Breakdown of Er svefnpokinn hlýr ef veðrið er kalt?
vera
to be
veðrið
the weather
kaldur
cold
ef
if
svefnpokinn
the sleeping bag
hlýr
warm
Questions & Answers about Er svefnpokinn hlýr ef veðrið er kalt?
How does the word ef affect the word order in the second part of the sentence?
For simple real conditions like this one (where you are asking about an actual possibility), ef (if) acts very much like it does in English. It doesn't force the verb to the end of the sentence or require a special verb form. You just use normal word order: ef + subject (veðrið) + verb (er) + adjective (kalt).
Both hlýr and kalt describe temperature. Why do they have different endings here?
This is because Icelandic adjectives must match the gender of the noun they describe. Svefnpokinn (the sleeping bag) is a masculine word, so it takes the masculine adjective form hlýr (warm). Veðrið (the weather) is a neuter word, so its adjective gets the neuter -t ending, becoming kalt (cold).
How is the word svefnpokinn put together?
It's a compound word made of svefn (sleep) and poki (bag). To say the sleeping bag, we add the masculine definite article (the word for "the") to the end. Because poki already ends in a vowel, we just attach -nn instead of the full "-inn", giving us svefnpokinn.
The dictionary word for "weather" is veður. Why is it spelled veðrið here instead of "veðurið"?
This is due to a common spelling rule in Icelandic. When adding the neuter definite article -ið to certain words ending in -ur (like veður), the u is dropped to make the word flow better. So, veður + -ið shrinks down to veðrið (the weather).
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