In this chapter you’ll see a few short texts that you should be able to understand by reading slowly and by clicking on the words to see their translations. Listen to the audio recordings a few times to get a feel for the pronunciation.

A few new letters

Many Icelandic letters have diacritics, but these three letters are especially unfamiliar:
The letter Ð/ð is a d with a stroke. You can think of it as a very soft d or a soft th. It can either sound like the English brother, but it can also sound like the English broth. Sometimes this letter is so soft that it disappears.
bróðir, veður, glaður, garður, brauð
The letter Þ/þ is completely new, and is unrelated to the letter P. It usually has a strong th sound like the English thick, but it can sometimes be soft like the ð letter above and sound like the English brother.
þúsund, þykk

Are

Notice how many Icelandic words are similar to the English ones. In particular, note how similar er is to the English “are”.
  • Obama er frá Ameríku.
  • Pútín er frá Rússlandi.
  • Kaffi er heitt.
  • Bjór er kaldur.
  • Gras er grænt.
  • Systir mín er lítil.

Hello

Halló and hæ are the most common ways to casually greet someone. They sound almost exactly like their English counterparts.
See how many other words you sort of recognize in this interaction between a mother and her child:
▶ Play
Halló!
Hvernig var skólinn?
Fínn.
Gott að heyra. Ert þú þyrstur? Vilt þú kók?
Nei takk. Ég er ekki þyrstur.
If you squint a little, you should be able to recognize hello, hi, mom, school, fine, hear, thirsty, and Coke.

Text snippets

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▶ Play
Ég drekk mjólk. Ég drekk minnst þrettán lítra af mjólk á viku. Mamma segir: „Það er of mikið!“, en ég hlusta ekki á hana. Mjólk er svo góð!
▶ Play
Hjálp! Prentarinn minn virkar ekki!
Prentarar virka aldrei. Ég skal prenta þetta fyrir þig.
Tekur það langan tíma?
Nei nei.
Takk! Þú ert bestur.

Grammar — The “the”

The word “the” is known as the definite article. In English it is a seperate word (“the house”) but in Icelandic it is attached to the end of the relevant word (“húsið“).
Notice that there is no “a / an” in Icelandic:
{| class=“wikitable” |+ !English !Icelandic |- |Mary is an American. |María er Ameríkani. |- |He is such a good dog. |Hann er svo góður hundur. |- |This takes a long time. |Þetta tekur langan tíma. |}
And notice that the “the” can look quite different depending on the word it is attached to:
{| class=“wikitable” |+ !English !Icelandic |- |The weather today is good. |Veðrið í dag er gott. |- |Why is the cat outside? |Af hverju er kötturinn úti? |- |The bakery is open! |Bakaríið er opið! |}
Again, the “the” comes at the end of words instead of at the front. The endings in veðrið and kötturinn mean the exact same thing, they just signify “the”. The “the” changed depending on the word’s grammatical type (gender and case), which results in many possible endings. These are all the possible endings for “the”:
:-inn -ið -inum -ins -num -an -una -unni -unnar -nar -unum -anna -inu -ins -in
You do not need to memorize these endings for now, but you do need to be aware of them.

Text — Winter

▶ Play
Það er kalt. Fingurnir mínir eru frosnir.
Já, það er vetur og við erum á Íslandi.
Hvar er heitt?
Hmm, á Spáni? Og í bakaríinu.
Já! Förum í bakaríið.
Er bakaríið opið í dag?
Já, það er alltaf opið.

Grammar — Introduction to cases

Nouns, adjectives, and pronouns all change their form depending on what’s happening to them in a sentence. There are four such cases in Icelandic:
These cases are always shown in the same order. Some words, like “lamb”, don’t change that much:
{{declension-singular}}
But other words, like “cat”, change a lot:
{{declension-singular}}
The first case is the default case and is the one that is shown in dictionaries.

Comparison to English

The Icelandic cases can be compared to the different forms that English pronouns have. In the sentence “He took his book with him”, the word “he” appears three times, but is different each time, indicating what function the word has in the sentence. “He” is analogous to the first case in Icelandic, “him” is analogous to both the second and the third case, and “his” is analogous to the fourth case.

Further reading

Notes
  • For simplicy’s sake we refer to the cases as the “first case”, “second case” and so on instead of using the grammatical terms.
  • The explanation of what the cases indicate is a simplification.
  • If you have studied German, do note that the standard way of showing the four German cases is nominative, genitive, dative, accusative while in Icelandic the order is nominative, accusative, dative, genitive.

Text snippet — Dance

{{Snippet:Eiríkur dansar}}

Language — Yes yes yes!

There are two ways to say “yes” in Icelandic:
  • When answering “yes” to a question, you use já.
  • When answering “yes” to a negative question, you use jú.
Regular questions:
▶ Play
Góðann daginn, get ég aðstoðað?
Já, ég er að leita að skyrtu fyrir kvöldið.
Já ég skil.
  • Negative questions:
▶ Play
Er þetta ekki gott?
Jú, þetta er mjög gott.

Já já

Já já is a casual way of saying “yeah, sure”.
▶ Play
Kemur þú í sund?
Já já. Klukkan hvað?
Kannski klukkan 15:00?
Ókei, hljómar vel.

Já (breathing in) 🌬

A strange thing that sometimes startles foreigners is hearing people say “Já” while breathing in.
Have a listen:
▶ Play
This also exists in the other Nordic languages, but in Icelandic you can say entire sentences while breathing in.
Já while breathing in means:
  • Ah yes, I do agree with you.
  • Ah yes, please continue speaking!
It is usually used in casual conversations, where you are casually showing agreement and encouraging a speaker to continue.
{{multiple choice}} {{multiple choice}}
Ert þú þyrstur?
me: Já
Vilt þú kók?
me: Já já
Ert þú ekki þyrstur?
me: Jú
Gunnar er aftur byrjaður að reykja sígarettur.
me: Já [breathing in]
Kemur þú ekki á eftir?
me: Jú, ég kem á eftir.
Vilt þú bjór?
me: Já takk!