Learn Hardcore Icelandic: Við finnum rólegan stað til að lesa.

við is pronounced [vɪð], with the voiced “th” sound like in English this. It’s the first-person plural subject pronoun, equivalent to English we.

Why is the verb finna conjugated as finnum here?

Because við (“we”) requires the first-person plural present form. The full present-tense conjugation of finna (“to find”) is:
• ég finn (I find)
• þú finnur (you find)
• hann/hún finnur (he/she finds)
• við finnum (we find)
• þið finnið (you pl. find)
• þeir/þær/þau finna (they find)

Why is the adjective rólegur changed to rólegan before stað?

Icelandic adjectives agree with the noun in gender, number, and case. Here stað is a masculine singular noun in the accusative case (direct object), so rólegur (“quiet”) takes the masculine singular accusative ending -an, yielding rólegan.

Why does staður appear as stað without the -ur ending?

staður is a strong masculine -ur-stem noun. In all cases except the nominative singular, the -ur drops off. Its singular forms are:
• Nom.: staður
• Acc.: stað
• Dat.: stað
• Gen.: staðar

What does til að lesa mean, and why is til að used here?

til að + infinitive expresses purpose, like English “in order to” or simply “to.” So til að lesa means “to read” (literally “in order to read”). The til marks purpose, and að introduces the infinitive.

Why is there að before lesa? Can’t we omit it like in English?

In Icelandic, bare infinitives almost always require að (except after a few modals or in fixed phrases). You cannot say lesa by itself for “to read”; you must say að lesa.

What’s the difference between using finna here and using leita að?

finna means “to find” something you believe exists, whereas leita að means “to search for.” If you want to emphasize the search, you’d say:
Við leitum að rólegum stað til að lesa.
Notice leita að takes the dative, so rólegur becomes rólegum.

Why is there no word for “a” before stað in rólegan stað?

Icelandic has no indefinite article. Indefiniteness is shown by the noun lacking the definite suffix. Thus stað = “a place,” while staðið = “the place.”