Learn Hardcore Icelandic: Fyrirlesturinn verður stuttur, en við munum hafa fengið margar góðar hugmyndir. - The lecture will be short, but we will have received many good ideas.

The base noun is fyrirlestur = lecture.
-inn is the masculine singular definite ending in the nominative case.
fyrirlesturinn therefore literally means “lecture-the” = “the lecture.”

Because fyrirlesturinn is the subject of the sentence, it stands in the nominative singular, and for a masculine noun that gives the ending -inn for the definite form.

Is verður a future tense? Why not just use a form of vera for “to be”?

Formally, verður is the present tense of the verb verða (to become, to turn out, to get, will be), but Icelandic very often uses the present to talk about the future.

Fyrirlesturinn verður stuttur literally = The lecture becomes/turns out short, but in natural English we say: “The lecture will be short.”

Icelandic doesn’t have a special, separate future tense like English; instead it uses:

the present tense (as here: verður), or
the auxiliary munu
- infinitive (e.g. mun verða).

So verður here carries a future meaning (“will be”) even though it’s grammatically present tense.

Could we also say Fyrirlesturinn mun vera stuttur? Would that mean the same?

Yes, Fyrirlesturinn mun vera stuttur is grammatical and means essentially the same thing: “The lecture will be short.”

Nuance:

Fyrirlesturinn verður stuttur
Very natural, slightly more idiomatic/neutral. verða here is just used for a future state.
Fyrirlesturinn mun vera stuttur
Uses the explicit future auxiliary mun. It can sound a bit more formal or a bit more like a prediction being stated.

In everyday spoken Icelandic, Fyrirlesturinn verður stuttur is probably the more common choice.

What exactly is the tense of við munum hafa fengið?

við munum hafa fengið is a future perfect construction:

við = we
munum = 1st person plural present of munu, used as a future auxiliary (“will”).
hafa = to have (infinitive), used as a perfect auxiliary.
fengið = past participle of fá (to get, to receive).

So structurally:

munum (future) + hafa (have) + fengið (gotten)
= “will have gotten / will have received.”

It describes an action that will be completed before a certain point in the future (here: before or by the end of the lecture).

Why do we need both munum and hafa? Could we just say við höfum fengið or við fáum?

Each auxiliary has its own job:

munum: marks future time (will).
hafa fengið: forms the perfect aspect (have gotten), emphasizing completion.

Together, munum hafa fengið = “will have gotten” (future + completed by that future time).

Compare:

við fáum margar góðar hugmyndir
Present tense with a possible future reading in context: we get / we are going to get many good ideas (no explicit idea of “by that point we’ll already have them”).
við höfum fengið margar góðar hugmyndir
Present perfect: we have gotten many good ideas (up to now).
við munum hafa fengið margar góðar hugmyndir
Future perfect: we will have gotten many good ideas by then (by the time the lecture is over, this process of getting ideas will already be complete).

The sentence you gave wants that “completed before then” nuance, so it uses munum hafa fengið.

Why is stuttur in that particular form? Why not something like stutti?

stuttur is an adjective meaning short.

It agrees with fyrirlesturinn in gender, number, and case:
- fyrirlesturinn: masculine, singular, nominative.
- So the adjective must also be: masculine, singular, nominative.

In predicative position (after vera, verða, etc.), adjectives normally take the strong declension, even if the noun is definite:

Fyrirlesturinn verður stuttur.
stuttur = strong masculine nominative singular.

The weak form would be stutti (e.g. hinn stutti fyrirlestur = the short lecture as an attributive adjective), but after verður we use the strong form stuttur.

What case is margar góðar hugmyndir in, and why does it look like the nominative?

hugmyndir is the direct object of hafa fengið, so it’s in the accusative plural.

The noun:
- Singular: hugmynd (feminine) = idea
- Plural nominative/accusative: hugmyndir

For many feminine nouns, the nominative plural and accusative plural have the same form, and hugmyndir is one of those. So we know it’s accusative from its role, not from its shape.

The adjectives must also be accusative plural feminine:

margar (from margur = many)
góðar (from góður = good)

For feminine plural, nominative and accusative of these adjectives are also identical in form (margar góðar), so again we rely on syntax: direct object → accusative.

Why isn’t hugmyndir definite (no ending like -nar) if the ideas are quite specific?

margar góðar hugmyndir is grammatically indefinite:

hugmyndir = ideas
margar góðar hugmyndir = many good ideas (unspecified set).

If you wanted to talk about a particular, known set of ideas, you could make the phrase definite, for example:

hinar góðu hugmyndirnar = the good ideas
hinar mörgu góðu hugmyndirnar = the many good ideas

In the original sentence, the speaker is talking more generally: by the end of the lecture we’ll have come up with / received many good ideas (not a specific, previously identified set), so the indefinite form is appropriate.

Why is the word order við munum hafa fengið and not something like við hafa munum fengið?

Icelandic has a verb-second (V2) rule in main clauses:

The finite verb (the one that shows person and number) almost always comes in second position in the clause.

In the second clause:

við (subject) = first element.
The finite verb is munum (1st person plural of munu).
So munum must come next: við munum …

Non‑finite verb forms (infinitives and participles) then follow later:

hafa (infinitive)
fengið (past participle)

So the canonical order is:

subject – finite verb – [other material] – non-finite verbs
við munum hafa fengið margar góðar hugmyndir

Placing hafa before munum would break the V2 rule and be ungrammatical in a normal main clause.

What does en do here, and why is there a comma before it?

en is a coordinating conjunction meaning “but.”

Your sentence has two main clauses:

Fyrirlesturinn verður stuttur
við munum hafa fengið margar góðar hugmyndir

They are joined with en to show a contrast:

The lecture will be short, *but we will have gotten many good ideas.*

In standard Icelandic punctuation, you normally put a comma before coordinating conjunctions like en when they join two independent clauses (each with its own subject and finite verb). That’s why there is a comma before en. Pronounced, you often also hear a slight pause there.

Can the subject pronoun við be dropped, like in some other languages?

Normally, no. Icelandic is not a “pro‑drop” language in the way Spanish or Italian are.

You usually must include the subject pronoun:
- við munum hafa fengið … is normal.
- ∗munum hafa fengið … (without við) is not standard.

The verb ending -um in munum does tell you it is 1st person plural, but unlike in some languages, that is not enough to omit the pronoun in normal Icelandic. Learners should always include við here.