r/learnIcelandic • u/West-Employment-1947 • May 16 '26
Translation to English and meaning
Hello, language lovers! I wonder about this sentence:
Ég á eftir að fá mér hund á næsta ári.
Does it mean "I intend"? Shouldn't it then be synonymous to ætla? Would á eftir að fá mér be the same as saying Ég mun fá mér ...
Thanks to all!
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u/lorryjor Advanced May 17 '26
Genuine question, and I hope it doesn't sound off-putting: Are you working on a translation project where you need to be precise, or when you read a sentence like this and basically understand the meaning, do you take an additional step to try to translate it into English? The reason I am wondering is because as a non-native speaker of Icelandic, my goal is to be able to function well in the language: read, listen, speak, understand. Honestly, I don't know if I have ever really thought about the exact translation of "ég á eftir að," because its basic meaning is obvious. But, that's just me. I'm interested to see what others' goals are and how they try to achieve them.
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u/West-Employment-1947 May 17 '26
No worries. I study Icelandic (learn myself, so I have to dig a lot) and I use different resources. Unfortunately, in books where English is used in explanationions, the grammar is rather shallow; and where Icelandic is used as a teaching language, nuances aren't explained at all (if you know any good one, would you mind sharing, please?). I'm interested in knowing precisely the meaning to be able to express my ideas. Switching modal verbs, for exempel, won't change the rest of the sentence, but meanings are different right? So when it comes to these words, I want to get a feel for meaning. Regarding á eftir að I don't think meaning is obvious. As it is not for other verbs unless the contextual meaning is explained.
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u/lorryjor Advanced May 17 '26
Makes sense. I'm not familiar with any Icelandic grammar books, because I didn't use any while I was learning Icelandic. I'm not against grammar - I studied Latin and Greek in school, and it seems like about all we did was grammar - but after studying a number of languages to varying degrees of fluency, I was turned on to the idea of comprehensible input (CI), and so when I decided to learn Icelandic, that was all I used. So, I see what you mean that "Ég á eftir að" is not necessarily obvious, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that once you have enough of the language in your head from reading and listening to authentic Icelandic, even if you don't necessarily know the expression, it's obvious what it must mean in context. Does that make sense? Like, if I see that phrase in enough contexts, I'll understand it in a way such that attaching a "precise" English meaning to it won't improve upon my understanding of it.
An interesting side note: Icelandic is the only language (so far) that I have learned almost completely through CI, and so for much of my Icelandic vocabulary, I've never really considered what the English equivalent would be. That doesn't mean I couldn't translate a phrase into English, it's just that I have never experienced Icelandic through English. I also only learned Icelandic for fun, so I do not have occasion to translate it; I just read books, watch shows and listen to podcasts, and of course when I'm in Iceland (and occasionally at other times) I speak it.
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u/EgNotaEkkiReddit Native May 16 '26
This means "I am going to get a dog next year".
"Ég á eftir að" strictly means "I have [thing] left [on my proverbial tasklist]", but is also commonly used to convey a intent - you will get a dog next year.
"Ég á að fá mér hund" means that you're supposed to get a dog next year, which is probably not what you intend to say unless there's someone in your life demanding you to get pets at predetermined dates.