# Icelandic: til þess að



## ShakeyX

I think I have totally confused my self and got into a bad habit. When I have been saying sentences such as "I am going home to eat" I've been using "Ég fer heim til að borða". Is this in anyway correct. I saw it as, til að was (in order to) so if I have a sentence which shows me doing somethnig first, IN order to do the next step, I wrote it as such.


Sidenote, is til að, exactly the same as til þess að, just one is written and one is spoken or something like this?

If my usage is wrong could someone please point me in the right direction.


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## Alxmrphi

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2646167&langid=14


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## ShakeyX

Okay I got that my sidenote was a repeat, but still.. I am unsure if ég fer heim til (þess) að borða is a valid sentence. I mean I going home (in order) to eat. How strong is the in order to, as the meaning is correct, but if i said, im going home in order to eat in english it would sound weird, even though technically correct. Is it technically correct in Icelandic, does it sound stupid? Should I just say... ég fer heim að borða...?


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## Silver_Biscuit

I would say "Ég ætla að fara heim að borða" or "Ég ætla heim að borða". What you have been saying is definitely valid Icelandic, but there's something about it that I can't put my finger on, just a bit odd. If you're talking about something you're "going" to do, like you're announcing an intention, it's really standard to just use _ætla_.


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## ShakeyX

Hey silver, thanks for the help. But it's not the choice of Fer/ætla that I am worried about... either stating intention or just about to leave the door. It's more the... to til, or not to til in the sentence.


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## Hjalti

Silver_Biscuit said:


> I would say "Ég ætla að fara heim að borða" or "Ég ætla heim að borða". What you have been saying is definitely valid Icelandic, but there's something about it that I can't put my finger on, just a bit odd. If you're talking about something you're "going" to do, like you're announcing an intention, it's really standard to just use _ætla_.


Yup. That's better. Oddly enough, you can also say "Ég er farinn heim að borða." when you're announcing that you're about to go.

And yes, the "til" doesn't seem to fit well in that sentence. I'm not sure if there's some rule governing this stuff. :l


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## ShakeyX

See this is what I mean... an icelander just wrote this, someone destroyed their phone and this was the comment.

nú hefurðu afsökun til að fá þér S4 eins og þú vildir ekki satt?

We obviously woulndt translate this to ... now you have an excuse "in order to" get yourself an S4... in English we would just you... excuse "to" get. So can the til be omitted here, is this it's correct use? In translations is it not really as strong as saying "IN ORDER TO" but still makes sense when said like that. Basically here could til be omitted or should til be there?


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## Hjalti

"til" has to be there in that sentence.


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## Silver_Biscuit

Uhh, yeah, having a reason to do something is somehow different than "going to do something" or announcing an intention to do something. I can't explain it either. It seems to me like _til að gera eitthvað_ is used for talking about reasons, but you don't use this form for intentions. But I can't state anything concrete. 

You'll get a sense for it, don't worry. Just listen closely when you're talking to Icelanders, notice what they are saying and when and try to mimic them.


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