Breakdown of Það hlýnar úti og okkur er ekki kalt.
vera
to be
og
and
það
it / there (existential) / the one (n)
úti
outside
ekki
not
okkur
us
kaldur
cold
hlýna
to get warm
Questions & Answers about Það hlýnar úti og okkur er ekki kalt.
Why do we say okkur er instead of við erum for 'we are'?
In Icelandic, when you talk about how someone feels a temperature, the person experiencing the feeling is put in the dative case. Okkur is the dative form of við (we). So, instead of saying 'we are cold', Icelandic structurally says 'to us is cold'.
If the sentence is about 'us' (okkur), why is the verb er instead of the plural erum?
Because okkur is in the dative case, it is not the grammatical subject of the sentence. In these impersonal temperature phrases, there is no nominative subject, so the verb vera defaults to the third-person singular form, which is er.
Why is the word for cold kalt here, rather than kaldur or a plural form?
In impersonal sentences where there is no nominative subject for the adjective to agree with, adjectives always take their default neuter singular form. Therefore, you must use kalt, no matter how many people are feeling cold or what gender they are!
Is hlýnar an adjective related to temperature?
It is related to temperature, but it is actually a verb! It is the third-person singular form of the verb hlýna, which means 'to get warmer'. Icelandic uses the dummy word það (it) for weather verbs, so það hlýnar means 'it is getting warmer'.
Could I use út instead of úti for 'outside' here?
No, because úti is used for a stationary location (being outside), while út implies motion (going outside). Since the warming weather is simply happening out there, you need the location word úti.
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