Brautin er erfið, en kapphlaupið er erfiðast.
The track is difficult, but the race is most difficult.
Breakdown of Brautin er erfið, en kapphlaupið er erfiðast.
vera
to be
en
but
kapphlaupið
the race
brautin
the track
erfiður
difficult
Questions & Answers about Brautin er erfið, en kapphlaupið er erfiðast.
Why is the superlative form erfiðast instead of erfiðastur?
Erfiðastur is the masculine form. Here, the adjective describes kapphlaupið (the race), which is a neuter noun. The neuter nominative singular form of the superlative ending is -ast, making the word erfiðast.
Why does the first adjective drop its ending to become erfið?
It is describing brautin (the track), which is a feminine noun. The dictionary form of the adjective is erfiður (masculine). For feminine nouns in the nominative case, we drop the -ur ending, leaving just erfið.
How can we easily spot the genders of braut and kapphlaup in this sentence?
You can look at their attached definite articles (the suffixes that mean "the") and the adjectives that match them. Brautin ends in the feminine article -in and pairs with the feminine adjective erfið. Kapphlaupið ends in the neuter article -ið and pairs with the neuter superlative erfiðast.
Since both nouns have definite articles (-in and -ið), shouldn't the adjectives use the weak declension?
No, because the adjectives are separated from the nouns by the verb er (is). When an adjective comes after a verb like "to be" to describe the subject, it always uses the strong declension in Icelandic, even if that subject noun has a definite article.
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