Hún sagði að hún vildi eiginlega vera heima, en hún kom samt með okkur.

Because the second hún is the subject of the subordinate clause introduced by að.

• Hún sagði = She said
• að hún vildi... = that she wanted...

In English, you also normally repeat the subject: She said that she wanted... Icelandic works the same way here.

Here, að means that and introduces a subordinate clause.

So:

• Hún sagði = She said
• að hún vildi vera heima = that she wanted to stay/be at home

Be careful: að can mean different things in Icelandic in other contexts. For example, it can also be the infinitive marker to before a verb. But in this sentence, it is clearly the conjunction that.

Vildi is the past tense of vilja (to want).

• ég vil = I want
• hún vill = she wants
• hún vildi = she wanted

So hún vildi vera heima literally means she wanted to be at home.

In this sentence, the past tense makes sense because the main verb is also in the past:

• Hún sagði... = She said...
• ...að hún vildi... = ...that she wanted...

English often does the same tense shift after a past reporting verb.

It can do both, depending on context.

In Icelandic, past forms like vildi can sometimes sound softer, more tentative, or more polite, similar to English would like. But in this sentence, the most natural interpretation is simply past tense: she said that she wanted...

So here, it is best understood as a normal past form, not mainly as a politeness form.

Eiginlega is one of those words that can be tricky because its exact tone depends on context. Here it means something like:

• actually
• really
• kind of
• to be honest

In this sentence, it softens or qualifies what she wanted:

• hún vildi eiginlega vera heima

This suggests that deep down, or really, she would rather have stayed home. It can carry a slight sense of hesitation or understatement.

So it is not a hard, strong she definitely wanted to stay home, but more like she actually kind of wanted to stay home.

Yes. Vera heima literally means be at home.

In English, we often say stay home in this kind of sentence, but Icelandic commonly uses vera heima.

So:

• vera = to be
• heima = at home

Together: vera heima = be/stay at home

This is a very natural Icelandic expression.

No, heima is not a normal noun here. It is an adverb meaning at home.

Compare:

• heima = at home
• heim = homeward, to home
• heima hjá mér = at my place / at my home

This is a useful distinction in Icelandic:

• location: heima = at home
• movement toward home: heim = home

So in this sentence, vera heima uses the location form, because it is about being somewhere, not going somewhere.

Because subordinate clauses in Icelandic do not normally follow the main-clause verb-second pattern.

In a main clause, Icelandic often puts the finite verb in second position. But after að, the clause is subordinate, so the word order is more straightforward:

• að hún vildi eiginlega vera heima

Subject first, then the finite verb.

That is normal. A learner often notices Icelandic verb-second word order and expects it everywhere, but subordinate clauses behave differently.

Samt here means still, anyway, or nevertheless.

So:

• en hún kom samt með okkur

means something like:

• but she still came with us
• but she came with us anyway

It shows a contrast between what she wanted and what she actually did.

She preferred to stay home, but despite that, she came along.

Yes, both contribute to the contrast, but in different ways.

• en = but
• samt = still / anyway / nevertheless

So:

• en links the two clauses and marks a contrast.
• samt strengthens the idea that the second action happened despite the first idea.

Without samt, the sentence would still work:

• Hún sagði að hún vildi eiginlega vera heima, en hún kom með okkur.

That means She said she wanted to stay home, but she came with us.

Adding samt gives more emphasis:

• ...but she still came with us anyway.

Because með is a preposition, and here it takes the dative case. The pronoun við (we/us) becomes okkur in the dative/accusative form.

So:

• nominative: við = we
• oblique form used here: okkur = us

That is why Icelandic says:

• með okkur = with us

You cannot say með við.

This is something English speakers have to get used to: after many Icelandic prepositions, pronouns change form.

Both verbs can appear in related contexts, but they are not the same.

• koma = come
• fara = go

Kom með okkur literally means came with us or came along with us. It is used from the speaker’s perspective or in a context where come feels natural.

If you used fór með okkur, that would mean went with us. That can also be possible in other contexts, but it is a different viewpoint.

So the sentence is simply using koma in the same way English might say she came with us or she came along with us.

Kom is the past tense of koma (to come).

• infinitive: koma
• present: kemur = comes
• past: kom = came

So:

• hún kom með okkur = she came with us

This is an irregular verb, so it is worth memorizing.

A very literal word-for-word rendering would sound unnatural in English. Icelandic and English do not place adverbs in exactly the same way.

The Icelandic order is:

• hún vildi eiginlega vera heima
• literally: she wanted actually to be at home

Natural English would usually be:

• she actually wanted to stay home
• she kind of wanted to stay home
• she really wanted to be home

So the meaning is straightforward, but the most natural English wording depends on how you choose to interpret eiginlega.

Yes, it is normal and expected here.

The sentence has two coordinated clauses:

• Hún sagði að hún vildi eiginlega vera heima
• en hún kom samt með okkur

In Icelandic, a comma is commonly used before conjunctions like en when they join full clauses. So the punctuation here is standard.