Word
Ég stend í eldhúsinu og les tímaritið.
Meaning
I am standing in the kitchen and reading the magazine.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Ég stend í eldhúsinu og les tímaritið.
og
and
ég
I
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
lesa
to read
Questions & Answers about Ég stend í eldhúsinu og les tímaritið.
The English translation says 'I am standing' and 'reading', but aren't stend and les just the simple present tense 'stand' and 'read'?
Yes! Icelandic doesn't have an exact match for the English '-ing' verbs. To show you are right in the middle of doing something, Icelandic often uses a posture verb like standa (to stand), sitja (to sit), or liggja (to lie down) followed by og (and) and another verb. Here, stend ... og les creates that continuous 'am standing and reading' meaning.
Why is it í eldhúsinu instead of í eldhúsið?
The preposition í can mean 'in' or 'into'. It takes the dative case when describing a stationary location (where something is), and the accusative case for movement towards a destination (where something is going). Since you are standing still inside the kitchen, the dative form eldhúsinu is used.
What makes eldhúsinu mean 'the kitchen' rather than just 'a kitchen'?
In Icelandic, the word for 'the' is usually attached to the end of the noun. Eldhús is a neuter noun. When you put a neuter noun in the dative case and add 'the', the ending is -inu, giving us eldhúsinu.
Why does tímaritið (the magazine) not seem to change its ending like the kitchen does?