Breakdown of Ég ætla að ryksuga íbúðina mína í kvöld.
ég
I
ætla
to plan
í kvöld
tonight
íbúðin
the apartment
Questions & Answers about Ég ætla að ryksuga íbúðina mína í kvöld.
Why does ætla use að + the infinitive (ryksuga)?
In Icelandic, a common way to talk about intentions or plans is að ætla að + infinitive, literally “to intend to + verb.”
So Ég ætla að ryksuga... = “I’m going to vacuum...” (intention/plan).
The að here is an infinitive marker, similar in function to English to in “to vacuum,” but it’s used differently across verbs.
Does Ég ætla að... always mean “I am going to...” (future), or can it mean something else?
It most often expresses intention (“I plan to / I’m going to”). Depending on context, it can also sound like:
- I intend to...
- I’m about to... (if something is imminent) It’s not a pure grammatical future tense; it’s more about the speaker’s plan/decision.
What kind of verb is ryksuga? Is it one word, and how is it used?
Ryksuga is the verb to vacuum. It’s written as one word in modern Icelandic and behaves like a regular verb in the infinitive here.
In the sentence, it appears as an infinitive after að: að ryksuga = “to vacuum.”
Why is it íbúðina and not íbúð or íbúðin?