# Icelandic: "í heita pottinum"



## dreadedutch

Hello everybody,

I'm new to the boards and I've just starting following the online Icelandic language course (Háskóli).

My question is about the following sentence:

_Sæl__! Já, ég er oft hérna í heita pottinum!

_I'm unable to translate "_í heita pottinum" _properly. I understand that "pottinum" is something like a bath or swimming pool (right?) but the word "heita" confuses me.

Takk...

dreadedutch/sander


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## Alxmrphi

I found:

5.             (heitur pottur) *hot pool *(_small extra pool like a hot spring alongside a swimming pool_)

So* í heita pottinum* is *In the hot pool*.

Heitur means 'hot' and as there is a definite article at the end of a noun (_*num*_), when using an adjective it means you use the weak declension, and as it's in the dative (_*potti*_) you use the weak declension of a masculine noun, in the dative which (as you can see from the link) is *heita*.

Just in case the process confuses you (it still does for me, but I find steps like these really help)

1. heitur ........... is it associated with a noun with a definite article added to the end?
..............YES: Use the weak declension
..............NO: Use the strong declension

2. Go to this page and type in your adjective, chose the appropriate declension (*Sterk = strong*, *Veik = weak*)

3. See what case the noun is in, and chose the appropriate one from the list

*Nf* (Nefnifall) - nominative
*Þf *(Þolfall) - accusative
*Þgf *(Þágufall) - dative
*Ef *(Eignarfall) - genitive

Does that help?


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## dreadedutch

Yes thank you!
I got confused by the word heita because in previous exercises I was learning about introductions and the word heitir. Since they kinda look alike I thought it was the same but now I obviously see it wasn't.


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## Alxmrphi

Yeah I thought that as well, always best to check, if you click 'glossary' on the hi.is website (that's what you're doing, right?) it will give you all the relevant words in that lesson.


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## dreadedutch

Ah great! I missed that one. Beats searching for words on Wiktionary 
I've only been learning for a week now so it's all very new. Certainly the 

*Nf* (Nefnifall) - nominative
*Þf *(Þolfall) - accusative
*Þgf *(Þágufall) - dative
*Ef *(Eignarfall) - genitive

and such. It doesn't mean much to me at this moment. I might have to translate that again to my own language and see if it makes more sense to me then.


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## hanne

dreadedutch said:


> and such. It doesn't mean much to me at this moment. I might have to translate that again to my own language and see if it makes more sense to me then.


As far as I can see Dutch has the same four cases (according to wikipedia, Dutch declension), so you should be off to a head start compared to some of the rest of us...


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## dreadedutch

Yea I kinda got that. Looking at Icelandic declension it makes a bit sense. Interesting though how a foreign language can get you more interested in your own language.


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## Alxmrphi

Definitely! Icelandic is extremely similar to Old Norse, which is extremely similar to Old English, so looking at Icelandic is looking at sort of what my native language was like a long time ago, and that's VERY interesting!!


*Old English* . *Icelandic* ....................... _(Modern English)_

*ealdor* ......... *aldur* ................................  ..._age_
*list* ...............*list* ................................ .   ...._art_
*boga* ........... *bogi* .................................     ._bow_
*sæl* ...............*sæla* .................................._happiness_
*hals *............. *háls* ................................   ..._neck_
*frið *..............*.friður* ................................  ._peace_


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## Wbusch

dreadedutch said:


> Hello everybody,
> 
> I'm new to the boards and I've just starting following the online Icelandic language course (Háskóli).
> 
> My question is about the following sentence:
> 
> _Sæl! Já, ég er oft hérna í heita pottinum!_
> 
> I'm unable to translate "_í heita pottinum" _properly. I understand that "pottinum" is something like a bath or swimming pool (right?) but the word "heita" confuses me.
> 
> Takk...
> 
> dreadedutch/sander


I’m also taking this course


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