Word
Sjúkrabíllinn er að keyra milli sjúkrahúsanna.
Meaning
The ambulance is driving between the hospitals.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Sjúkrabíllinn er að keyra milli sjúkrahúsanna.
vera
to be
að
to (infinitive marker)
keyra
to drive
sjúkrahúsið
the hospital
Questions & Answers about Sjúkrabíllinn er að keyra milli sjúkrahúsanna.
Why does the word for hospitals end in -anna in this sentence?
The preposition milli (between) forces the following noun into the genitive case. The base word is sjúkrahús (hospital). To say "the hospitals" in the plural genitive, you take the genitive plural form sjúkrahúsa and add the definite plural article, which is -nna. Together, this gives us sjúkrahúsanna.
Are the words sjúkrabíllinn and sjúkrahúsanna related?
Yes! Both words use the root sjúkur, which means "sick". Sjúkrabíll literally translates to "sick car" (ambulance), and sjúkrahús translates to "sick house" (hospital). Notice how Icelandic creates new vocabulary by logically combining simpler words!
Does milli always take the genitive case?
Yes! The prepositions you are learning in this lesson, like milli (between), án (without), and vegna (because of), always require the noun that follows them to be in the genitive case. You can think of milli as meaning "in the middle of", which helps explain why it needs the genitive (the "of" case).
Why do we use er að keyra instead of just keyrir?