Breakdown of Æskan var mjög góð þegar ég bjó á Íslandi.
vera
to be
ég
I
góður
good
mjög
very
á
onto / on / in (static location) / on (a day of the week)
Ísland
Iceland
búa
to live (in a place), to dwell
þegar
when
æskan
the youth
Questions & Answers about Æskan var mjög góð þegar ég bjó á Íslandi.
Why do we use þegar here for "when" instead of hvenær?
Þegar is a conjunction used to connect two statements, meaning "at the time that". It is used for statements about the past, like in this sentence, or for general truths. You only use hvenær when you are actually asking a question, like "When did you live in Iceland?".
How is the word æskan formed?
It comes from the feminine noun æska, which means "youth" or "childhood". To say "the youth", we add the definite article suffix to the end. Since æska already ends in a vowel, we just add -n, making it æskan.
Why is the adjective góð instead of góður or gott?
Adjectives in Icelandic change to match the gender of the noun they describe. Because æskan is a feminine noun, the adjective takes the feminine singular form góð. If it were a masculine noun, we would use góður, and for neuter, gott.
What verb does bjó come from?
Bjó is the past tense of búa, which means "to live" or "to reside". It is an irregular strong verb, which is why the vowel changes completely in the past tense instead of just adding a regular past tense ending.
Why is the country name spelled Íslandi with an "i" at the end?
The preposition á triggers the dative case when you are talking about a stationary location where something happens. The neuter noun Ísland gets the standard dative ending -i, becoming Íslandi.
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