Questions & Answers about Klukkan var hálf níu í gær.
Wait, níu is nine, but the English translation says eight. Why?
In Icelandic, hálf means halfway to the next hour, not half past the current hour. So hálf níu literally means halfway to nine, which is 8:30 (half past eight). This is a very important difference from English!
Why does the sentence start with Klukkan var instead of just 'It was'?
In English, we use a placeholder word like 'it' to talk about time, but Icelandic doesn't do this. You always refer directly to the clock (klukkan). If you want to state what time it was, you must say Klukkan var (The clock was).
Why use var instead of the usual er here?
var is the past tense of vera (to be). Since the sentence is talking about í gær (yesterday), we change Klukkan er (The clock is) to Klukkan var (The clock was).
Does í gær always have two words?
Yes, í gær is the fixed way to say 'yesterday' in Icelandic. It literally translates to 'in yesterday', and the short word í is always required here.
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