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Questions & Answers about Við förum í bíó í kvöld.
What does við mean, and why is it capitalized here?
við is the first-person plural pronoun “we.” It’s capitalized because every sentence in Icelandic (like in English) starts with a capital letter, even if the word itself isn’t normally capitalized in other positions.
What is förum, and how does it relate to the infinitive fara?
förum is the present-tense, first-person plural form of the verb fara (“to go”). So við förum literally means “we go,” but in natural English you’d say “we are going” or “we’ll go.”
Why is the preposition í used twice, and do they mean the same thing?
No, they serve two different functions:
- The first í (in í bíó) is directional, meaning “to” – “we are going to the cinema.”
- The second í (in í kvöld) is temporal, meaning “in” when referring to time – “in the evening,” i.e. “tonight.”
Why isn’t there an article before bíó, and how would you say “to the cinema” with a definite article?
Icelandic does not use an article for indefinite nouns, so bíó alone means “(to) a cinema” or “the cinema” in a general sense. To make it definite, you’d use the dative form bíóinu, as in í bíóinu (“to the cinema” meaning a specific one).
What case do bíó and kvöld take after í, and why do they look unchanged?
Both are in the accusative case because í takes the accusative when expressing movement (to a place) or a point in time. For many neuter nouns ending in a consonant or -o, the singular accusative form is identical to the nominative, so bíó and kvöld stay unchanged.
How do you pronounce í, ö, and the full sentence?
- í is a long “ee” sound [iː], like “see.”
- ö is [œ], similar to the “u” in British “burn” (without the r).
- The whole sentence:
Við förum í bíó í kvöld
[vɪð ˈfœːrʏm i ˈpiːou i kvœlt]
Why does the verb förum come immediately after við and before the prepositional phrases?
Icelandic follows a V2 word order: the finite verb must be the second constituent in a main clause. Here the subject við is first, the verb förum second, and then the prepositional phrases í bíó í kvöld follow.