Mig langar í mjúka stólinn.

I want the soft chair.

Breakdown of Mig langar í mjúka stólinn.

• mig: me
• stóllinn: the chair
• mjúkur: soft
• langast í: to want

Questions & Answers about Mig langar í mjúka stólinn.

Why does this sentence use mig langar instead of ég vil?

• langar is an impersonal verb (“to long for, to feel like”), not a personal 1st-person verb.
• It never takes a nominative subject (ég); instead the experiencer goes in the accusative (or sometimes dative), hence mig.
• By contrast, vil (“want”) is a regular 1st-person verb and would be used with ég as its subject: Ég vil stólinn (“I want the chair”).

Why is mig (accusative) used instead of ég (nominative) or mér (dative)?

• Impersonal verbs like langar put the person feeling the desire into the object case.
• You will often see mér langar in more formal or written Icelandic (dative), but colloquially mig langar (accusative) is extremely common.
• You cannot use ég here because that’s reserved for true subjects of personal verbs.

When do you use langar í + noun versus langar að + verb?

• Use langar í + [accusative noun] to express “I want/have a craving for something.”
  e.g. Mig langar í ís (“I feel like (eating) ice cream.”)
• Use langar að + [infinitive] to express “I want to do something.”
  e.g. Mig langar að borða ís (“I feel like eating ice cream.”)

What case does í govern in this sentence, and why?

• Here í is part of the idiom langar í. It always takes the accusative.
• In general, í + accusative often signals a dynamic or “toward” sense; with langar it simply frames the thing desired.

Why is stólinn in the definite form (ending in -inn) instead of just stóll?

• English “the soft chair” is specific, so Icelandic marks definiteness by adding the suffix -inn for a masculine singular noun:
  stóll → stólinn (“the chair”).

Why is the adjective mjúka and not the dictionary form mjúkur?

• Adjectives agree in gender, number and case.
• After í + accusative, adjectives take the strong declension, even if the noun is definite.
• Masculine singular strong accusative of mjúkur is mjúka, so you get mjúka stólinn.

How would you say “I want a soft chair” (an indefinite chair) in Icelandic?

• Use the indefinite accusative strong forms:
  Mig langar í mjúkan stól.
  (Here mjúkan is masculine singular strong accusative of mjúkur, and stól is indefinite.)

Where do you put ekki to make it negative (“I don’t want the soft chair”)?

• Ekki normally follows the verb phrase:
  Mig langar ekki í mjúka stólinn.

How would you ask “Do you want the soft chair?” using this structure?

• Invert verb and experiencer pronoun, keeping the same cases:
  Langar þig í mjúka stólinn?
• (Or more formally with dative: Langar þér í mjúka stólinn?)