Questions & Answers about Ég vil ekki lenda í slysi.
How do the individual Icelandic words in Ég vil ekki lenda í slysi line up with English?
Word for word, it’s roughly:
- Ég – I (nominative singular pronoun)
- vil – want (1st person singular present of vilja, to want)
- ekki – not
- lenda – to end up / to get (into)
- í – in / into
- slysi – (an) accident (dative singular of slys, accident)
So the structure is literally: I want not end‑up in accident, which corresponds to English “I don’t want to get into an accident.”
Why is it vil and not vilja in this sentence?
Vilja is the infinitive (to want). It conjugates in the present tense like this:
- ég vil – I want
- þú vilt – you (sg.) want
- hann/hún/það vill – he/she/it wants
- við viljum – we want
- þið viljið – you (pl.) want
- þeir/þær/þau vilja – they want
Since the subject is ég (I), you must use the 1st‑person singular form vil, not the infinitive vilja.
So: Ég vil …, not Ég vilja ….
Why is there no að before lenda? In English we say “to get (into).”