Breakdown of Hún fór í sturtuna af því að henni var kalt.
vera
to be
hún
she
fara
to go
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
henni
her (dative)
kaldur
cold
af því að
because
sturtan
the shower
Questions & Answers about Hún fór í sturtuna af því að henni var kalt.
Why does it say henni var kalt instead of hún var köld?
To express that a person feels cold or hot, Icelandic uses a special structure. The person experiencing the temperature goes into the dative case (henni instead of the nominative hún), and the adjective is always in the neuter singular form (kalt). If you said hún var köld, it would mean her body was literally cold to the touch!
Why is the verb var used with the dative word henni?
In these impersonal sentences, the verb does not change to match the person. It always stays in the default third-person singular form. Because this sentence is in the past tense, the verb vera (to be) becomes var (was).
Why is sturtuna in the accusative case here?
The preposition í forces the accusative case when it describes movement or going into a place. Because she is going into the shower (fór í sturtuna), it is accusative. If she were already standing in the shower, í would take the dative case to show location.
How does the phrase af því að work?
This is the most common way to say because in Icelandic. It is a fixed phrase that connects two parts of a sentence. It literally translates word-for-word as of it that, but you should just learn it as a single chunk meaning because.
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