Learn Hardcore Icelandic: Við tölum um ráðstefnuna í kvöld.

Við – we
- Personal pronoun, 1st person plural, nominative (subject form).
tölum – (we) talk / speak / will talk
- Verb: tala = to speak / talk
- tölum is the 1st person plural present tense form.
um – about
- Preposition meaning about / around / approximately (here: about).
- It governs the accusative case.
ráðstefnuna – the conference
- Noun: ráðstefna (a conference), feminine.
- ráðstefnuna = accusative definite singular:
  - ráðstefnu (conference, acc. sg.)
  - - -na definite ending → ráðstefnuna = the conference.
í kvöld – tonight / this evening
- í = in
- kvöld = evening / night (neuter noun).
- Together í kvöld is an idiomatic time expression meaning tonight.

Why is the verb tölum and not tala in this sentence?

Icelandic verbs agree with the subject in person and number.

The infinitive (dictionary form) is tala = to speak / talk.
Present tense of tala:

ég tala – I talk
þú talar – you (sg.) talk
hann/hún/það talar – he/she/it talks
við tölum – we talk
þið talið – you (pl.) talk
þeir/þær/þau tala – they talk

Since the subject is við (we), the correct present tense form is tölum, not tala.

So Við tölum literally means we talk / we speak.

Why do we use the preposition um here, and what case does it require?

um is the standard preposition used in Icelandic to mean about when talking about a topic of conversation, thought, a book, etc.

Example:
- Við tölum um ráðstefnuna. – We talk about the conference.
- Bókin er um stríðið. – The book is about the war.

Grammatically, um takes the accusative case.
That is why ráðstefna appears as ráðstefnuna (accusative definite) after um.

So the structure is:

tala um + [accusative object]
→ tölum um ráðstefnuna

How does ráðstefna become ráðstefnuna, and what exactly does that form mean?

Base noun: ráðstefna (f.) – a conference

Two things happen:

Case change to accusative (because of um)
Definite article is added (the instead of a)

Feminine declension (simplified):

Nominative sg.: ráðstefna – a conference (subject form)
Accusative sg.: ráðstefnu – a conference (object form)
Definite accusative sg.: ráðstefnuna – the conference

Formation:

ráðstefna → drop final -a → ráðstefn-
Add acc. sg. ending -u → ráðstefnu
Add definite ending -na → ráðstefnuna (the conference)

So ráðstefnuna means the conference as a direct object.

Why is it ráðstefnuna (the conference) and not just ráðstefnu (a conference)?

Using the definite form here suggests that the conference is specific and known to both speaker and listener:

Við tölum um ráðstefnu í kvöld.
– We’ll talk about a conference tonight. (some conference, not specified)
Við tölum um ráðstefnuna í kvöld.
– We’ll talk about the conference tonight.
(the one we both already know about: maybe the big conference next week, etc.)

In normal conversation, you usually know which conference you mean, so the definite form ráðstefnuna is more natural.

Does í kvöld literally mean “in the evening”? Why is there no word for “this” in “tonight”?

Literally:

í = in
kvöld = evening

So the literal components look like in evening, but in Icelandic í kvöld is a fixed time expression that means tonight / this evening.

English says tonight (with “to-”) or this evening. Icelandic just uses í + time word:

í kvöld – tonight / this evening
í gærkvöldi – last night (yesterday evening)
í gær – yesterday
í dag – today

No separate word like “this” is needed; the phrase í kvöld already carries that “this coming evening” meaning in context.

Can í kvöld go somewhere else in the sentence, or must it be at the end?

Word order in Icelandic is fairly flexible, and time expressions like í kvöld can move. All of these are grammatically possible:

Við tölum um ráðstefnuna í kvöld.
Í kvöld tölum við um ráðstefnuna.
Við tölum í kvöld um ráðstefnuna. (less common, but possible)

Differences:

Við tölum um ráðstefnuna í kvöld.
– Neutral, most typical spoken order: Subject – Verb – Object – Time.
Í kvöld tölum við um ráðstefnuna.
– Puts extra emphasis on “tonight”: As for tonight, we’ll talk about the conference.

So it doesn’t have to be at the end, but sentence‑final position is very natural for time adverbials in everyday speech.

Can Við tölum um ráðstefnuna í kvöld also mean “We will talk about the conference tonight”? It looks like present tense.

Yes. Icelandic often uses the present tense to talk about future actions, especially when the plan is fairly definite or scheduled.

Við tölum um ráðstefnuna í kvöld.
– Contextually: We’ll talk about the conference tonight.

If you want it to sound more explicitly like the English future “will”, you can use an auxiliary, but it’s not required:

Við munum tala um ráðstefnuna í kvöld.
– We will talk about the conference tonight.

In everyday speech, the simple present with a time phrase (í kvöld, á morgun, o.s.frv.) is very common for future meaning.

What is the normal word order pattern in this sentence?

The sentence shows the basic Icelandic main‑clause word order:

Subject – Verb – [Object / prepositional phrase] – Time

Applied to our sentence:

Subject: Við
Verb: tölum
Prepositional phrase (object of conversation): um ráðstefnuna
Time adverbial: í kvöld

So we get: Við tölum um ráðstefnuna í kvöld.

This matches a common pattern in simple statements:

Ég borða morgunmat á morgun. – I eat breakfast tomorrow.
Þeir lesa bókina í kvöld. – They read the book tonight.

How do you pronounce the tricky sounds in Við tölum um ráðstefnuna í kvöld?

Approximate pronunciation (IPA and English hints):

Við – /vɪːð/
- v as in very
- i like i in bit but longer; often written /ɪː/
- ð like the th in this (voiced, not like thing).
tölum – /ˈtœːlʏm/
- tö: ö is between English uh and German ö; like the vowel in British burn (but rounded).
- lum: u here is short, like u in pull.
um – /ʏm/
- Very short u sound, again like pull, but shorter and tenser.
ráðstefnuna – roughly /ˈrauðˌstɛpnʏna/
- ráð: á like ow in how; ð again as in this.
- Stress on ráð and a secondary stress on stef.
- Consonant cluster -fst- is pronounced quite briskly: -stefn- ~ stevn.
í kvöld – /iː kvœlt/
- í: like ee in see, but longer.
- kv: like kv in kvetch; both sounds are clearly pronounced.
- öld: ö as above; ld often comes out close to lt in this position, hence /kvœlt/.

Native pronunciation is quite compact and fast, but focusing on ð (as this) and ö (rounded “uh”) will already improve your accuracy a lot.

Is there any difference between í kvöld and something like í kvöldið?

Yes, and it’s important:

í kvöld – fixed time expression = tonight / this evening
- No article, just the bare noun. This is what you use for tonight.
í kvöldið – literally into the evening / in the evening (the period)
- This uses the definite form kvöldið (“the evening”) and would only be used in more specific, less common contexts, e.g.:
  - Við unnum fram á kvöldið. – We worked until (into) the evening.

For normal “tonight” in everyday speech, you want í kvöld, as in:

Við tölum um ráðstefnuna í kvöld. – We’ll talk about the conference tonight.