Breakdown of Kennarinn ætlar að byrja að elda.
kennarinn
the teacher
að
to (infinitive marker)
ætla
to intend
elda
to cook
byrja
to start
Questions & Answers about Kennarinn ætlar að byrja að elda.
How does the 'going to' construction work with ætlar here?
The verb ætla means 'to plan' or 'to intend'. To express what someone is going to do, you take a conjugated form of ætla (here it becomes ætlar to match the teacher) and follow it with að plus an action verb in its dictionary form.
Why are there two að words in this sentence?
Each að works just like the English word 'to' when placed before a dictionary-form verb (an infinitive). The first að links ætlar to byrja (going to start), and the second links byrja to elda (start to cook). You can chain verbs this way just like in English.
Why does the word for teacher, Kennarinn, end in -nn?
In Icelandic, the word 'the' is usually not a separate word. Instead, it is attached to the end of the noun. The base word is kennari (teacher), and adding the suffix -nn makes it kennarinn (the teacher).
Would the sentence structure change if the subject was 'I' instead of 'The teacher'?
The chain of að verbs stays exactly the same, but the main verb must change to match the new subject. The word for 'I' is ég, and its matching verb form is ætla. So you would simply say: Ég ætla að byrja að elda.
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