Learn Hardcore Icelandic: Ég er enn vakandi í kvöld.

Ég – I (first person singular, nominative).
er – am (1st person singular present of að vera – to be).
enn – still / yet in a time sense here.
vakandi – awake (literally the present participle of að vaka, to be awake / stay awake).
í – in / at / on; here used in a time expression.
kvöld – evening / tonight; in í kvöld it means this evening / tonight.

So structurally it is: I am still awake this evening / tonight.

What exactly does enn mean here, and how is it different from ennþá?

In this sentence, enn means still or yet in a temporal sense:

Ég er enn vakandi. – I am still awake.

enn and ennþá overlap a lot and are often interchangeable when they mean still:

Ég er enn vakandi.
Ég er ennþá vakandi.

Both are correct. Nuances:

ennþá is very common and clearly temporal: still, yet (up to now).
enn can be slightly more neutral or a bit more formal/literary in some contexts, but here it’s perfectly natural.

For an everyday spoken sentence like this, Ég er ennþá vakandi í kvöld is probably even more common than Ég er enn vakandi í kvöld.

Why is it vakandi and not something like vaknaður?

Icelandic distinguishes between:

að vaka – to be/stay awake (a state, like to stay up).
að vakna – to wake up (a change of state).
vakandi – the present participle of að vaka, used as an adjective meaning awake.
vaknaður – the past participle of að vakna, meaning (having) woken up.

So:

Ég er vakandi. – I am awake (describes your current state).
Ég er vaknaður. – literally I am woken (up), more like I have woken up; it emphasizes the event of waking rather than simply being awake.

In Ég er enn vakandi í kvöld, we’re describing an ongoing state (still awake), so vakandi is the natural choice, not vaknaður.

What is the infinitive of er, and how is it conjugated?

er is the 1st person singular present form of the verb að vera (to be).

Present tense forms of að vera:

ég er – I am
þú ert – you (singular) are
hann / hún / það er – he / she / it is
við erum – we are
þið eruð – you (plural) are
þeir / þær / þau eru – they are

So Ég er enn vakandi í kvöld uses the normal ég er form: I am.

Why is the word order er enn vakandi and not er vakandi enn?

Typical Icelandic word order puts many adverbs (including enn) right after the verb and before adjectives and participles that describe the subject:

Ég er enn vakandi. – standard, neutral word order.

Ég er vakandi enn is not wrong, but it:

sounds more marked or emphatic, and
is less typical in everyday speech.

In general, for still in simple sentences, the pattern is:

[Subject] + [conjugated verb] + enn/ennþá + [adjective/participle]

So: Ég er enn vakandi is the normal, most natural order.

What does í kvöld mean exactly? Is it “this evening” or “tonight”? How is it different from í nótt?

í kvöld literally means in the evening, but idiomatically it is:

this evening / tonight (the evening of today).

By contrast:

í nótt means tonight / during the night (nighttime, usually when it is or should be dark and people normally sleep).

So:

Ég er enn vakandi í kvöld. – I am still awake (this) evening / tonight (in the evening).
Ég er enn vakandi í nótt. – I am still awake tonight (at night / during the night). – this sounds more like being up late into the night.

Why is it í kvöld and not í kvöldi or á kvöldin?

This is a matter of idiomatic fixed expressions and case use.

í kvöld – a fixed time expression meaning this evening / tonight.
- Here í governs the accusative, and kvöld in the accusative singular is kvöld (no change), so you get í kvöld, not í kvöldi.
í kvöldi – possible in other contexts, but not used to mean this evening in the standard time-expression sense.
- kvöldi is the dative singular form and would be used after prepositions that take the dative in a non‑time idiom, or in some other constructions.
á kvöldin – means in the evenings / at night (regularly, as a habit).
- It’s á
  - dative plural definite (kvöldin = the evenings in dative plural).
- Example: Ég les oft á kvöldin. – I often read in the evenings.

So, to say this evening / tonight you specifically use the idiomatic time phrase í kvöld.

What case is kvöld in after í here?

In í kvöld meaning this evening / tonight, í takes the accusative case.

The noun kvöld is a neuter noun whose accusative singular form is identical to its nominative singular form:

Nominative singular: kvöld
Accusative singular: kvöld
Dative singular: kvöldi

Because nominative and accusative look the same here, you don’t see a change in form, but grammatically in this time expression it’s accusative.

Does this sentence feel more like English “I’m still awake” or “I’m still up”?

Semantically it matches both, but the nuances:

Ég er enn vakandi í kvöld. is closest to I’m still awake this evening / tonight.

However, vakandi naturally carries the idea that you’re not asleep yet, which is usually what still up implies in English.

If the context is messaging someone late in the evening, it can easily correspond to:

I’m still up tonight. / I’m still up this evening.

Can I drop í kvöld and just say Ég er enn vakandi? How does that change the meaning?

Yes, you can say:

Ég er enn vakandi. – I am still awake.

Differences:

Ég er enn vakandi. – general statement about now, without specifying when (the time frame is just “at this moment”).
Ég er enn vakandi í kvöld. – explicitly ties the state to this evening / tonight, which can:
- emphasize that it’s late for the evening, or
- distinguish it from other times (e.g., even tonight I’m still awake).

So í kvöld adds a specific time frame and can make it sound a bit more situational or contrastive (for tonight in particular).

Could this be something like “I will be awake tonight”? If not, how would I say that?

Ég er enn vakandi í kvöld is present tense: I am still awake tonight/this evening (now).

To express a future plan or prediction (“I will be awake tonight”), you’d normally use verða:

Ég verð vakandi í kvöld. – I will be awake tonight.

If you really wanted to keep enn and refer to the future contextually (e.g., talking about a long day), you might say something like:

Ég verð örugglega enn vakandi í kvöld. – I will probably still be awake tonight.

But as written, er is present: it describes your current state, not a future plan.

Can í kvöld appear in other positions in the sentence?

Yes. Icelandic word order is relatively flexible for adverbials like time expressions. All of these are possible (with small differences in emphasis):

Ég er enn vakandi í kvöld. – neutral, very natural.
Ég er í kvöld enn vakandi. – possible, but slightly odd/marked.
Í kvöld er ég enn vakandi. – emphasizes tonight (e.g., Tonight, I am still awake).
Ég, í kvöld, er enn vakandi. – very marked, used for strong emphasis in speech or writing.

The most natural everyday choice is the original: Ég er enn vakandi í kvöld.

How do you pronounce Ég er enn vakandi í kvöld?

Approximate pronunciation (simplified for an English speaker):

Ég – like yeh with a bit of a y
- e as in yes; often [yeh].
er – like air but shorter.
enn – like en in end, with a slightly longer n.
vakandi – roughly VAH-kahn-dih
- va as in father,
- kan like kahn,
- di like dih.
í – long ee sound, like see.
kvöld – roughly kveldt:
- kv together, like kv in kvetch,
- ö is like the vowel in British bird or French oe in sœur,
- final ld is often pronounced almost like lt.

Very rough full line: “Yeh er enn VAH-kahn-dih ee kveldt.”

(Actual Icelandic pronunciation has more precise details, but this will get you close enough to be understood.)