Breakdown of Strákarnir keyrðu ekki út af ófærðinni.
strákurinn
the boy
ekki
not
keyra
to drive
út af
because of (+ dative)
ófærðin
the impassable roads
Questions & Answers about Strákarnir keyrðu ekki út af ófærðinni.
Why does the phrase for 'because of' use two words here (út af)?
The compound preposition út af translates to 'because of' or 'due to'. It is always followed by a noun in the dative case. While you might also know vegna for 'because of', út af is extremely common in everyday spoken Icelandic when pointing to a specific cause.
Why does ófærðinni end in -inni?
The preposition út af forces the following word into the dative case. The base noun is ófærð (a feminine noun meaning impassable road conditions). To say 'the impassable conditions', you add the feminine dative definite article -inni to the end, giving us ófærðinni.
The translation says 'the impassable roads' in the plural. Is ófærðinni also plural?
No, ófærðinni is actually singular! In Icelandic, ófærð is a singular concept that describes the state of roads being blocked or impossible to travel on (literally 'impassability'). Since English doesn't have a common noun for this, translating it as a plural 'impassable roads' sounds the most natural.
Could ekki be placed at the very end of the sentence?
No, ekki is exactly where it needs to be. In a standard Icelandic main clause, ekki comes directly after the verb (keyrðu). Moving it to the end of the sentence after the prepositional phrase would sound completely wrong.
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