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Maturinn var slæmur og maðurinn var reiður.

Maturinn var slæmur og maðurinn var reiður.
The food was bad and the man was angry.
From Lesson 33:Past tense of the verb to be (var, vorum)·Icelandic

Breakdown of Maturinn var slæmur og maðurinn var reiður.

vera
to be
og
and
maðurinn
the man
maturinn
the food
reiður
angry
slæmur
bad

Questions & Answers about Maturinn var slæmur og maðurinn var reiður.

Why do we use var for both the food and the man?
Var is the past tense of the verb vera (to be) for the third-person singular, which means "he", "she", or "it" was. Since both maturinn (the food) and maðurinn (the man) are single subjects being described, they both take var.
Why do the adjectives slæmur and reiður both end in -ur?
In Icelandic, adjectives change their endings to match the gender and number of the noun they describe. Because maturinn and maðurinn are both masculine, singular nouns, their matching adjectives take the standard masculine singular ending -ur.
Maturinn and maðurinn look very similar. How do I tell them apart when speaking?
They are completely different words that just look alike! Matur means "food" and uses a crisp "t" sound. Maður means "man" or "person" and uses the letter ð (eth), which is pronounced like the soft "th" in the English word "there".
I know this is from an older lesson, but why is there no word for "the" in this sentence?
Icelandic doesn't usually use a separate word for "the". Instead, it attaches an ending to the noun. The suffix -inn is the masculine singular ending for "the". So, matur (food) becomes maturinn (the food), and maður (man) becomes maðurinn (the man).

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