Breakdown of Okkur líður vel í sambýlinu okkar.
vel
well
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
okkur
us
líða
to feel
sambýlið
the shared home
okkar
our
Questions & Answers about Okkur líður vel í sambýlinu okkar.
Why does this sentence use okkar instead of a word that matches the noun's gender and case?
okkar means 'our' (literally 'of us'). It is the genitive case of the pronoun við (we). Because it is a genitive pronoun and not a standard possessive adjective like minn (my), it never changes its ending. It stays exactly the same no matter what noun it describes.
Why do we start the sentence with Okkur instead of Við (we)?
The verb líða (to feel) is an impersonal verb. In Icelandic, the person experiencing the feeling is treated as the receiver of the emotion. Therefore, the person must be in the dative case (okkur) instead of the nominative case (við).
If the pronoun is plural, why doesn't the verb líður have a plural ending?
Because líða is an impersonal verb, the sentence technically has no grammatical subject. Without a nominative subject to agree with, the verb always defaults to the third-person singular form (líður), no matter how many people are feeling the emotion.
Why is the definite article attached to the noun in sambýlinu okkar? Doesn't that mean 'the our shared home'?
Yes, literally it translates to 'the shared home of us'. In Icelandic, when a possessive word like okkar comes directly after the noun, the noun almost always has the definite article attached to it. Here, the neuter noun sambýli (shared home) gets the dative definite ending -nu.
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