Learn Hardcore Icelandic: Hún fer snemma heim til þess að fá meiri svefn. - She goes home early in order to get more sleep.

Hún – she (3rd person singular feminine pronoun, nominative case)
fer – goes (3rd person singular present tense of að fara – “to go”)
snemma – early (adverb of time)
heim – home in the sense of to home, homewards (direction)
til þess að – in order to / so as to (a purpose construction)
fá – to get (infinitive of að fá)
meiri – more (comparative form of mikill “much/many”, agreeing with svefn)
svefn – sleep (noun, masculine, here in the accusative singular as the object of fá)

Natural English: “She goes home early in order to get more sleep.”

Why is it fer and not fara or ferð?

Fara is the infinitive “to go”, and it conjugates irregularly in the present tense:

ég fer – I go
þú ferð – you (singular) go
hann / hún / það fer – he / she / it goes
við förum – we go
þið farið – you (plural) go
þeir / þær / þau fara – they go

In the sentence, the subject is Hún (she), 3rd person singular, so you must use fer.

Hún fer... = She goes...

You would only use fara as the dictionary form or for “they go” (þeir/þær/þau fara), not here.

Why is it heim and not heima for “home”?

Icelandic distinguishes direction and location with different forms:

heim – “(to) home, homewards” (movement towards home; directional)
heima – “(at) home” (being at home; static location)

Compare:

Hún fer heim. – She goes home. (movement)
Hún er heima. – She is at home. (location)

In Hún fer snemma heim, the verb fer expresses movement, so the directional form heim is required, not heima.

Where does snemma usually go in the sentence, and can I move it?

Snemma is an adverb of time (early). In neutral statements, Icelandic typically has this basic order:

Subject – verb – (time) – (manner) – (place) – (other stuff)

So:

Hún fer snemma heim...
Subject (Hún) – verb (fer) – time (snemma) – place (heim)

Other placements are possible but sound less neutral or more marked. For a beginner, the safest and most natural position is exactly what you see:

Hún fer snemma heim... – She goes home early...

Putting snemma at the very beginning or very end would sound either more marked, poetic, or stylistically special; it’s not wrong, but it’s not the basic pattern you should copy first.

What exactly does til þess að mean, and is it always necessary?

Til þess að is a fixed expression used to express purpose, usually translated as:

“in order to”
“so as to”

In the sentence:

til þess að fá meiri svefn – in order to get more sleep

You often see a shorter and very common variant til að:

Hún fer snemma heim til að fá meiri svefn.

Both til þess að and til að are correct.
Rough tendencies:

til þess að – a bit more formal or explicit; often in careful or written language.
til að – very common in everyday speech and writing.

You cannot simply drop til and leave only að fá here; til (þess) að is what clearly marks the clause as a purpose clause in this sentence.

Is að part of the verb fá, like in the dictionary form að fá?

In dictionaries, Icelandic infinitives are written with að:

að fara – to go
að fá – to get
að sofa – to sleep

But in real sentences, að has two roles:

Infinitive marker:
Often just marks the infinitive, like English “to”:
- Ég vil fara. – I want to go.
- Ég þarf að fá hjálp. – I need to get help.
Part of purpose clauses with til (þess) að:
In til þess að fá meiri svefn, the að is structurally tied to til þess to form the whole purpose expression, and fá is the infinitive verb following it.

So að is not part of the verb fá, but it commonly appears before infinitives either as:

a bare infinitive marker (að fara, að fá), or
the final piece of til (þess) að in a purpose clause, as here.

What is meiri, and why doesn’t it look like meira?

Meiri is the comparative form of the adjective mikill (much, many), used here with the noun svefn (sleep). Roughly:

mikill svefn – much sleep
meiri svefn – more sleep

Icelandic adjectives agree with the noun they describe in:

gender
number
case

Svefn is masculine singular (here accusative), so you get the masculine singular comparative form:

masculine: meiri svefn – more sleep
feminine: meiri vinna – more work
neuter: meira vatn – more water

You may know meira as “more” in general, especially with verbs or as a standalone:

Ég vil meira. – I want more. (neuter form used abstractly)
Borðarðu meira? – Are you eating more?

Here, because it directly modifies a masculine noun (svefn), meiri is the correct form.

Why is svefn used, and how is it different from sofa?

svefn is a noun meaning sleep.
sofa is a verb meaning to sleep.

In the sentence:

að fá meiri svefn – to get more sleep

You need a thing you are getting, so a noun (svefn) is appropriate as the object of fá:

fá svefn – to get sleep
fá meiri svefn – to get more sleep

If you used sofa, you’d need a different construction, e.g.:

Hún fer snemma heim til að sofa. – She goes home early to sleep.

So, fá + svefn = “get sleep” (noun)
whereas að sofa = “to sleep” (verb).

What case is svefn in, and why?

Svefn is in the accusative singular masculine.

Reason: fá (to get) is a verb that normally takes its direct object in the accusative:

fá peninga – to get money (accusative)
fá mat – to get food (accusative)
fá svefn – to get sleep (accusative)

The noun svefn has the form svefn in both nominative and accusative singular, so you don’t actually see a change in shape, but grammatically it is the accusative object of fá in að fá meiri svefn.

Could I say Hún fer snemma heim að fá meiri svefn instead?

That sounds unnatural to native speakers.

For expressing purpose after verbs of motion (like fara – go, koma – come), Icelandic strongly prefers:

til að
- infinitive
til þess að
- infinitive

So:

✔ Hún fer snemma heim til að fá meiri svefn.
✔ Hún fer snemma heim til þess að fá meiri svefn.

Using only að fá after fer heim is not idiomatic in this specific phrase. There is a different pattern fara að + infinitive meaning “begin to / go and X”:

Hún fór að sofa. – She went to sleep / started sleeping.

But that’s a different construction and doesn’t combine naturally with heim and fá in your sentence. For “in order to get more sleep,” stick to til (þess) að fá.

What tense is fer, and how can that mean something like a plan or near future?

Fer is present tense, not a separate future tense form. Icelandic usually uses the present tense to talk about:

actions happening now
regular actions
planned / scheduled / near-future actions

So Hún fer snemma heim can be:

She goes home early. (general habit)
She is going home early. (right now / very soon)
She’ll go home early. (if the context is about a plan)

Icelandic does not have a dedicated future tense like English “will go”. Context and time expressions (like snemma) usually make it clear whether you mean present, habitual, or future.

Why is the subject Hún and not something gender-neutral, like English “they”?

Icelandic personal pronouns are gendered in the 3rd person singular:

hann – he (masculine)
hún – she (feminine)
það – it (neuter)

Unlike modern English, Icelandic does not use a gender-neutral singular personal pronoun for people in the standard language. So:

If the person is grammatically (and usually biologically or socially) female → hún.
If male → hann.

In this sentence, we’re talking about a female person, so Hún fer snemma heim... = She goes home early....