Learn Hardcore Icelandic: Ég nota frítímann minn til að lesa.

Nominative: frítími – subject (Frítími er dýrmætur. – Free time is precious.)
Accusative: frítíma (indefinite), frítímann (definite)
Dative: frítíma / frítímanum
Genitive: frítíma / frítímans

In the sentence Ég nota frítímann minn til að lesa, frítímann is:

accusative (because it is the object of nota),
definite (because it is the specific free time that belongs to me).

So you cannot use the bare nominative frítími here; you need the accusative object form frítímann.

Why is minn after frítímann, instead of before like in English (my free time)?

Icelandic possessive pronouns can come after the noun, and that is actually the most common pattern:

bíllinn minn – my car
húsið hennar – her house
frítímann minn – my free time

So the usual neutral word order is:

noun + definite ending + possessive pronoun

Putting the possessive before the noun (minn frítími) is also possible but:

it is less common in everyday speech,
it often sounds more emphatic (similar to stressing my in English: my free time, not someone else’s).

In this sentence, frítímann minn is the normal, natural wording.

Why do we have both a definite ending (-ann in frítímann) and the possessive minn? Isn’t that double marking?

It may look redundant from an English perspective, but in Icelandic this combination is very normal.

When you say noun + possessive pronoun after the noun, the noun is usually definite:

bók – a book
bókin – the book
bókin mín – my book

Similarly:

frítími – free time
frítíminn – the free time
frítímann minn – my free time (as object → accusative -ann)

So the pattern:

frítími → frítímann (definite accusative) → plus minn after it

is exactly what you expect with a post‑posed possessive. It is not considered “too much” in Icelandic; it is the standard structure.

Could I say Ég nota minn frítíma til að lesa instead? Is that correct?

Yes, Ég nota minn frítíma til að lesa is grammatically correct, but it sounds:

a bit more formal or emphatic, and
less natural than Ég nota frítímann minn in everyday speech.

The differences:

Word order
- Neutral, common: frítímann minn
- Emphatic: minn frítími / minn frítíma
Definiteness
In minn frítími / minn frítíma, the noun does not normally take the definite ending.
So:
- frítímann minn – my (the) specific free time
- minn frítíma – my free time (stylistically different; more “my own free time” with some emphasis)

In everyday, neutral speech, Ég nota frítímann minn til að lesa is the most idiomatic version.

What exactly does til að do here? Why not just að lesa?

In this sentence, til að introduces a purpose clause, similar to English “in order to”:

Ég nota frítímann minn til að lesa.
→ I use my free time to read / in order to read.

Pieces:

að lesa on its own is just the infinitive to read.
til is a preposition that often means to / towards / for, and combined with an infinitive til að + verb expresses purpose.

You cannot say:

✗ Ég nota frítímann minn að lesa.

You need til að to link the purpose clause to the main verb.

Could I say Ég nota frítímann minn til lestrar instead of til að lesa?

Yes, Ég nota frítímann minn til lestrar is grammar‑wise correct and means roughly I use my free time for reading, but:

til lestrar uses the noun lestur (reading) in the genitive (lestrar),
it sounds more formal/literary.

Compare:

til að lesa – very common, neutral, with the verb infinitive (to read).
til lestrar – more like a nominal phrase (for reading as an activity), slightly stylistic or formal.

For everyday speech, til að lesa is by far the more usual choice.

Why is the subject Ég and not Mig? How do I know when to use which?

Icelandic, like many languages, marks case on pronouns:

Ég – nominative (subject form)
Mig – accusative (object form)

You use:

Ég when I is the grammatical subject:
- Ég nota frítímann minn. – I use my free time.
Mig when me is an object:
- Hann sér mig. – He sees me.
- Þau hjálpuðu mér. – They helped me. (mér is dative)

In Ég nota frítímann minn til að lesa, Ég is doing the action of nota, so it must be nominative: Ég, not Mig.

What tense and person is nota here, and how does this verb conjugate?

Nota is the present tense, 1st person singular of the verb að nota (to use).

Present tense of að nota:

ég nota – I use
þú notar – you (singular) use
hann / hún / það notar – he / she / it uses
við notum – we use
þið notið – you (plural) use
þeir / þær / þau nota – they use

So Ég nota frítímann minn til að lesa means I use my free time to read in the general, present sense.

Why is it lesa and not les at the end?

Lesa is the infinitive form (to read). In the structure til að + verb, the verb must be in the infinitive:

að lesa – to read
að borða – to eat
að sofa – to sleep

Les is the present tense form for ég (I):

Ég les bók. – I read a book.

So:

til að lesa – in order to read (correct)
✗ til að les – incorrect

The pattern is always til að + infinitive.

What case is frítímann minn in, and why?

Frítímann minn is in the accusative case.

Reason:

nota (to use) takes a direct object.
The direct object of most Icelandic verbs is in the accusative.

Structure:

Subject (nominative): Ég
Verb: nota
Object (accusative): frítímann minn

So frítími is transformed into frítímann (accusative, definite), and minn agrees with it in gender, number, and case.

How do you pronounce Ég nota frítímann minn til að lesa approximately?

Approximate pronunciation (IPA):

Ég – /jɛːɡ/ (often /jɛː/ in fast speech)
nota – /ˈnɔːta/
frítímann – /ˈfriːˌtʰiːman/
minn – /mɪn/
til – /tʰɪːl/
að – /aːð/ (in fast speech, often a short /a/ with a weak /ð/ or almost dropped)
lesa – /ˈlɛːsa/

Spoken together, something like:

/jɛː(ɡ) ˈnɔːta ˈfriːˌtʰiːman mɪn tʰɪːl aːð ˈlɛːsa/

Stress is on the first syllable of each word, as Icelandic almost always stresses the first syllable.