Breakdown of Hittingurinn er skemmtilegur og hláturinn er mikill.
vera
to be
og
and
skemmtilegur
fun
mikill
great, much (adjective: snjórinn er mikill)
hittingurinn
the get-together
hláturinn
the laughter
Questions & Answers about Hittingurinn er skemmtilegur og hláturinn er mikill.
Is the word hittingurinn related to the middle voice verb hittast?
Yes! The noun hittingur (a get-together) comes from the same root. You know that að hitta means "to meet" and the middle voice að hittast means "to meet each other". Hittingur is the noun version of that event, and the -inn on the end makes it "the get-together".
Translating hláturinn er mikill literally gives 'the laughter is great'. Is this the standard way to say 'a lot of laughter'?
Exactly. In English, we tend to say "there is a lot of [noun]". In Icelandic, for uncountable nouns like hlátur (laughter), vindur (wind), or snjór (snow), it is very common to use the adjective mikill (much/great) to describe them. So Icelanders literally say "the laughter is great" instead of "there is a lot of laughter".
Why do the adjectives skemmtilegur and mikill have those specific endings?
They are describing hittingurinn and hláturinn, which are both masculine nouns acting as the subjects of the sentence (nominative case). Therefore, the adjectives must match them by using the masculine singular nominative endings: -ur for skemmtilegur and -ill for mikill.
Since we are learning about the past tense, how would I say this exact sentence in the past?
Because this sentence uses the active verb að vera (to be) rather than a middle-voice verb, you simply change er (is) to its past tense form var (was). The sentence becomes: Hittingurinn var skemmtilegur og hláturinn var mikill.
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