# Icelandic:  Minn, mitt, mig, mín



## sownbones

Could anyone give me a better explanation as to when either minn, mitt, mig, mín, is appropriate in a sentence and whether or not there's a way to tell if it goes before or after the noun/subject?  Takk!


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## sindridah

Hello sownbones and welcome to the this forum! 

Minn and mitt ( my,mine: As you already know i suppose  ).

You use *Minn* when it's masculine and *Mitt* when it's neuter. For example.

Þetta er bíllinn minn ( this is my car )
Þetta er hann sonur minn ( this is my son )

Þetta er barnið mitt ( This is my child )
Hérna er húsið mitt ( This is my house )

Mig is in accusative and mín is in genitive. 

You generally begin a sentence with Mig and end it with mín. ( In most cases )

For example:

Mig vantar varahlut í bílinn minn ( i need a spare part on my car )
Mig langar í ís ( I want ice-cream )

Hættu að hugsa til mín ( Stop thinking of me )
Ætlar þú að koma til mín ( are you coming to me ? )

Mín = me and Mig = I 

Feel free to comment if i didn't quite explained it enough


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## Magb

Get ready for an explanation that's ten times more complicated than you were hoping for! There's no easy way around the complexities of the topic you're asking about though.

_Minn_, _mín_ and _mitt_ are possessive pronouns, corresponding to "my" (and also to "mine") in English. They are the masculine, feminine and neuter form respectively, so in order to know which one to use you have to memorize the gender of the noun they're modifying.

_Mín_ is also a genitive pronoun, which is used after some prepositions and verbs, e.g. _án mín_ ("without me"), _Saknarðu mín_ ("Do you miss me?"). As you can see, English uses "me" in these cases, but translating _mín_ as "me" is in my opinion a bit misleading. _Mig_ (the accusative form) is the word that's most often used where English has "me", and there's also the dative form _mér_. For instance you say _um mig_ ("about me"), _frá mér_ ("from me") and _til mín_ ("to me"). You say _Ég elska þig_, but _Ég ann þér_ (both meaning "I love you"), where _þig_ and _þér_ obviously correspond to _mig_ and _mér_.

Knowing which of mig/mér/mín to use is very difficult, because it depends not only on what verb or preposition that's being used, but in some cases also on the semantics of what's being said. For example _í garðinn_ (accusative form) and _í garðinum_ (dative form) both mean "in the garden", but the first one should be used if you're saying "I was walking in the garden" and the latter if you're saying "I was standing in the garden", because the accusative is associated with motion and the dative with location. Anyway, this is a very advanced subject.

Something sindridah touched on, which makes things even more complicated, is that Icelandic sometimes uses _mig_ where we use "I" in English. For example you say _Mig minnir_ ("I remember", or more literally "Me remember"). _Mér_ and _mín_ are also used in the same manner, e.g. _Mér leiðist_ ("I'm bored") and _Mín var getið_ ("I was mentioned"). All of this is determined by the verb you're using, and must simply be memorized.


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## sindridah

Yes Magb is right. To understand this you have to have the basic fundamentals. So it can be very hard for us sometimes to come up with the useful explaination . But you can tell the gender right away if it has article and is in nominative. 

-i*nn* : Masculine - Bíllinn ( minn ), sófinn ( minn ), garðurinn (minn ), vegurinn ( minn )
-i*n* : Feminine - Sængin ( mín ) , taskan ( mín ) , bókin ( mín )
-*ið* : Neuter - Húsið ( mitt ) , borðið ( mitt ) , sjónvarpið ( mitt )


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## sownbones

Thats so great, takk fyrir Sindridah og Magb.    It's even helpful just to know that it's something that I'll just need to practice and memorize, rather than wondering if there is a format.  I'm sure I'll begin noticing a pattern the more I read.  Thank you both so much for your help, I'm going to make it a point to come by here often and at least read other threads that way it'll be a little less foreign each time.

*Sindridah, you said:*

_"Mig vantar varahlut í bílinn minn ( i need a spare part on my car )
Mig langar í ís ( I want ice-cream )"_

Is there a way to differentiate the times where I'd use, "Mig (verb)ar" as opposed to "Ég (verb)a?"  (For example:  Mig vantar/Ég þarf).


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## Alxmrphi

> Is there a way to differentiate the times where I'd use, "Mig (verb)ar"  as opposed to "Ég (verb)a?"  (For example:  Mig vantar/Ég þarf).


Unfortunately not.
You get a sense of the verbs, there's not that many of them and you'll begin to notice the patterns of what types of meaning they represent. Very often they are verbs in which the subject is the experiencer of some emotion (i.e. pain / desire / general feeling), and some others like experiencing a dream (_mig dreymdi í gær_).


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## sownbones

I see.  So would it then be wrong/incorrect to say Ég þarf varahlut í bílinn minn?  Or is it the same, just less common to say?


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## sindridah

No it's not at all wrong to say that. It's basicly the same. I have no idea how English natives has the sense for usage of right cases. Ég is nominative and Mig is accusative ofcourse. This Personal pronouns can even be used side by side in a sentence for example:

Hvernig skrái ég mig úr þjóðkirkjunni?

Hvernig undirbý ég mig fyrir leikinn?

It's just demands a little sense/knowledge of case usage i guess  I'm simply not capable of explaining it more advanced hehe


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## sownbones

Takk Sindridah.


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