Breakdown of Ég fer í eldhúsið til að elda mat.
ég
I
fara
to go
elda
to cook
maturinn
the food
í
to
til að
in order to
eldhúsið
the kitchen
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Questions & Answers about Ég fer í eldhúsið til að elda mat.
Why is the preposition í used before eldhúsið, and what case does it take?
The preposition í can govern either the accusative or the dative, depending on whether you indicate motion or location. In Ég fer í eldhúsið, you are moving into the kitchen, so í takes the accusative. If you wanted to say “I’m in the kitchen” (no movement), you’d use the dative: Ég er í eldhúsinu.
Why is eldhúsið in the definite form (with -ið) rather than indefinite?
Icelandic marks definiteness by suffixing the article to the noun. eldhús is a neuter noun whose definite singular nominative/accusative form is eldhúsið. We use the definite form because we mean “the kitchen” (a specific kitchen), not “a kitchen.”
How can I tell that eldhúsið here is accusative and not dative?
Neuter nouns have identical nominative and accusative forms. The dative definite would be eldhúsinu. Since you see eldhúsið (not eldhúsinu) after a movement verb, it’s the accusative.
What does til að do in this sentence? Why not just að elda mat?
til að is the standard way to introduce a purpose clause (“in order to…”). After a verb of motion like fer, you normally use til að + infinitive. Simply að elda mat could work in some contexts, but after fer it sounds incomplete—til að signals purpose clearly.
Why doesn’t mat have an article or change its form?
mat is the accusative singular of the masculine noun matur (“food”). The indefinite nominative is matur, but as a direct object it becomes mat. There’s no article because you’re talking about food in general, not “the food.”
Can you drop the pronoun Ég since fer already indicates first person?
Yes. Icelandic allows subject pronouns to be omitted when they’re clear from the verb. Fer í eldhúsið til að elda mat is perfectly grammatical and means the same thing.
Is the word order fixed? Could you say Ég fer til að elda mat í eldhúsinu?
You can move the purpose clause, but you must keep til að + infinitive together. Ég fer til að elda mat í eldhúsinu (“I’m going in order to cook food in the kitchen”) is grammatical but slightly shifts the emphasis: it sounds like you’re already outside, stating purpose first, then specifying location.
Is til in til að elda mat the same til as when it’s used with a noun, e.g. til kaupa?
No. In til að the til is part of a subordinating conjunction that introduces a purpose clause and is followed by an infinitive. When til is a preposition, it must be followed by a noun in the genitive (e.g. til kaupa “for buying” or til kaupstaðarins “to the town’s”).