# Icelandic:  Og hér er svo kötturinn minn



## Alxmrphi

Hæ,

I have this tiny piece of text I found and wanted to learn all the words and see a typical sentence, here is the sentence:



> *Og hér er svo kötturinn minn, Kolbeinn. Honum finnst gaman að fara í bað (held ég) og myndin er einmitt tekin eftir eitt laugardagsbaðið.*


Myndin

Right...
I looked up a few words and saw some multiple meanings, I used the context to define a few things and there are some things I am not sure about.


_(og hér er svo kötturinn minn, Kolbeinn)_
_*"And here is my cat, Kolbeinn"*_ - I can understand this, but not the meaning of "svo", what does 'svo' mean here, I found "so/then", none seem to fit.

_(Honum finnst gaman að fara í bað)_
*"He likes to go for a bath..." *(to him / to hann, so "hann" in the dative = honum) - To like to go/do, is this structure.. "to someone... finds fun/entertainment(gaman) to go/ to do?"
I hope "Honum finnst gaman að fara" means "He likes to go".. I'm not sure, I need to check this.

_*"(held ég)"* _- I don't know what this is, nothing in the *orðabók* helped.

_(og myndin er einmitt tekin eftir eitt laugardagsbaðið)_*
"and the photo is taken exactly after Saturday's bath" *- I assumed that "eitt" doesn't need to be translated into English as it'd sound odd, is that correct? I hope I got all the other parts correct.

If anyone can shed any light on the parts I am confused about, that'd be great!

Takk fyrir!
- Alex


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## Wilma_Sweden

While we wait for someone Icelandic to confirm this, I believe that 
(held ég) simply means I think or rather, think I, since we have reversed word order. The verb is halda. It seems to make sense in the context if your translation is reasonably correct: He likes having a bath (I think)... The construction with dative looks analogous to "It pleases him to have a bath".

*laugardagsbaðið* looks like a compound noun, i.e. a Saturday bath. The weekday is compounded with the genitive -s to its noun. This construction is used in Swedish, too: lördagsbad, söndagspromenad (=Sunday stroll). To me it looks like it could be any Saturday. However, I fail to see why they have the definite (?) suffix *-ið *as well as the eitt. 

The point is that I'm not convinced it refers to last Saturday, but any Saturday, as if the habit is to have a bath on Saturdays. In that case, we could use his: ... and the picture is taken right after his Saturday bath.

As I said, we need someone more proficient in Icelandic to confirm or deny this.

/Wilma


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## Alxmrphi

Hey Wilma, 

Thanks for the help!
Just for a clarification, I understood as you did about the "not a specific Saturday", but we do also use the saxon genitive for habitual actions sometimes as well... "Friday's drunkenness is always fun" / "After Monday's hangover I feel terrible" - though it also refers to specific Mondays too..

But keeping more to the point, it probably is better to use what you said... though some tiny little thing is making me think it's a little bit odd, but I just can't figure out what it is.
After a search on "honum finnst gaman" it seems this is the way to say "he enjoys/he likes to..." - I'm used to this kinda structure from Italian anyway, I'm glad about that!
We only really have to find out about "svo" and "eitt" now really, (I hope!) Thanks for the input!

I looked up "eitt" again and it also means "alone".. so that could fit in, it's possible, it would sound a bit odd of course, but I guess we'll just have to wait to find out.


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## butra

svo might be translated as thereafter, then (and then here we have …) or at last (but not least).
eitt laugardagsbaðið one Saturday's bath, one (of his) Saturday’s baths 
one that he takes every Saturday.


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## Alxmrphi

Thanks a million butra!
Is it ok to assume the rest of what I tried to find out, and what Wilma helped me with, was all correct?

Takk fyrir!


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## butra

Is it ok to assume the rest of what I tried to find out, and what Wilma helped me with, was all correct?

Yes.


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## AndersH

I am often confused how undetermined and determined stuff are combined in Icelandic, it is sometimes differently done than in my language Swedish. So could you explain why it says "eftir eitt laugardagsbaðið" and not "eftir eitt laugardagsbað" (as a Swede would have said it), or "eftir laugardagsbað" (according to the Icelandic habit of skipping einn/eitt: "Ég sé hús" (Swedish: "Jag ser ett hus").  Which of the other two expressions would be OK and would they mean the same? 

And while we are at it: 

a) "Hún var mjög falleg kona með _ljóst hárið_ slegið og augun áberandi blá"
b) "Allavega, þegar ég var með _ljósa hárið_ þá fannst mér alltaf einsog ..."
c) "Sko ég var einu sinni með _ljóst hár_,..."

Has sentence a above an air of higher poetic style or does it mean something else? I.e. why would someone use a instead of b or c?

Anders H


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## Alxmrphi

Hi Anders... in the first sentence you used strong declension neuter for "hárið" (ljóst) when (I believe) it should be weak declension (as the definite article has been added) so (like b) it should be _ljósa hárið_.

I'm no expect, but it's a rule I've learnt, (to the others), am I right?


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## Magb

Alex_Murphy said:


> Hi Anders... in the first sentence you used strong declension neuter for "hárið" (ljóst) when (I believe) it should be weak declension (as the definite article has been added) so (like b) it should be _ljósa hárið_.
> 
> I'm no expect, but it's a rule I've learnt, (to the others), am I right?



I think it was established in one of your other threads that strong adjectives can be used before nouns in the definite form when you want to emphasize the adjective somewhat. Something like _ljósa hárið_ = "the fair hair", _ljóst hárið_ = "the hair which is fair". Or at least that's how it seems to me  after a little searching around.

A little tip by the way: if you're wondering if some phrase is valid or not, try googling for it. You need to check the results to verify that they aren't all false positives, but if you get a lot of results there's a pretty good chance that the usage is valid.


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## Alxmrphi

Hi Mag...

What was clarified was... 

if definite form -> weak declension
if not definite -> strong declension

But I don't remember talking/asking about emphasising adjectives, so maybe it was something else I didn't read..

"ljósa hárið" (weak) - 2,500 hits
"ljóst hárið" (strong) - 197

This might hold true (what you say) if it does emphasise the adjective, (can you link me to the part that says that please?) my book didn't mention that so I want to know if I missed something.


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## Magb

Alex_Murphy said:


> This might hold true (what you say) if it does emphasise the adjective, (can you link me to the part that says that please?) my book didn't mention that so I want to know if I missed something.



In the "strong/weak declension" thread, butra posted this example: "Hvítur snjórinn er fallegur. The snow is beautiful ( when it is white )." On second thought, "emphasizing" might not be the best description. "Restrictive" seems more accurate.


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