Breakdown of Hún hjólaði líka í bæinn í gær.
hún
she
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
bærinn
the town
í gær
yesterday
hjóla
to cycle
líka
also
Questions & Answers about Hún hjólaði líka í bæinn í gær.
How do we know hjólaði is in the past tense?
The dictionary form of the verb is hjóla (to cycle). This is a Group 1 weak verb. To make it past tense for singular pronouns like hún (she), you drop the final -a and add the suffix -aði, giving us hjólaði (cycled).
Why is the word for town written as bæinn here instead of just bær?
The base word for town is bær. Here, two things are happening. First, the preposition í (in/to) is being used to show motion towards a place, which forces the noun into the accusative case (bæ). Second, Icelandic attaches the word for "the" to the end of the noun. The accusative masculine ending for "the" is -inn, combining to make bæinn (the town).
Why is líka (also/too) placed right after the verb instead of at the end of the sentence?
We use í twice in this sentence. Does í gær literally mean "in yesterday"?
Yes, it literally translates to "in yesterday". While English just uses the single word "yesterday", Icelandic commonly pairs the preposition í (in) with time words to talk about when something happened. You will also see this in phrases like í dag (today).
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