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Þetta er blaðamaðurinn sem skrifaði fréttina í gær.

Þetta er blaðamaðurinn sem skrifaði fréttina í gær.
This is the journalist who wrote the news yesterday.
From Lesson 106:Relative pronouns (sem)·Icelandic

Questions & Answers about Þetta er blaðamaðurinn sem skrifaði fréttina í gær.

Is sem the subject or the object in this specific sentence?
In this sentence, sem is the subject of the verb skrifaði (wrote). It acts as a stand-in for blaðamaðurinn (the journalist) to tell us who did the writing. One of the best things about sem is that it never changes its spelling, no matter if it acts as a subject or object, or if the noun is masculine, feminine, or plural!
Why do we use the neuter word Þetta when blaðamaðurinn is masculine?
In Icelandic, when you introduce someone or something with the phrase 'This is...', you always use the neuter form Þetta er... regardless of the actual gender of the noun that follows.
Why is fréttina (the news) in the accusative case?
It is the direct object of the verb skrifaði. The journalist did the writing, and the news was the thing being written. Since frétt (news) is a feminine word, adding the definite article 'the' in the accusative case gives us fréttina.
Blaðamaðurinn looks like a long word. How is it put together?
It is a compound word made from blað (paper or newspaper) and maður (man or person). At the very end is the masculine definite article -inn (the). Put it all together, and you get 'the newspaper person'.

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