Breakdown of Ég sé gulan hund og rauðan kött.
hundurinn
the dog
og
and
ég
I
kötturinn
the cat
sjá
to see
rauður
red
gulur
yellow
Questions & Answers about Ég sé gulan hund og rauðan kött.
Why do the adjectives gulan and rauðan end in -an here?
The verb sé (see) requires the objects being seen to be in the accusative case. Because hundur (dog) and köttur (cat) are masculine nouns, the adjectives describing them must be in the masculine accusative form. For strong adjectives, this means adding the -an ending to the root words gulur and rauður.
Why are the nouns written as hund and kött instead of hundur and köttur?
Just like the adjectives, these nouns are the direct objects of the sentence, so they must be in the accusative case. For most masculine nouns that end in -ur in their dictionary (nominative) form, you simply drop the -ur to make them accusative.
Why are we using the "strong" form of the adjectives instead of the "weak" form?
We use strong adjectives when a noun is indefinite, meaning we are talking about "a" dog or "a" cat, not "the" dog or "the" cat. Because there is no definite article or word like "this" pointing to the nouns, the adjectives must be strong.
The dictionary form of the verb "to see" is sjá. Why does it change to sé here?
The verb sjá is highly irregular, meaning it doesn't follow the normal pattern for verb endings. Ég sé is the specific form for "I see". Since it is such a common verb, its irregular forms are worth memorizing early on.
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