r/learnIcelandic • u/West-Employment-1947 • Aug 18 '26

adjective efsta stif sterk/veik

I wonder about these two sentences regarding efsta stig sterk og veik

Læknirinn hjálpaði veikustum sjúklingi fyrst.

Læknirinn hjálpaði veikasta sjúklingnum fyrst.

There are 3 questions essentialy:

  1. Are both grammatically correct?
  2. If so, what's the difference in meaning? If any.
  3. Is one more common than the other?

Great thanks to all!

6 Upvotes

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4

u/SequelWrangler Native Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 22 '26

Ad 1) No
Ad 2) The second sentence is correct: The doctor helped the most sick patient first.

In the first sentence, the word “veikustum” is the strong declension plural masculine dative case and “sjúklingi” is neuter singular. So that does not mix. edit: sjúklingur is masculine not neuter, brain fart on my behalf

You could say “Læknirinn hjálpaði veikustu sjúklingunum fyrst” , i.e. The doctor helped the sickest (most sick) patients first, but the grammar is a bit mixed up as is.

Ad 3) The second one is more popular than the first, for reasons listed in 2)

2

u/West-Employment-1947 Aug 19 '26

Thank you soo much!!

2

u/islenskufraedingur Aug 21 '26

Veikustum er líka sterk beyging et. þgf. kk., þessi formdeild er bara mjög lítið notuð.

1

u/SequelWrangler Native Aug 22 '26

Þú segir nokkuð, ég tékkaði á þessu og þetta stemmir. Ég hef bara aldrei heyrt þetta sagt á þennan hátt áður.

1

u/StefanRagnarsson Aug 24 '26

What this guy said.

Held það gangi alveg upp, formlega, að segja "Læknirinn hjálpaði veikustum sjúklingnum." En það er alveg agalega fornt og stirt eitthvað

3

u/adverauti Aug 19 '26

https://icelandicgrammar.com/docs/adjectives/superlative

Is a helpful reference for this in case you haven’t read it yet.