Breakdown of Þau koma í félagið og við sjáum þau.
og
and
við
we
þau
they (n)
koma
to come
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
sjá
to see
félagið
the club
Questions & Answers about Þau koma í félagið og við sjáum þau.
How do we conjugate strong verbs like koma and sjá in the plural present tense here?
In the present tense, plural forms of strong verbs actually follow a very regular pattern, just like weak verbs! For við (we), you add -um to the root, giving us sjáum (we see). For the plural "they" (þau), you add -a, which makes koma (they come) look exactly like its dictionary form (the infinitive). The tricky vowel changes you learned for strong verbs only happen in the singular!
The word þau appears twice. Why doesn't it change when it means "them" at the end?
Þau is the neuter plural pronoun for "they". Just like the English word "it", þau happens to be exactly the same in both the subject position (nominative case: þau koma / they come) and the object position (accusative case: sjáum þau / see them). If we were talking about a group of only men (þeir) or only women (þær), the object forms would change to þá and þær.
Why does í translate to "to" in í félagið, and what case is the noun in?
The preposition í usually means "in", but when you are talking about moving into or to a destination, it requires the accusative case. Here, koma í félagið implies motion into the club. Because there is motion towards it, félagið takes the accusative case. If they were already hanging out stationary inside the club, it would take the dative case instead (í félaginu).
How does the word félagið get its meaning of "the club"?
In Icelandic, "the" is attached to the end of the noun. The base word is félag (a club, a neuter noun). Because it follows a preposition of motion, it is in the accusative case. For neuter nouns, the singular accusative definite article suffix is -ið, which gives us félagið (the club).
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