Relative Pronouns
Adjectives are useful for describing things in Icelandic. Adjectives fit inside clauses, as we've seen:
Hundurinn er gulur.
The dog is yellow.
We can join this clause to a second clause by using a relative pronoun. In Icelandic you use sem as who, which, that.
Hundur, sem er gulur.
A dog that's yellow.
But note that this isn't quite a sentence, technically all we've done is join the relative clause to a noun phrase.
Hundur, sem er gulur, býr á eyju.
A dog that's yellow lives on an island.
That's better. As you can see, the relative clause is surrounded by commas.
Hann er maðurinn, sem ég hafði séð.
He is the man who I had seen.
Hér er næstum ekkert, sem ég get borðað.
There's almost nothing here that I can eat.
To show possession: hvers can be used, but it rarely is. You'd mostly see it in old texts so don't empasize learning it. It is declined by gender and number.
Konan, hverrar glugga ég braut.
The woman whose window I broke…
Læknirinn, hvers ráða ég þarfnast…
The doctor whose advice I need…
It is more normal to say
Konan sem ég braut gluggann hjá
Literal: The woman who I broke a window at (her place)
Meaning: The woman whose window I broke
Læknirinn sem ég þarf ráð frá
The doctor who I need advice from
The one phrase we mostly still see this word in today is:
Hverra manna ert þú?
Literal translation: Whose people are you? (like asking which people you belong to)
Meaning: Of which family are you? – Who are your relatives?
This is still something that's on it's way out and is mostly a thing older people would say today.
What if, instead of a specific noun, you're referring to "somewhere"? Simply use an answer word like þar, þangað or þaðan. In English, you ask „where?“ and answer with „where“ or „there“ to locate things. In Icelandic we have different words for asking where something is (hvar?), where something is going (hvert?) and where it's coming from (hvaðan?). Then we have three different corresponding words for answering these questions: þar (there), þangað (to there) and þaðan (from there)
Hvar var lykillinn? Hann var þar.
Where was the key? It was there.
Hvert ert þú að fara? Ég er að fara þangað.
Where are you going? I'm going there.
Hvaðan komst þú? Ég kom þaðan.
Where did you come from? I came from there.
Notice how when you specify
Hvar var lykillinn? Hann var þar sem ég skildi hann eftir
Where was the key? It was where I left it.
Hvert ert þú að fara? Ég er að fara þangað sem mig langar að fara.
Where are you going? I'm going where I want to go.
Literal translation: Where-to are you going? I'm going there-to where I want to go.
Hvaðan komst þú? Ég kom þaðan sem fjöllin eru blá.
Where did you come from? I came from where the mountains are blue.
Literal translation: Where-from did you come? I came there-from where the mountains are blue.
Now see how they can be used without answering a question specifically
Við þurfum engin vopn þar sem við verðum.
We won't need weapons where we're going to be.
Ég ætla að fara þangað sem er hægt að fá ódýrari verkfæri.
I'm going where you can get cheaper tools.
Ég er að koma þaðan sem fólkið hittist.
I'm coming from (the place) where the people meet.
Not how in the last sentence, when you use „þaðan“ you don't add „the place“. If you did, you would use „þar“.
Ég er að koma frá staðnum þar sem fólkið hittist.
I'm coming from the place where the people meet.