Questions & Answers about Hótelið er fullt í kvöld.
The ending -ið is the definite article attached to the noun.
- hótel = a hotel (indefinite)
- hótelið = the hotel (definite)
In Icelandic, the definite article (the) is usually added as a suffix to the noun instead of being a separate word like in English.
Because hótel is a neuter noun, its definite nominative singular form is hótelið (the hotel as the subject of the sentence).
The adjective must agree with the noun in gender, number, and case.
- The basic adjective is fullur = full
- masculine: fullur
- feminine: full
- neuter: fullt
The noun hótel/hótelið is neuter singular nominative, so the adjective describing it must also be neuter singular nominative:
- Hótelið er fullt. = The hotel is full.
So:
- fullur – used with masculine nouns (e.g. bíllinn er fullur – the car is full)
- full – used with feminine or neuter plural (e.g. tuskurnar eru fullar, húsin eru full)
- fullt – used with neuter singular (like hótelið)
Hótel is a neuter noun in Icelandic.
That affects:
The definite article form
- neuter: hótelið (the hotel)
- contrast: masculine -inn, feminine -in (e.g. bíllinn, bókin)
Adjective agreement
The adjective must match the noun:- Hótelið er fullt. – neuter → fullt
- If it were masculine: Bíllinn er fullur.
- If it were feminine: Taskan er full.
So the neuter gender of hótel is the reason we say hótelið and fullt in this sentence.
Hótelið is in the nominative case.
Reasons:
- It is the subject of the sentence: the hotel is what the sentence is about.
- With the verb vera (to be), the subject appears in the nominative, and any descriptive adjective (here fullt) also agrees in the nominative.
So in Hótelið er fullt í kvöld, we have:
- hótelið – nominative subject
- fullt – nominative adjective agreeing with the subject
Time expressions like í kvöld (this evening / tonight) usually do not take the definite article in Icelandic when they are used in this general, adverbial sense.
Some common fixed expressions:
- í dag – today
- í gær – yesterday
- í kvöld – this evening / tonight
- í nótt – tonight / during the night
Using kvöldið (the evening) would sound like you are talking about a specific, already-known evening as a thing, not just “tonight” in the normal sense. For “tonight” as in everyday speech, í kvöld is the natural form.
Í kvöld can be translated as either “this evening” or “tonight”, depending on context.
It usually refers to:
- the coming evening/night of today (roughly from early evening until bedtime).
English often distinguishes:
- this evening (earlier) vs. tonight (later), but Icelandic í kvöld comfortably covers both. Context and time of day fill in the nuance.
Icelandic, like English, often uses the present tense for scheduled or known future events.
Compare:
- English: The hotel is full tonight.
- Icelandic: Hótelið er fullt í kvöld.
Even though í kvöld refers to a time later than now, using er is natural because:
- The speaker is talking about a known situation (e.g. all rooms are already booked for tonight),
- not about a process of becoming full.
If you wanted to emphasize the process or change into that state, you might use the future-like form:
- Hótelið verður fullt í kvöld. – The hotel will (end up) full tonight.
Both refer to tonight, but the nuance is different:
Hótelið er fullt í kvöld.
- Focus: state
- Means: For tonight, the hotel is already fully booked / there are no free rooms. It states a known fact about tonight.
Hótelið verður fullt í kvöld.
- Focus: change or prediction
- Means: The hotel is expected to become full tonight. It’s not necessarily full yet now, but you think it will be later.
So er fullt = describes a state;
verður fullt = describes becoming that state.
Yes, that word order is grammatical and natural.
- Hótelið er fullt í kvöld. – Neutral: “The hotel is full tonight.”
- Í kvöld er hótelið fullt. – Slight emphasis on tonight: “Tonight, the hotel is full.”
Icelandic allows fairly flexible word order, especially with adverbials like time expressions. Moving í kvöld to the front often adds focus/emphasis to the time, but the basic meaning remains the same.
The preposition í does literally mean “in” or “into”, but in time expressions it often corresponds to English “on”, “in”, or disappears entirely in translation.
Examples:
- í dag – today
- í gær – yesterday
- í kvöld – tonight / this evening
- í vetur – this winter
So while you could literally think í kvöld = in the evening, the natural English translation is just “tonight” or “this evening”. It’s best to learn í kvöld as a fixed expression.
Approximate pronunciations (for an English speaker):
hótelið
- Stress on the first syllable: HÓ-te-lið
- ó = like the o in go, but a bit tenser and shorter
- Final -ið: the ð is a soft “th” sound (as in this), often quite weak at the end of the word.
kvöld
- Roughly like: kvöld ≈ kvölt
- ö = like the vowel in British English nurse or German ö in schön
- The final -ld cluster is quite tight; the d is not strongly released.
Exact phonetics are more detailed, but this approximation will make you understandable.
Yes, you can express the same idea in a few different but natural ways, for example:
Hótelið er fullt bókað í kvöld.
The hotel is fully booked tonight.Það er allt uppbókað á hótelinu í kvöld.
Everything is booked up at the hotel tonight.Það eru engin laus herbergi á hótelinu í kvöld.
There are no free rooms at the hotel tonight.
The original sentence Hótelið er fullt í kvöld is the shortest and most direct way to say it.