Ég ætla að búa til súpu í kvöld.

Ætla að is a very common Icelandic way to express intention or what someone is going to do.

So:

• Ég ætla að... = I am going to... / I intend to...

It often works a lot like English be going to, but the core idea is really intend / plan.

In this sentence:

• Ég ætla að búa til súpu í kvöld.
• literally: I intend to make soup tonight.

Here, að is the infinitive marker, like English to before a verb.

So:

• að búa til = to make
• ætla að búa til = to intend to make / to be going to make

This is a very common pattern:

• ég ætla að fara = I’m going to go
• hún ætlar að lesa = she is going to read

So the að is not a separate word with its own independent meaning here; it is part of the structure that introduces the infinitive verb.

Yes — this is a very important point.

Búa by itself often means live, reside, or dwell:

• Ég bý á Íslandi. = I live in Iceland.

But búa til is a fixed expression meaning make, create, or prepare:

• búa til súpu = make soup
• búa til köku = make a cake

So in this sentence, you should understand búa til as one unit.

If you leave out til, the meaning changes completely.

Because súpu is the accusative form of súpa.

In Icelandic, the direct object of a verb often appears in the accusative case. Here, the soup is the thing being made, so it is the direct object.

• nominative: súpa = soup
• accusative: súpu

So:

• að búa til súpu = to make soup

This is one of the big differences from English: Icelandic nouns change form depending on their grammatical role in the sentence.

Í kvöld means tonight.

Literally, í often means in, but in time expressions Icelandic frequently uses prepositions in ways that do not match English word-for-word.

So you should learn í kvöld as a set phrase:

• í kvöld = tonight
• í morgun = this morning
• í dag = today

Even though English does not say in tonight, Icelandic uses í here naturally.

The sentence breaks down like this:

• Ég = I
• ætla = intend / am going
• að = to
• búa til = make
• súpu = soup
• í kvöld = tonight

So a very literal rendering is:

• I intend to make soup tonight.

That is why the normal English translation is something like:

• I’m going to make soup tonight.

Not exactly. Icelandic does not have a single simple future tense in the same way some languages do. Instead, future meaning is often expressed through the present tense plus context, or through verbs like ætla.

Here:

• ætla is in the present tense
• but the whole phrase gives a future/intention meaning

So Ég ætla að búa til súpu í kvöld is not a special future verb form. It is present tense used in a structure meaning I’m going to make soup tonight.

Yes. Ætla here is the 1st person singular present tense form, matching ég.

So:

• ég ætla = I intend / I’m going to
• þú ætlar = you intend / you’re going to
• hann/hún ætlar = he/she intends / is going to

The second verb, búa, stays in the infinitive because it comes after að:

• ég ætla að búa til...

This is similar to English:

• I am going to make...

where am is conjugated, but make stays in the base form.

Yes, Icelandic word order is somewhat flexible, especially when something is moved for emphasis. But the normal, neutral order here is:

• Ég ætla að búa til súpu í kvöld.

You might also see time expressions moved earlier for emphasis, for example:

• Í kvöld ætla ég að búa til súpu.

That still means the same thing, but it highlights tonight a bit more.

So the original sentence is the most straightforward, neutral version.

A rough learner-friendly approximation is:

• yeg EYEHT-la ath BOO-a til SOO-poo ee kfvolt

A few useful notes:

• Ég starts with a sound somewhat like yehg
• æ in ætla is like the i in ice
• ð in að is like the th in this, though in fast speech it can be very soft
• ú is a long oo
• kv in kvöld is pronounced clearly, something like kvol(t)

Pronunciation varies a bit in natural speech, and connected speech may sound smoother than the careful citation form.

Sometimes gera can mean do or make, but búa til is very natural for make/create/prepare in this kind of sentence.

So:

• búa til súpu = a good, natural way to say make soup

In everyday Icelandic, búa til is extremely common for making food, objects, or things in general.

A learner should definitely recognize and get comfortable with this expression.