Ég geri ekkert í kvöld.

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Breakdown of Ég geri ekkert í kvöld.

• í kvöld: tonight
• gera: to do
• ekkert: nothing

Questions & Answers about Ég geri ekkert í kvöld.

Is this talking about the future even though the verb is in the present tense?

Yes. Icelandic often uses the present tense for near-future plans when a time expression like í kvöld (tonight) is present. So Ég geri ... í kvöld is naturally understood as “I’m doing/will do … tonight.”

Where is the word for “not”? Why is there no ekki?

Negation here comes from the object ekkert (“nothing”), not from ekki (“not”). Icelandic can negate either with the adverb ekki or with a negative pronoun like ekkert. So Ég geri ekkert í kvöld literally means “I do nothing tonight.”

Can I also say Ég geri ekki neitt í kvöld? Does it mean the same?

Yes. Ég geri ekki neitt í kvöld is very common and means the same in practice. It uses negative concord (normal in Icelandic), where ekki (“not”) co-occurs with neitt (“anything”). Nuance:

• Ég geri ekkert … can feel a touch more categorical/blunt.
• Ég geri ekki neitt … can sound slightly more colloquial or emphatic (“not anything at all”).

What’s the difference between ekkert, neitt, and eitthvað?