Kannski vill hún sofa lengur í dag.

Maybe she wants to sleep longer today.

Breakdown of Kannski vill hún sofa lengur í dag.

• vilja: to want
• hún: she
• sofa: to sleep
• í dag: today
• lengur: longer
• kannski: maybe

Questions & Answers about Kannski vill hún sofa lengur í dag.

Why is the verb vill in second position after Kannski?

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.