Learn Hardcore Icelandic: Við fórum loksins heim seint í gær.

Við fórum loksins heim seint í gær. – correct
Fórum loksins heim seint í gær. – sounds incomplete / only works in very special contexts (e.g. a clipped note, headline, or continuing a sentence fragment).

Unlike Spanish or Italian, Icelandic is not a “pro‑drop” language. The verb ending ‑um on fórum does show it’s we, but you still normally say við explicitly.

Why is heim used without a preposition, and what’s the difference between heim and heima?

Heim is a directional adverb meaning (to) home. It already contains the idea of movement towards home, so no preposition (like to) is needed:

fara heim – to go home
koma heim – to come home
keyra heim – to drive home

Heima means at home (location, not movement):

Ég er heima. – I am at home.
Við vorum heima. – We were at home.

Compare:

Við fórum heim. – We went home. (movement towards home)
Við vorum heima. – We were at home. (being in that place)

So you say:

fara heim (go home)
but
vera heima (be at home)

That’s why the sentence has heim, not heima, and no extra preposition.

What exactly does loksins mean, and what nuance does it add?

Loksins means finally / at last, usually with a feeling that:

something took a long time, or
you were waiting or hoping for it.

It’s like English finally, at last, or sometimes in the end.

In Við fórum loksins heim seint í gær, loksins suggests:

you wanted to go home earlier,
but for some reason it happened late, and you’re glad it finally happened.

You can use loksins with many verbs:

Hann kom loksins. – He finally came.
Þau fengu loksins vinnu. – They finally got a job.
Ég skil þetta loksins. – I finally understand this.

Where does loksins usually go in the sentence? Could I move it?

In neutral sentences, loksins usually comes soon after the verb:

Við fórum loksins heim seint í gær.

This is because loksins acts like a sentence adverb (similar to English finally, probably, certainly), which Icelandic normally places early in the clause, after the verb in verb‑second position.

Other possible, but less neutral, positions:

Við loksins fórum heim seint í gær. – possible but sounds marked/emphatic.
Loksins fórum við heim seint í gær. – fronted loksins for strong emphasis on finally.

If you’re unsure, placing loksins right after the verb (as in the original sentence) is the safest, most natural choice.

Why is the word order Við fórum loksins heim seint í gær and not, for example, Við fórum heim loksins seint í gær?

Several word‑order tendencies are at work:

Verb‑second rule: the finite verb (fórum) must be in second position in main statements.
- First: Við (subject)
- Second: fórum (verb)
Sentence adverbs like loksins typically go right after the verb.
Other adverbials (place, time, etc.) usually come after that. A fairly neutral order is:
- verb + sentence adverb + place + time

So:

Við (1) fórum (2) loksins (3) heim (place) seint í gær (time)

Við fórum heim loksins seint í gær is not impossible, but it sounds less natural and changes the rhythm and focus. In everyday speech and writing, most speakers would prefer the original order.

What does seint mean here, and how is it different from seinna?

Seint is an adverb meaning late.

Við fórum seint. – We went late.
Hann vaknaði seint. – He woke up late.

Seinna is the comparative form: later.

Við fórum seinna. – We went later.
Hún kom seinna en við. – She came later than we did.

So:

seint í gær – late yesterday
seinna í gær – later yesterday (relative to some earlier time yesterday)

Why is it seint í gær and not seint á gær or something else?

The time expression í gær is fixed:

í dag – today
í gær – yesterday
í fyrradag – the day before yesterday

You don’t change the preposition; it’s always í, not á, in these expressions.

So:

seint í gær – late yesterday
snemma í gær – early yesterday

You cannot say á gær; that’s simply incorrect in standard Icelandic.

Are there other common ways to say something like seint í gær, for example “late last night”?

Yes. Depending on what you want to emphasize, you might say:

í gærkvöldi – yesterday evening / last night (evening part)
í gærkvöld – same as above (slightly different form)
í gærnótt – last night (nighttime, while sleeping)
seint í gærkvöldi – late yesterday evening
seint í gærnótt – late last night (during the night)

So your sentence could be adapted, for instance, to:

Við fórum loksins heim seint í gærkvöldi. – We finally went home late yesterday evening.
Við fórum loksins heim seint í gærnótt. – We finally went home late last night.

The original seint í gær is more general and doesn’t specify evening vs. night.

What tense is fórum, and could I instead use the perfect like höfum farið?

Fórum is the simple past (preterite) of fara, used for a finished action at a specific time in the past.

Við fórum loksins heim seint í gær. – We finally went home late yesterday.

In Icelandic, just like in many uses of English, if you mention a specific past time, you normally use simple past, not the present perfect.

So:

Við höfum loksins farið heim seint í gær. – sounds wrong / unnatural.

Höfum farið (present perfect) is used more for:

experiences or
past actions with present relevance,
without a specific time adverb like í gær:
Við höfum loksins farið heim. – We have finally gone home. (no explicit “yesterday”)

How would this sentence change if only one person is speaking: “I finally went home late yesterday”?

You change við fórum (we went) to ég fór (I went):

Ég fór loksins heim seint í gær.

Only the subject pronoun and the verb form need to change:

við fórum → ég fór
Everything else (loksins heim seint í gær) stays the same.

Where would the negation ekki go if I want to say “We did not go home late yesterday”?

For a neutral sentence meaning simply “we didn’t go home late yesterday”, ekki normally goes after the verb (and usually before most other adverbs):

Við fórum ekki heim seint í gær. – We didn’t go home late yesterday.

If you kept loksins, the placement depends on what you mean, but in most straightforward cases:

Við fórum ekki loksins heim seint í gær. – is awkward and unclear.
Við fórum loksins ekki heim seint í gær. – emphasises finally not going home; still odd.

For simple practice, the clearest pattern is:

subject – verb – ekki – [rest]
→ Við fórum ekki heim seint í gær.

Is í gær one unit, and how is gær used elsewhere?

Í gær is two words (í + gær), but together they form a fixed time expression: yesterday.

The word gær:

is almost always used with something (usually a preposition),
doesn’t have a rich set of forms in modern use,
most commonly appears as í gær.

You might also see:

í gærmorgun – yesterday morning
í gærkvöldi / í gærkvöld – yesterday evening / last night

On its own, just gær is rare in modern everyday Icelandic; learners can safely treat í gær as the basic chunk to remember.

Does Icelandic always put time expressions like í gær at the end of the sentence?

No. Time expressions like í gær often appear at the end, but they can also be moved to the front for emphasis or to set the scene.

Both of these are correct:

Við fórum loksins heim seint í gær. – neutral; time at the end.
Í gær fórum við loksins heim seint. – starts with “yesterday”, emphasizing the time.

Because of the verb‑second rule, if you put Í gær first, the verb must still come second:

Í gær (1) fórum (2) við loksins heim seint.

So: time phrases often end the sentence, but they can also be fronted if you respect the verb‑second rule.