Til vs. í / á

Til means to, right? Right. End of article. Thanks for coming.

But wait…you say fara í skóla (go to school) and fara á kaffihús (go to a café). So í and á also mean to? When do you use til and when do you use í or á? Surely learning this distinction is a herculean feat of brainpower and study?

Let’s make it easier to figure out when to use til, and when to use either í or á. 

Quick note: if you’re wondering when to use í and when to use á, as far as I’ve been able to figure out, it’s just maddeningly arbitrary. I’m not touching that topic, because I’m very sincere about it being maddening. I’ve gone mad over it and swore an oath never to touch it again.

Rule of thumb

Here’s the short version:

• Til is for going to a person, a country, and cities.
• Í or á are for going to pretty much any other location.

Til – People, Countries, and Cities

The preposition til is used when you're going to a person, to a country, or to a city/region. It takes the genitive case, so the word changes shape a little.

Here are some examples:

• Ég fór til læknis til að athuga hvort hausverkurinn minn væri krabbamein = I went to the doctor to check if my headache was cancer.
• Ég ætla heim til ömmu í mat í kvöld = I'm going to grandma's for dinner tonight.
• Við fórum til Póllands að leita að fjallgönguskóm sem pabbi týndi þar árið 1998 = We went to Poland to look for hiking boots my dad lost there in 1998.
• Hann kom til Íslands til að sjá eldgos, en það var lokað vegna veðurs = He came to Iceland to see a volcanic eruption, but it was closed due to weather.
• Ég fór til Parísar til að missa meydóminn. Það var ekki þess virði = I went to Paris to lose my virginity. It wasn’t worth it.
• Þegar við fórum til Tuscany var allt of heitt, en þjónninn vildi ekki lækka í sólinni = When we went to Tuscany it was way too hot, but the server refused to reduce the sun.

Í and Á – Other Locations

When you're going to almost any location, you usually use í or á.

Which one to use depends on the location (í for schools, á for cafés, for example), but don’t worry too much about it: if you use the wrong one, you’ll still be perfectly well understood. As a rule of thumb, guess í unless you’re fairly sure it should be á. You won’t be right much more than 50% of the time, but at least you won’t have to think about it each time.

If you’re interested in what case these prepositions take, you can read my article on that here.

Let’s see some examples:

• Hún fór í skólann í gær en lærði ekkert = She went to school yesterday, but didn’t learn anything.
• Hvað fórstu í margar búðir til að finna svona rosalegar hreðjar? = How many shops did you go to to find such incredible balls?
• Ég fór á bókasafnið til að leita að handriti með dularfullum uppskriftum = I went to the library to search for a manuscript with mysterious recipes.
• Ég þoli ekki að fara á fund þegar fundurinn hefði getað verið tölvupóstur = I hate going to a meeting when the meeting could’ve been an email.

Exceptions exist, where you use í or á with cities, but they’re not worth worrying about. You may occasionally see Reykjavík or Akureyri with í or á, for example, instead of til, but it’s fairly rare.

Summary

Where are you going?

• Til is for going to a person, a country, or a city.
• Í or á are for going to pretty much any other location.

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