Breakdown of Eruð þið um það bil að lenda í Keflavík?
vera
to be
það
it / there (existential) / the one (n)
þið
you (plural)
að
to (infinitive marker)
í
in / into / to (before the hour, in telling time) / per (in frequency expressions)
um
about
Keflavík
Keflavik
lenda
to land
bilið
the gap
Questions & Answers about Eruð þið um það bil að lenda í Keflavík?
How exactly does the phrase um það bil að break down to mean "about to"?
The core is the continuous aspect you already know: vera að + infinitive (to be doing something). Wedged in the middle is the phrase um það bil, which literally means "around that interval" or "approximately". Together, vera um það bil að shifts the action into the immediate future, meaning "to be just about to do" something.
I've seen um það bil used with numbers, like "about fifty". Is this the exact same phrase?
Yes, it is! On its own, um það bil simply means "approximately" or "about". The key difference here is the grammatical structure. When you place it between a conjugated form of vera and an að + infinitive phrase, it specifically forms the immediate future aspect rather than just estimating an amount.
We are talking about an airport, so why do we say í Keflavík instead of á Keflavík?
While you might expect the preposition á (on/at) because planes land on runways, Keflavík is fundamentally the name of a town. In Icelandic, you arrive or land in a town, so it naturally takes the preposition í. If you were referring to the airport facility itself, you would use á flugvellinum.
Doesn't the phrase lenda í also have a metaphorical meaning?
Exactly! While it is used literally here for a flight arriving, að lenda í is a very common idiom meaning "to end up in" or "to get into" a situation, usually a negative one. For example, að lenda í vandræðum means to get into trouble, and að lenda í slysi means to get into an accident.
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