather than a separate word. The -ið in veðrið (the weather) and the -inn in maturinn (the food) act as "the".