Questions & Answers about Klukkutíminn er langur.
Wait, I thought klukkan meant "the clock" or "the time." Why does this sentence use klukkutíminn for "the hour"?
Klukkan is used when reading the clock, like klukkan er þrjú for "the time is three". But when you want to talk about a duration of 60 minutes, you use the compound word klukkutími (literally "clock-time").
Where is the word for "the" in klukkutíminn?
In Icelandic, "the" is added to the end of the word instead of being a separate word. The base word for hour is klukkutími. By adding -nn to the end, it becomes klukkutíminn ("the hour").
Why does the word for long (langur) end in -ur here?
Adjectives in Icelandic change their endings to match the gender of the noun they describe. Because klukkutími is a masculine noun, the adjective takes the masculine ending -ur, making it langur.
If I want to say "The hour is not long," where do I put the word for "not" (ekki)?
You place ekki right after the verb er. So you would say, Klukkutíminn er ekki langur.
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