Word
Af hverju er markmiðið að hreyfa sig alltaf?
Meaning
Why is the goal to always exercise?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Af hverju er markmiðið að hreyfa sig alltaf?
vera
to be
alltaf
always
að
to (infinitive marker)
af hverju
why
Questions & Answers about Af hverju er markmiðið að hreyfa sig alltaf?
How does Af hverju literally mean 'Why'?
It literally translates to 'Of what'. The preposition af forces the following word into the dative case. So, the question word hvað (what) changes to its dative form, hverju. Together, af hverju is the standard way to ask 'why' in Icelandic.
Why is sig used here after hreyfa?
The verb að hreyfa means 'to move'. To say 'to exercise' or 'to be physically active', Icelandic uses the reflexive form að hreyfa sig, which literally translates to 'to move oneself'. Because the sentence talks about a general goal for anyone, the third-person reflexive pronoun sig (oneself) is used.
What is the base word for markmiðið?
The base word is markmið, a neuter noun meaning 'goal' or 'objective'. The -ið at the end is the attached definite article, which changes 'a goal' into 'the goal'.
Why does alltaf come at the very end of the sentence?
In English, we often place the adverb before the verb ('to always exercise'). In Icelandic infinitive phrases like this one, it is more natural to keep the verb and its pronoun together (að hreyfa sig) and place the time adverb (alltaf) after them.