Learn Hardcore Icelandic: Kannski vill hún sofa lengur í dag.

Icelandic main clauses are verb‑second (V2). Whatever you put first (here the sentence adverb kannski “maybe”), the finite verb must come next. So: Kannski (1st position) + vill (2nd) + hún (3rd) + the rest.

Can kannski move elsewhere in the sentence?

Yes:

Hún vill kannski sofa lengur í dag. (very common)
Í dag vill hún kannski sofa lengur. Avoid in careful writing: Hún kannski vill … (V3). You’ll hear it in speech, but standard V2 prefers Kannski vill hún … or Hún vill kannski ….

Why is it vill and not vil?

It’s the 3rd‑person singular present of vilja “to want,” which is irregular:

ég vil, þú vilt, hann/hún vill, við viljum, þið viljið, þeir/þau vilja.

Does vill mean English “will” (future)?

No. Vilja means “to want.” To talk about the future, Icelandic uses present tense or the auxiliary munu. Example: Hún mun sofa lengur í dag = “She will sleep longer today.”

Why is there no að before sofa?

Certain modal/preterite‑present verbs (like vilja, mega, skulu, munu) take a bare infinitive. So it’s vill sofa, not vill að sofa.

Could it be sofi instead of sofa?

Not here. After a modal you use the infinitive sofa. The form sofi is present subjunctive and appears, for example, in a clause with að after a verb of wanting: Hann vill að hún sofi lengur í dag.

What exactly does lengur mean, and how is it different from meira or lengri?

lengur = “longer (in time),” the comparative adverb of lengi.
meira = “more (quantity/amount),” not specifically about time.
lengri = “longer” as an adjective for nouns (e.g., lengri dagur “a longer day”), not with verbs. So sofa lengur = “sleep for a longer time.”

Where can I put í dag?

It’s flexible. Common options:

Kannski vill hún sofa lengur í dag.
Í dag vill hún sofa lengur. (focus on “today”)
Hún vill sofa lengur í dag. All are fine; word order affects emphasis more than grammar here.

Why is it dag and not dagur?

Because í governs the accusative for time expressions. Dagur (nominative) → dag (accusative). Í dag is a fixed phrase meaning “today.” With places, í uses accusative for motion into and dative for location (e.g., í bílinn vs í bílnum).

How would I say “sleep in (late)”?

Use the idiom sofa út (“sleep in”). Examples:

Hún vill sofa út í dag. = “She wants to sleep in today.” For “sleep later than usual,” your original sofa lengur is also fine. You can be specific: sofa fram eftir morgni (“sleep late into the morning”).

How do I place negation?

“Maybe she doesn’t want to sleep longer today”: Kannski vill hún ekki sofa lengur í dag.
“Maybe she wants to not sleep any longer today”: Kannski vill hún sofa ekki lengur í dag. Note that ekki lengur together means “no longer/anymore.”

Can I use langar instead of vill to say “wants”?

Yes, with a different structure:

Hana langar að sofa lengur í dag. With langar, the person is in the accusative (hana, not hún), and you use að
- infinitive. Nuance: vilja is volition/decision; langar is “feel like/long for.”

How is the sentence pronounced?

Approximate IPA (one common standard):

Kannski [ˈkanscɪ] (sk before i ≈ “sh”)
vill [vɪtl̥] (ll ≈ voiceless “tl”)
hún [huːn] (ú long)
sofa [ˈsɔːva] (o like British “thought,” f between vowels ≈ v)
lengur [ˈleiŋkʏr] (e + ng ≈ “ei,” ng ≈ “ŋk,” u ≈ short “u”)
í dag [iː taɣ] (í long “ee,” g ≈ voiced “gh”) Prosody: main stress on the first syllable of each content word; kannski is often lightly stressed.