Breakdown of Læknistíminn er eftir tvo daga.
vera
to be
tveir
two
dagurinn
the day (m)
eftir
after / for (waiting for)
læknistíminn
the doctor's appointment
Questions & Answers about Læknistíminn er eftir tvo daga.
Wait, doesn't eftir usually mean 'after'? Why is it translated as 'in' here?
You are right that eftir often means 'after' when talking about the sequence of events. However, when measuring how far away a future event is, Icelandic uses eftir followed by an amount of time to mean 'in'. So eftir tvo daga precisely means 'in two days' from now.
Why is it tvo daga instead of the basic forms tveir dagar?
The preposition eftir forces the time phrase that follows it into the accusative case. Since dagur (day) is a masculine noun, its plural accusative form is daga. The number two must match this gender and case, so the masculine nominative tveir changes to its accusative form, tvo.
How exactly does læknistíminn break down into 'the doctor's appointment'?
It is a compound of two words: læknis and tíminn. Læknis is the possessive (genitive) form of læknir (doctor), and tíminn is the definite form of tími (time). Literally it means 'the doctor's time', which is the standard Icelandic way to talk about a medical appointment.
If the appointment is in the future, why does the sentence use the present tense verb er?
Just like in English ('The appointment is in two days'), Icelandic frequently uses the present tense to talk about scheduled or definite future events. The time anchor eftir tvo daga already tells us it happens in the future, making a complex future-tense verb unnecessary.
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