Word
Hún tekur lyfið einu sinni á dag.
Meaning
She takes the medicine once a day.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Hún tekur lyfið einu sinni á dag.
hún
she
á
onto / on / in (static location) / on (a day of the week)
dagurinn
the day (m)
taka
to take
Questions & Answers about Hún tekur lyfið einu sinni á dag.
Why do we use á in á dag instead of í?
Icelandic uses different prepositions for frequency depending on the length of time. For days, you use á (á dag for a day). But for weeks, months, or years, you switch to í (like í viku for a week).
What does einu sinni literally break down to?
It translates as once, but literally it means one time. Einu is a form of the number one, and sinni means time or instance. This is a fixed phrase that always stays in the dative case.
Why does lyfið end in -ið?
That is the attached word for the. The base noun is lyf (medicine), which is a neuter noun. Because it is the direct object being taken, it is in the accusative case. For neuter words, the accusative form is exactly the same as the dictionary form, so adding the suffix -ið makes it lyfið (the medicine).
Is dag in the accusative case here?
Yes, it is! When the preposition á is used for time frequency, it forces the time word into the accusative case. The base word is dagur (day), and its accusative form drops the -ur ending to become dag.