Frænka mín vinnur á hóteli þar sem margir ferðamenn sofa.

Frænka means a female relative in the ascending or collateral line, and in practice it usually covers both:

• aunt (your parent’s sister, or wife of your uncle)
• female cousin (on either side of the family)

Context normally makes it clear which one is meant. If it really matters, people sometimes add clarification (e.g. frænka mín, systir pabba – my aunt, my dad’s sister).

In Icelandic, possessive pronouns (mín, þín, hans, hennar, okkar, etc.) are usually placed after the noun:

• frænka mín – my aunt
• bókin hans – his book
• húsið okkar – our house

You can put the possessive before the noun (mín frænka), but that sounds marked/emotional or contrastive, roughly like saying “my aunt (as opposed to someone else’s)”. The neutral, everyday order is noun + possessive: frænka mín.

Vinna is the infinitive (to work). Verbs must agree with their subject in person and number:

• Subject: frænka mín – 3rd person singular (she)
• Verb: vinnur – 3rd person singular present of vinna

So:

• Ég vinn – I work
• Þú vinnur – you (sg.) work
• Hún vinnur – she works
• Við vinnum – we work

In the sentence, frænka mín vinnur = my aunt works.

Icelandic has a definite suffix instead of a separate word like the.

• hótel – a hotel (indefinite)
• hóteli – at a hotel (dative singular of hótel, still indefinite)
• hótelið / hótelinu – at the hotel (definite dative forms, -inu is very common in speech and writing)

In the sentence, the idea is “at a hotel (some hotel)”, not a specific known one, so the indefinite form á hóteli is used.

Grammatically:

• á (meaning on/at in a static, location sense) → takes dative
• hótel (neuter noun) → hóteli in the dative singular

Icelandic nouns change form (decline) for case. Hótel is a neuter noun:

• Nominative sg.: hótel – a hotel (subject form)
• Accusative sg.: hótel
• Dative sg.: hóteli
• Genitive sg.: hótels

Because á (in the sense at, on for location) requires dative, you get á hóteli. The -i is the regular dative singular ending for many neuter nouns ending in a consonant.

Both á and í can translate as in/at, but they differ:

• á – literally on, but very often used like at for workplaces, institutions, etc.

  • vinna á hóteli – work at a hotel
  • vinna á skrifstofu – work at an office

• í – literally in, inside

  • sofa í hóteli – sleep inside a hotel (possible, but you’d more naturally say á hóteli in this context anyway)

So á hóteli is the standard way to say “at a hotel” when talking about where someone works.

Þar sem is a two‑word linker:

• þar – there
• sem – that/which/where

Together, þar sem often means “where” (in the sense of “in the place where”):

• á hóteli þar sem margir ferðamenn sofa
  → at a hotel where many tourists sleep

You could think of it as “there where” or “there that”.

Difference from sem:

• sem alone usually just means “that / which / who”:

  • Hótelið sem hún vinnur á – the hotel that she works at

• þar sem adds the idea of place (“where”):

  • hótelið þar sem hún vinnur – the hotel where she works

In practice, þar sem is the natural way to say “where” when introducing a relative clause of place.

In Icelandic subordinate clauses (like those introduced by þar sem, að, þegar), the normal order is Subject – Verb – Object (SVO), similar to English:

• þar sem margir ferðamenn sofa
  • Subject: margir ferðamenn
  • Verb: sofa

In main clauses, Icelandic is verb‑second (V2), so the verb typically comes in second position, no matter what is first. But in many embedded/subordinate clauses, you simply get SVO, just like English:

• Ég veit að margir ferðamenn sofa þar. – I know that many tourists sleep there.

Þar sem sofa margir ferðamenn is possible, but it sounds stylistically marked or poetic; the neutral order is margir ferðamenn sofa.

Both are possible, but they differ in form and feel:

1. margir ferðamenn

   • margir = many as an adjective
   • agrees with ferðamenn in case, gender, number
   • nominative masculine plural here
   • Feels a bit more formal/literary, but still absolutely normal.

2. mikið af ferðamönnum

   • literally “a lot of tourists”
   • mikið (a lot) + af
     • noun in dative (ferðamönnum)
   • Very common in everyday speech: mikið af fólki, mikið af ferðamönnum

In this sentence, margir ferðamenn sofa is perfectly correct and maybe slightly more textbook‑style. Mikið af ferðamönnum sofa would be ungrammatical: mikið af ferðamönnum behaves like a singular phrase (literally “a lot”), so you’d say mikið af ferðamönnum sefur (lit. a lot of tourists sleeps), which doesn’t match normal English structure.

Margur (“many”) is an adjective and must agree with the noun:

• Gender of ferðamaður / ferðamenn is masculine
• Case: nominative
• Number: plural (many tourists)

So the correct form is:

• margir ferðamenn (nom. masc. plural)

Other forms:

• margar bækur – many books (feminine plural)
• mörg hús – many houses (neuter plural)

Here, ferðamenn is masculine plural → margir.

Ferðamaður (tourist, traveller) is an irregular noun in the plural:

• Singular:

  • Nom.: ferðamaður
  • Acc.: ferðamann
  • Dat.: ferðamanni
  • Gen.: ferðamanns

• Plural:

  • Nom.: ferðamenn – tourists
  • Acc.: ferðamenn
  • Dat.: ferðamönnum
  • Gen.: ferðamanna

So the nominative plural is not ferðamaðurar, but ferðamenn, just like:

• maður → menn (man → men)
• ferðamaður → ferðamenn (traveller/tourist → travellers/tourists)

In the sentence, margir ferðamenn is the subject of sofa, so it’s nominative plural.

Some Icelandic verbs have the same form for the infinitive and the 3rd person plural present.

• Infinitive: sofa – to sleep
• 3rd person plural present: þeir/þær/þau sofa – they sleep

Contrast with 3rd person singular:

• hann sefur – he sleeps (different stem)

So in margir ferðamenn sofa, sofa is a finite verb form (3rd person plural present), not an infinitive or participle. Icelandic doesn’t add endings like -s in English (sleep → sleeps); instead, it changes within its own paradigm.

Yes, there is a nuance:

• Without comma:
  Frænka mín vinnur á hóteli þar sem margir ferðamenn sofa.
  → My aunt works at a hotel where many tourists sleep.
  The “where many tourists sleep” clause is restrictive: you’re specifying what kind of hotel it is (a hotel where lots of tourists sleep).

• With comma:
  Frænka mín vinnur á hóteli, þar sem margir ferðamenn sofa.
  → Feels more like “My aunt works at a hotel, where many tourists sleep (as you can imagine).”
  The clause sounds more non‑restrictive / comment-like, almost an aside.

In everyday usage, many people would simply leave out the comma here, as in your original sentence.