Breakdown of Einhver er að banka.
vera
to be
að
to (infinitive marker)
einhver
someone / some / any (before a noun)
banka
to knock
Questions & Answers about Einhver er að banka.
Why is einhver in the masculine form here if we don't know who is knocking?
In Icelandic, when you refer to an unknown person (like "someone" or "anybody"), you use the masculine singular form einhver as the default. Even if the person knocking turns out to be a woman, you still use this masculine form while their identity is a mystery.
What case is einhver in this sentence?
It is in the nominative case. The nominative is used for the subject of the sentence, which is the person doing the action. Here, "someone" is the one doing the knocking. If the sentence were "I hear someone," "someone" would be the object receiving the action, and you would use the accusative form einhvern.
I learned that Icelandic doesn't always use "is doing" like English does. Why do we use er að banka here instead of just bankar?
While it's true that Icelandic often uses the simple present (like bankar) for both "knocks" and "is knocking", the vera að plus infinitive structure is used to strongly emphasize that an action is happening right at this very moment. Since the knocking is actively happening right now, er að banka is the most natural choice.
Can einhver also mean "some"?
Yes! When it stands alone, as it does in this sentence, it translates to the pronoun "someone" or "somebody". However, it can also be used as a word attached to a noun to mean "some" or "a certain", such as in einhver hundur (some dog).
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