Breakdown of Hefur nemandinn reynslu eða tækifæri?
nemandinn
the student
eða
or
hafa
to have
reynslan
the experience
Questions & Answers about Hefur nemandinn reynslu eða tækifæri?
Why does the sentence start with Hefur instead of a word for 'does'?
In English, we use helper verbs like 'do' or 'does' to ask a question ('Does the student have...?'). Icelandic doesn't do this. Instead, you just swap the subject and the verb. So, Nemandinn hefur... (The student has...) becomes Hefur nemandinn...? (Does the student have...?).
Why is the verb hafa conjugated as hefur here?
Hefur is the 'he/she/it' form of the irregular verb hafa (to have). Since the subject of the sentence is nemandinn (the student), which acts as a third-person singular noun, we use hefur.
Since hafa forces its objects into the accusative case, why doesn't tækifæri change its ending?
Both reynslu and tækifæri are in the accusative case here because they are the objects of hafa. Reynslu changes from its dictionary form reynsla. However, tækifæri is a neuter noun, and a handy rule in Icelandic is that all neuter nouns look exactly the same in both the nominative (subject) and accusative (object) cases.