A direct question stands alone — Kemur hann? "Is he coming?" An indirect (embedded) question is folded inside a bigger sentence: "I don't know whether he's coming," "She asked where he lived." This page covers how Icelandic builds those embedded questions — which involves two features at once, subordinate word order and often the subjunctive — and then the small kit of tag questions Icelandic uses to seek confirmation (er það ekki?, ekki satt?, ha?). (Reported statements — "she said that he was ill" — live with the subjunctive in reported speech; here we deal only with embedded questions and confirmation tags.)
The big idea: embedding flips two switches at once
When you embed a question, Icelandic changes the clause in two ways that English does not:
- Word order becomes subordinate — the verb-second inversion of a direct question disappears, and the clause goes back to subject-before-verb order.
- The verb often goes into the subjunctive — because an embedded question is, by its nature, unsettled: you don't know the answer, you're asking about it, reporting it, or wondering. That uncertainty is exactly what the subjunctive marks.
English flips only the first switch (it drops inversion: "where he lives," not "where does he live"). Icelandic flips both. Get used to seeing them travel together.
Indirect yes/no questions: hvort 'whether'
A direct yes/no question has no question word — it just inverts: Er hann tilbúinn? "Is he ready?" To embed it, you can't keep that bare inversion; you need a word meaning "whether/if", and that word is hvort. Everything after hvort runs in subordinate order, and the verb is typically subjunctive because the answer is genuinely open.
Ég veit ekki hvort hann komi í kvöld.
I don't know whether he's coming tonight. (hvort + subordinate order; subjunctive komi, not the indicative kemur)
Hún spurði hvort ég væri tilbúinn.
She asked whether I was ready. (hvort + subjunctive væri; subject ég before the verb)
Geturðu athugað hvort búðin sé enn opin?
Could you check whether the shop is still open? (hvort + subjunctive sé)
Notice that English offers a choice — "whether" or "if" ("I don't know if he's coming") — but Icelandic uses hvort for both; there is no embedded-question use of ef ("if"). Reserve ef for real conditionals ("if it rains, we'll stay in"); for "whether," it is always hvort.
Indirect wh-questions: keep the wh-word, change the order
For embedded wh-questions ("where," "when," "why," "who"…), you keep the question word but switch to subordinate order — the verb no longer jumps ahead of the subject. Here too the subjunctive is common, especially after verbs of asking, wondering, and (often) not-knowing.
Ég spurði hann hvar hann byggi.
I asked him where he lived. (wh-word hvar kept; subjunctive byggi; subject hann before the verb)
Veistu hvenær lestin fer?
Do you know when the train leaves? (embedded hvenær; here indicative fer — a timetable fact)
Hún vildi vita af hverju ég hefði ekki hringt.
She wanted to know why I hadn't called. (af hverju 'why'; past subjunctive hefði in the embedded clause)
Það er óljóst hver hafi tekið ákvörðunina.
It's unclear who made the decision. (hver 'who'; subjunctive hafi)
The contrast in word order is sharp. A direct question inverts (Hvar býr hann? "Where does he live?"); embedded, the inversion is gone and the verb sits after its subject (…hvar hann byggi). If you keep the direct-question inversion inside the embedded clause, the sentence is wrong — this is the number-one error English speakers make here, and it's covered below.
Indicative or subjunctive? A practical guide
The subjunctive is not random, but B1 learners need a usable rule of thumb rather than the full theory:
- Subjunctive after verbs of asking, wondering, doubting, not knowing (spyrja, velta fyrir sér, efast um, vita ekki), and in past-tense reports — because the embedded clause reports something unsettled or someone else's words: hún spurði hvort ég *væri…, ég veit ekki hvort hann komi…*
- Indicative when the embedded clause states something you treat as a plain fact the speaker vouches for — a timetable, a known result: veistu hvenær lestin *fer?* (the departure time is a fact).
The honest truth is that the boundary has a grey zone, and educated speakers vary. As a B1 default: after "ask/wonder/don't know," reach for the subjunctive; for neutral facts, the indicative is fine. The subjunctive overview develops the logic.
hvort vs hvert vs hver — three words one letter apart
Because hvort ("whether") is so central here, keep it clear of two look-alikes. These are different words, not spelling variants, and the diacritics and final consonants matter:
| Word | Meaning | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| hvort | whether | embedding a yes/no question (this page) |
| hvert | where to (whither) | direction of motion: Hvert ertu að fara? |
| hver | who / which | asking about a person or choice: Hver ert þú? |
Ég veit ekki hvort hún fer, eða hvert hún fer.
I don't know whether she's going, or where she's going (to). (hvort 'whether' vs hvert 'where to' — both in one sentence)
Tag questions: short, invariant confirmers
A tag question is a little add-on that turns a statement into a request for confirmation: "You're coming, aren't you?" English tags are notoriously fiddly — they copy the auxiliary and flip its polarity ("isn't it," "doesn't he," "haven't they," "will you"). Icelandic refuses all that machinery. It uses a handful of fixed, invariant tags that never change to match the verb.
| Tag | Force | Register |
|---|---|---|
| er það ekki? | seeking agreement, "right?" | neutral, everyday |
| ekki satt? | "isn't that so?", appealing to shared knowledge | neutral, slightly more emphatic |
| ha? | "eh? / right? / what?" | (informal), casual speech |
| er það? | "oh really? / is that so?" (reacting, not confirming) | neutral, conversational |
The workhorse is er það ekki? — literally "is that not?" — which you can pin onto almost any statement to mean "…right?" It does not change for tense, person, or the verb of the main clause. The same three words confirm a present, a past, or a perfect.
Þú kemur á morgun, er það ekki?
You're coming tomorrow, aren't you? (tag er það ekki — invariant)
Þið borðuðuð allt saman, er það ekki?
You ate it all, didn't you? (same tag, past tense — no change)
Flott, ha?
Cool, eh? / Nice, right? (ha? — casual confirmation/appeal)
Hún er búin að flytja til Akureyrar, ekki satt?
She's moved to Akureyri, hasn't she? (ekki satt — appeals to shared knowledge)
Two notes on usage. First, ha? also serves as "huh? / what?" when you didn't catch something, so context decides whether it's "didn't catch that" or a confirming "right?". Second, er það? without ekki is a reaction ("Oh really?"), not a confirmation-seeking tag — don't reach for it when you mean "…right?".
English vs Icelandic: where the friction is
Two transfer problems dominate. In embedded questions, English drops inversion but keeps the indicative ("I don't know where he lives"). Icelandic drops inversion and often adds the subjunctive (…hvar hann byggi), so English speakers reliably under-shoot — they fix the word order but forget the mood, or they overcorrect and re-insert the inversion they were taught to delete. In tag questions, English speakers translate their auxiliary-matching tag literally, producing strings of words that are individually Icelandic but never used as a tag. The cure is to stop translating the tag at all and reach for the fixed er það ekki?.
Common Mistakes
❌ Ég veit ekki hvort kemur hann.
Incorrect — keeps the direct-question inversion (kemur hann) inside the embedded clause.
✅ Ég veit ekki hvort hann kemur (komi).
I don't know whether he's coming. (subordinate order: subject hann before the verb; subjunctive komi is the more idiomatic choice)
After hvort, you are in a subordinate clause — the subject goes back in front of the verb. The direct-question inversion must be undone.
❌ Ég spurði hvar býr hann.
Incorrect — embedded wh-question still inverted (býr hann), as if it were a direct question.
✅ Ég spurði hvar hann byggi.
I asked where he lived. (wh-word kept, but subordinate order + subjunctive byggi)
Keep the wh-word, but switch to subject-before-verb order — and after "ask," use the subjunctive.
❌ Ég veit ekki ef hann kemur.
Incorrect — ef is the conditional 'if', not 'whether'; this reads as a half-finished conditional.
✅ Ég veit ekki hvort hann kemur.
I don't know whether he's coming. (embedded yes/no = hvort, never ef)
English "if" splits in Icelandic: conditional ef, embedded yes/no hvort. Use hvort here.
❌ Þú kemur á morgun, gerirðu það ekki?
Incorrect — a literal calque of English 'don't you?', building the tag from the verb.
✅ Þú kemur á morgun, er það ekki?
You're coming tomorrow, aren't you? (the fixed tag er það ekki, not a verb-matched tag)
Don't build the tag from the main verb the way English does. Use the invariant er það ekki?.
❌ Ég veit ekki hvert hann kemur í kvöld.
Wrong question word — hvert means 'where to', not 'whether'.
✅ Ég veit ekki hvort hann kemur í kvöld.
I don't know whether he's coming tonight. (hvort 'whether', not hvert 'where to')
Mind the spelling: hvort ("whether") for embedded yes/no, hvert ("where to") only for direction.
Key Takeaways
- Embedding a question flips two switches: it removes the inversion (subordinate order returns) and it often adds the subjunctive (ég veit ekki hvort hann komi).
- Embedded yes/no questions use hvort ("whether") — never ef, which is the conditional "if."
- Embedded wh-questions keep the wh-word (hvar, hvenær, af hverju, hver) but switch to subject-before-verb order, commonly with the subjunctive.
- Subjunctive after ask / wonder / don't know and in past reports; indicative for plain facts (timetables, known results).
- Tag questions are short and invariant — er það ekki? (everyday), ekki satt? (shared knowledge), ha? (casual). Icelandic never matches the tag to the verb the way English does.
- Keep hvort (whether), hvert (where to), and hver (who) distinct — one letter changes the meaning.
Now practice Icelandic
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Start learning Icelandic→Related Topics
- Wh-Questions: hvað, hver, hvar, hvenær, af hverjuA2 — The Icelandic question words — hvað, hver, hvar/hvert/hvaðan, hvenær, hvernig, af hverju/hvers vegna/hví, hve/hversu — and their syntax: the wh-word fronts, the finite verb takes second position (V2), prepositions front or strand, and the frozen idiom Hvernig hefurðu það?
- Yes/No Questions and AnsweringA1 — Forming yes/no questions by verb-subject inversion, the spoken clitic forms, and the three-way answer system — já 'yes', nei 'no', and jú, the special 'yes' that contradicts a negative question.
- Subjunctive in Reported SpeechB1 — The single most frequent subjunctive trigger in Icelandic: indirect speech introduced by að (and hvort/wh-words) after verbs of saying, thinking, hoping, and asking. The reported clause goes into the subjunctive to mark that the content is REPORTED, not asserted — present subjunctive (sé, komi, fari) under a present matrix verb, past subjunctive (væri, kæmi, færi) under a past one (backshift). Indicative can creep in for facts the speaker personally vouches for, making the mood a subtle evidentiality device.
- Subordinate Clause Word OrderB1 — How word order changes inside subordinate clauses — V2 is suspended, the subject stays next to the subordinator, and sentence adverbs/ekki precede the finite verb in the conservative standard (... að hann ekki kemur) — plus the marked 'embedded V2' option after reporting verbs.
- The Subjunctive (viðtengingarháttur): OverviewB1 — An orientation to the Icelandic subjunctive mood — a living, everyday part of the language, not a literary relic — covering its four big triggers (reported speech, conditionals, wishes/hopes, and certain conjunctions) and why English speakers, with only a vestigial subjunctive of their own, systematically and audibly leave it out.