“Ég ætla” means “I intend to, I am going to, I plan to”. This is a particularly useful word since in most interactions with other people you discuss what you’re going to do today, this evening, or this week.

You may remember that in the pronunciation of the word “gott” (good) you have to exhale a little bit before the tt so that the word sounds like [go(h)tt]. That doesn’t only happen before a tt, it also happens before a tl, meaning that the word “ætla” is pronounced [æ(h)tla]. If you place your hand in front of your mouth you should feel a short gust of wind coming out of your mouth. This short outgoing breath is extremely important, it can be impossible to understand you without it. For that reason, it is far better to exaggerate this sound significantly rather than not doing it enough.

The verb that comes after “ætla” is in the basic default state (infinitive), including the infinitive marker “að” (to), same as in English:

“Í dag” means “today”. The G in “dag” is a soft G, it’s so soft that you should just skip it entirely like with the “g” in “ég”.^[a]

When someone tells you their plans, a good way to answer is with “Hljómar vel” (“Sounds good”). Notice that the phrase is literally “sounds well” (using “vel”) but not “sounds good” (which would use “gott”).

The letters “hl” in “hljómar” represent only a single sound: the breathy L. There’s no “H” sound in this word. The breathy L is the sound you recognize from the word “allt”. The word “hljómar” starts with that sound and the word “vel” ends with that sound (because L sounds become breathy L sounds at the end of a sentence).