Breakdown of Við göngum stundum á fjöllum.
við
we
stundum
sometimes
á
onto / on / in (static location) / on (a day of the week)
fjallið
the mountain
ganga
to walk
Questions & Answers about Við göngum stundum á fjöllum.
Why is it fjöllum instead of the regular plural fjöll?
Fjöllum is the dative plural form of the noun fjall (mountain). The preposition á takes the dative case when it describes a static location where an action is happening, rather than movement to a new destination. The -um ending is the standard bare dative plural ending for nouns of all genders.
How would I say "in THE mountains" in this sentence?
You would change the bare noun fjöllum to its definite form, fjöllunum. To make a dative plural noun definite, you drop the -m from the -um ending and add -num, which gives you the definite ending -unum.
The word stundum also ends in -um. Is it also a dative plural noun?
Historically, yes! It comes from the dative plural of the noun stund (which means a while or a period of time), so it originally meant "at times". However, in modern Icelandic, stundum is just treated as a fixed adverb meaning "sometimes", so it never changes its ending.
Doesn't the preposition á usually mean "on"? Why does the English translation say "in mountains"?
Prepositions rarely translate perfectly word-for-word between languages. While á translates to "on" in many cases, Icelandic naturally uses á fjöllum (literally "on mountains") to express the concept that English speakers call being "in the mountains".
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