Breakdown of Mig langar að farða mig fyrir ballið.
mig
me (acc)
langa
to want
að
to (infinitive marker)
fyrir
for (fyrir þig)
Questions & Answers about Mig langar að farða mig fyrir ballið.
Why do we use mig twice in this sentence?
The two instances of mig are doing different jobs! The first mig is the logical subject of langar. The verb langa (to want) is impersonal and always forces the person wanting into the accusative case. The second mig is the object of farða (to put makeup on). Since you are applying makeup to yourself, you use mig as the reflexive "myself".
Wait, so there is no special Icelandic word for "myself"?
Exactly! For the first and second person (I, you, we), Icelandic just reuses the regular object pronouns (mig, þig, okkur, etc.) instead of having a dedicated word for "myself" or "yourself". So að farða mig literally translates to "to put makeup on me". It is only in the third person (he, she, it, they) that Icelandic introduces a special reflexive word (sig).
How would this change if I wanted to say "You want to put makeup on yourself"?
Both instances of mig would change to the second-person accusative pronoun þig. The sentence becomes: Þig langar að farða þig fyrir ballið. The first þig is used because langar needs an accusative subject, and the second þig acts as the reflexive "yourself".
Why is the noun ballið in the accusative case here?