A very short Icelandic grammar

This webpage gives in written form the grammatical constructions used in Alaric Hall's beginners' modern Icelandic mp3 course. Quite a lot of the information here is also available in condensed form as Alaric's Modern Icelandic Magic Sheet. For further resources related to the course, including vocabulary lists and written exercises, see his modern Icelandic page.

contents

total fundamentals
adjectives
verbs
normal (strong) nouns
weak nouns
the difference between sem, það, and að
other stuff

total fundamentals

I, you, he, she, it, we, they

I ég
you (singular) þú
he hann
she hún
it það
we við
you (plural) þið
they (masculine) þeir
they (feminine) þær
they (neuter) þau

vera 'be' (past participle: verið)

present past
ég er var
þú ert varst
hann/hún/það er var
við erum vorum
þið eruð voruð
þeir/þær/þau eru voru

To say things like ‘I am here’, ‘I was here’, it’s just like in English: ég er hér, ég var hér.

To say things like ‘I am doing something’, Icelandic is a bit different from English. The I am is the same, but rather than adding -ing at the end of the verb, you add the word að before the infinitive form of the verb.

To say ‘I am being’, say ég er að vera.
To say ‘I am helping’, say ég er að hjálpa.
To say ‘she is giving’, say hún er að gefa.
To say ‘he was travelling’, say hann var að fara.
To say ‘they were learning’, say þeir voru að læra.
(Að is actually a preposition which can be translated in different ways in different contexts. Its most basic meaning is ‘at’, so to say ‘I am learning’ in Icelandic, you are literally saying ‘I am at learn’.)

ekki ‘not’

To say things like ‘I am not here’ or ‘I am not learning’, it’s just like in English: ég er ekki hér, ég er ekki að læra.

But Icelandic doesn’t have an equivalent of ‘I do not travel’ or ‘I don’t travel’. They say ‘I travel not’: ég fer ekki.

To say ‘I do not travel home today’, say ég fer ekki heim í dag.

questions

To ask a question in Icelandic, it works like in English:

To change 'I am here' into 'am I here?', change ég er hér into er ég hér?
To change 'I am giving' into 'am I giving?', change ég er að gefa into er ég að gefa?

The Icelandic for 'what' is hvað; 'who' is hver; 'where' is hvar; 'from where' (i.e. 'whence') is hvaðan; 'to where' (i.e. 'whither') is hvert; and 'when', in questions, is hvenær:

To say 'what is that?', say hvað er það?
To say 'who is she?', say hver er hún?
To say 'who are you?' say hver ert þú? (or hver ertu?)
To say 'where are we?', say hvar erum við?
To say 'where were you?', say hvar varst þú? (or hvar varstu?)
To say 'from where (i.e. 'whence') are you?', say hvaðan ert þú? (or hvaðan ertu?)
To say 'to where (i.e. 'whither') are you going?', say hvert ert þú að fara?
To say 'when is it?', say hvenær er það?
To say 'when does he intend to travel home?', say hvenær ætlar hann að fara heim?

doing things to other people: me, you, him, her, it, us, you, them

In English, we have the words I and she. But you can’t say ‘I met she’, and you can’t say ‘she met I’. These words change their form depending on whether they’re the subject of the sentence (i.e. doing the verb, in this case, doing the meeting) or the object (i.e. having the verb done to them, in this case, being met). So we say ‘I met her’ and ‘she met me’. We use I and she when those words denote the person doing the verb, and me and her when those words denote the person having the verb done to them.

Icelandic is like English in this respect: you don’t say **ég hitti hún ('I met she') or **hún hitti ég ('she met I'). You say ég hitti hana and hún hitti mig.

Sometimes, in both Icelandic and English, it happens that the word is the same whether it's doing the verb or not: ég hitti það, 'I met it'; það hitti mig, 'it met me'

me mig
you (singular) þig
him hann
her hana
it það
us okkur
you (plural) ykkur
them (masculine) þá
them (feminine) þær
them (neuter) þau

Look at these example sentences to see the words in action.

þú ert að skoða mig
hann er að skoða þig
hún er að skoða hann
það er að skoða hana
við erum að skoða það
þið eruð að skoða okkur
þeir eru að skoða ykkur
þær eru að skoða þá
þau eru að skoða þær
ég er að skoða þau

In Icelandic, unlike in English, you can change the order of the words, and the sentence will still make sense. So in English 'me met she' just doesn't make sense. But in Icelandic it's possible to say mig hitti hún, and it means 'she met me': the form of the words is more important than the order they come in.

adjectives

normal adjectives

In Icelandic, adjectives change their form depending on the number (singular or plural) and gender (masculine, neuter, or feminine) of the thing they're describing. (There are quite a lot of other things that can change adjectives too, but the mp3 course just focuses on adjectives in straightforward sentences like 'I am good', which reduces the amount of things you have to worry about!)

Look at the examples falleg 'beautiful' and full 'full/drunk' to see how to change the endings of adjectives according to number and gender.

hún er falleg
hann er fallegur
það er fallegt
þær eru fallegar
þeir eru fallegir
þau eru falleg

hún er full
hann er fullur
það er fullt
þær eru fullar
þeir eru fullir
þau eru full

Adjectives with an a in them

Adjectives with an a in the root see it change to ö in the feminine singular and the neuter plural (this called 'u-mutation' because it happened when a was followed by a -u which has now been lost).

hún er löng
hann er langur
það er langt
þær eru langar
þeir eru langir
þau eru löng

hún er hörð
hann er harður
það er hartt
þær eru harðar
þeir eru harðirir
þau eru hörð

weird adjectives

A few Icelandic adjectives work slightly differently from the normal ones, but the differences are quite small. Here are the most important ones, which you need to use all the time when speaking Icelandic: góð 'good', mikil 'big', mín 'my', þín 'your'.

hún er góð
hann er góður
það er gott
þær eru góðar
þeir eru góðir
þau eru góð

hún er mikil
hann er mikill
það er mikið
þær eru miklar
þeir eru miklir
þau eru mikil

hún er mín/þín
hann er minn/þinn
það er mitt/þitt
þær eru mínar/þínar
þeir eru mínirþínir
þau eru mín/þín

normal verbs (aka 'weak verbs')

Normal verbs indicate their past tense by adding in the sound ð, d, or occasionally t, in the ending. This is like how in English we say 'I want' but 'I wanted', 'I love' but 'I loved', etc.

-ir verbs like gera 'do, make' (past participle: gert)

present past
ég geri gerði
þú gerir gerðir
hann/hún/það gerir gerði
við gerum gerðum
þið gerið gerðuð
þeir/þær/þau gera gerðu

NB the third person present plural is always identical to the infinitive. So if you can say ég er að segja, you can say þeir segja.

Other -ir verbs like gera are heyra, hitta, kenna, læra, segja, senda.

hafa 'have' (past participle: haft)

This is basically a normal -ir verb like gera, except that it's a bit irregular in the present singular. It comes up a lot, so it's worth learning. As well as being a way to say you have things, you can use it in sentences like 'I have wanted', 'I had wanted'.

present past
ég hef hafði
þú hefur hafðir
hann/hún/það hefur hafði
við höfum höfðum
þið hafið höfðuð
þeir/þær/þau hafa höfðu

-ar verbs like ætla 'intend' (past participle: ætlað)

present past
ég ætla ætlaði
þú ætlar ætlaðir
hann/hún/það ætlar ætlaði
við ætlum ætluðum
þið ætlið ætluðuð
þeir/þær/þau ætla ætluðu

NB the third person present plural is always identical to the infinitive. So if you can say ég er að hjálpa, you can say þeir hjálpa.

Other -ar verbs like ætla are elska, hjálpa, hugsa, opna, skoða, skrifa, tala, vona.

-ur verbs like skilja 'understand' (past participle: skilið)

present past
ég skil skildi
þú skilur skildir
hann/hún/það skilur skildi
við skilum skildum
þið skilið skilduð
þeir/þær/þau skilja skildu

NB the third person present plural is always identical to the infinitive. So if you can say ég er að skilja, you can say þeir skilja.

vilja 'want'

This is basically a normal -ur verb like skilja, except that it's a bit irregular in the present singular. It comes up a lot, so it's worth learning.

present past
ég vil vildi
þú vilt vildir
hann/hún/það vill vildi
við viljum vildum
þið viljið vilduð
þeir/þær/þau vilja vildu

irregular verbs (aka 'strong verbs')

Strong verbs indicate their past tense by changing a vowel. This is like how in English we say 'I run' but 'I ran', 'I sing' but 'I sang', etc. They all tend to be a bit different, but some follow fairly similar patterns. The main thing is to get a rough feel for how they work and then pick the idiosyncracies of each up as you go. But in case you're wondering, here are the main strong verbs from the mp3 course, which were chosen both because they're frequent and because they are mostly fairly similar to each other.

heita 'be called' (past participle: heitið)

present past
ég heiti hét
þú heitir hést
hann/hún/það heitir hét
við heitum hétum
þið heitið hétuð
þeir/þær/þau heita hétu

gefa 'give' (past participle: gefið)

present past
ég gef gaf
þú gefur gafst
hann/hún/það gefur gaf
við gefum gáfum
þið gefið gáfuð
þeir/þær/þau gefa gáfu

bera 'carry' (past participle: borið)

present past
ég ber bar
þú berð barst
hann/hún/það ber bar
við berum bárum
þið berið báruð
þeir/þær/þau bera báru

geta 'get, beget' (past participle: getið)

present past
ég get gat
þú getur gast
hann/hún/það getur gat
við getum gátum
þið getið gátuð
þeir/þær/þau geta gátu

lesa 'read' (past participle: lesið)

present past
ég les las
þú lest last
hann/hún/það les last
við lesum lásum
þið lesið lásuð
þeir/þær/þau lesa lásu

kunna 'know (how to...)' (past participle: kunnað)

present past
ég kann kunni
þú kannt kunnir
hann/hún/það kann kunni
við kunnum kunnum
þið kunnið kunnuð
þeir/þær/þau kunna kunnu

finna 'find' (past participle: fundið)

present past
ég finn fann
þú finnur fannst
hann/hún/það finnur fann
við finnum fundum
þið finnið funduð
þeir/þær/þau finna fundu

verða 'become, ought' (past participle: orðið)

present past
ég verð varð
þú verður varðst
hann/hún/það verður varð
við verðum urðum
þið verðið urðuð
þeir/þær/þau verða urðu

eiga 'own', and saying 'I have to do something...'

An irregular verb, but useful. It basically means 'to own', but you also use it instead of English 'have' in sentences like 'I have to go', 'we had to meet them'.

present past
ég á átti
þú átt áttir
hann/hún/það á átti
við eigum áttum
þið eigiðáttuð
þeir/þær/þau eiga áttu

past participles

To say 'I have done something', 'I have wanted something', 'I had been bad', etc., you just use the appropriate form of hafa followed by a past participle. (Specifically a neuter nominative singular one, but we're not going to learn any other kinds for now so no need to worry about that.)

The rule of thumb here is that you take the infinitive of the verb (e.g. fara 'travel'), knock off the -a and add on -ið instead. So fara becomes farið. This even works for vera 'to be': to say 'I have been here', say ég hef verið hér.

To say 'I have been here', say ég hef verið hér
To say 'you have travelled', say þú hefur farið
To say 'I had lived there', say ég hafði búið þar
To say 'we had given it', say við höfðum gefið það

There are a few exceptions:

But the main thing to remember is that the normal ending is -ið. Icelanders will understand you even if you use this in the wrong verbs, and they'll probably correct you, so you can get better.

saying you can do things

Modern Icelandic has no equivalent to 'can' in English. Instead, to say 'I can do it', Icelandic says 'I get it done'. To say 'I could understand it', Icelandic says 'I got it understood'; and so forth. To do this you use the verb geta + past participle.

To say 'I can travel', say ég get farið
To say 'I can understand it', ég get það skilið
To say 'I can do it', say ég get það gert

normal nouns

easy, normal nouns (the neuter and feminine ones)

Icelandic nouns work a bit differently from English ones. In English, nouns change ending if they're singular or plural ('I ate one apple' but 'I ate twelve apples'), but Icelandic ones also have different endings depending on whether they're masculine, neuter or feminine; and sometimes depending on their role in the sentence.

The easiest nouns are neuter: they are the same whatever happens, singular or plural, subject or object. This is a bit like the word 'sheep' in English.

To say 'a table is here' (where the table is the subject), say borð er hér.
To say 'I am looking at a table' (where the table is the object), say ég er að skoða borð.
To say 'tables are here' (where the tables are the subject), say borð eru hér.
To say 'I am looking at tables' (where the tables are the object), say ég er að skoða borð (note that it's ambiguous whether you're looking at one table or lots).

Other neuter nouns on the mp3 course are ár 'year', hús 'house', kvöld 'evening', mót 'meeting', sverð 'sword', safn 'collection' (and bókasafn 'library' and landsbókasafn 'national library'), land 'land (and Bretland 'Britain', England 'England', and Ísland 'Iceland').

The next easiest nouns are feminine: they add endings in the plural, but are the same whether they're the subject or the object. This is like most nouns in English, such as 'picture', plural 'pictures'.

The usual feminine plural ending is -ir.

To say 'a picture is here', say mynd er hér.
To say 'we are looking at a picture', say við erum að skoða mynd.
To say 'pictures are here', say myndir eru hér.
To say 'you were looking at pictures', say þú varst að skoða myndir.
Other normal feminine nouns on the mp3 course are búð 'shop' (and bókabúð 'book shop'), deild 'department', hugmynd 'idea', ljósmynd 'photograph', and sól 'sun'.

But quite a few feminine nouns have the plural ending -ar. You just have to learn these exceptions. (If in doubt, go for -ir!)

To say 'you were reading articles', say þið voruð að lesa greinar
The other example of a feminine noun like this on the mp3s is Ásatrú 'belief in the Æsir', plural Ásatrúar.

not so easy normal nouns (the masculine ones)

The hardest nouns are masculine: they have different endings depending both on whether they're singular or plural, and on whether they're doing the verb or having it done to them. There are also quite a few weird permutations on the patterns given here, but the mp3 course focuses on the normal nouns.

function
 ending example word example sentence
singular, subject add -ur strákur strákur er hér
singular, object nothing! strák ég er að hitta strák
plural, subject add -ar strákar strákar eru hér
plural, object add -a stráka hún var að skoða stráka

Other examples of normal masculine nouns on the mp3s are dagur 'day', hnífur 'knife', maður 'person', vegur 'road'.

To say 'a friend is here', say vinur er hér.
To say 'I am a friend', say ég er vinur.
To say 'I am meeting a friend', say ég er að hitta vin.
To say 'I am meeting a boy', say ég er að hitta strák.
To say 'boys are looking at me', say strákar eru að skoða mig.
To say 'they are fish', say þeir eru fiskar.
To say 'I am looking at fish', say ég er að skoða fiska.

normal nouns owning other nouns

These are the equivalent of 'the dog's dinner' or 'the dogs' dinner' in English. They are also the equivalent of phrases using 'of' in English: 'the dinner of the dog', 'the dinner of the dogs'.

If a singular masculine or neuter noun owns something, just add an -s to the stem, much like in English:

To say 'a boy's table', say stráks borð (NB not **strákurs borð).
To say 'a friend's house', say vins hús.
To say 'a house of a friend', you still stay vins hús.
To say 'a day's beginning;, say dags byrjun,
To say 'a year's beginning', say árs byrjun.
To say 'an evening's end', say kvölds loka.
To say 'a land's road', say lands vegur.
To say 'the table of a boy', say stráks borðið.
To say 'the house of a friend', say vins húsið.
To say 'the road of a land', say lands vegurinn.

If a singular feminine noun owns something, you add an -ar instead of an -s:

To say 'a department's house', say deildar hús.
To say 'a shop's table', say búðar borð.

normal nouns after prepositions

Prepositions are little words that tell you the position of things (in space or time), like í ('in'), á ('on'), með ('with'), af ('from, off'), frá ('from'), fyrir ('before, in front of'), undir ('under'), yfir ('over').

Prepositions usually come in front of a noun. After a preposition, nouns generally change their form slightly. If the noun is plural, you put -um on the end, regardless of whether the noun is masculine, feminine or neuter. So not too hard. If the noun is singular, it depends on its gender.

The easiest nouns are feminine: they don't change in the singular. In the plural, you add -um on the end.

To say 'I am in a picture', say ég er í mynd.
To say 'I am in pictures', say ég er í myndum.
To say 'I am in a shop', say ég er í búð.
To say 'I am in shops', say ég er í búðum.
Sneakily, some masculine nouns behave like these feminine ones, but don't worry about them for now. (The worst case scenario is that Icelanders will correct you as you go along.)

Masculine and neuter nouns are slightly harder: in the singular, you add -i on the end. In the plural, you add -um on the end.

To say 'I am with a boy', say ég er með stráki.
To say 'I am with boys', say ég er með strákum.
To say 'I am on a chair', say ég er á stóli.
To say 'I am on chairs', say ég er á stólum.
To say 'I am in a house', say ég er í húsi.
To say 'I am in houses', say ég er í húsum.
To say 'I am on a table', say ég er á borði.
To say 'I am on tables', say ég er á borðum.

weak nouns

weak masculine nouns like nemi (the masculine weak nouns)

There is a large group of masculine nouns which behave just as you'd expect in the plural, but oddly in the singular. Rather than ending in -ur when they're doing the verb like strákur or hnífur, they end in -i: nouns like nemi ('student'), háskóli ('university'), háskólanemi ('undergraduate'), and kennari ('teacher'). And in other situations, in the singular they end in -a.

number function technical term example weak noun example sentence example normal noun (for comparison)
singular doing the verb (subject of the sentence) nominative nemi nemi var hér 'a student was here' strákur
singular having the verb done to it (object of the sentence) accusative nema ég er að hitta nema 'I am meeting a student' strák
singular owning something genitive nema er það nema mynd? 'is that a student's picture?' stráks
singular after a preposition dative nema ég er með nema 'I am with a student' stráki
plural doing the verb (subject of the sentence) nominative nemar nemar voru hér 'students were here' strákar
plural having the verb done to it (object of the sentence) accusative nema ég er að hitta nema 'I am meeting students' stráka
plural owning something genitive nema er hún nema mynd? 'is that (some) students' picture?' stráka
plural after a preposition dative nemum ég er með nemum 'I am with students' strákum

weak feminine nouns like kona (the feminine weak nouns)

There is a large group of feminine nouns which have quite different endings from the normal ones. When they're doing the verb, and are singular, they end in -a, like íslenska, kona, söngkona.

number function technical term example weak noun example sentence example normal noun (for comparison)
singular doing the verb (subject of the sentence) nominative kona kona var hér 'a woman was here' mynd
singular having the verb done to it (object of the sentence) accusative konu ég er að hitta konu 'I am meeting a woman' mynd
singular owning something genitive konu er hún konu mynd? 'is that a woman's picture?' myndar
singular after a preposition dative konu ég er með konu 'I am with a woman' mynd
plural doing the verb (subject of the sentence) nominative konur konur voru hér 'women were here' myndir
plural having the verb done to it (object of the sentence) accusative konur ég er að hitta konur 'I am meeting women' myndir
plural owning something genitive kvenna (sorry, I chose a slightly irregular example on the mp3s; it's normally just -na. I'll have to fix this in future.) er það kvenna mynd? 'is that women's picture?' mynda
plural after a preposition dative konum ég er með konum 'I am with women' myndum

the difference between sem, það, and að

People who've used Alaric's mp3 course seem to find the difference between sem, það, and að hard to sort out. Alaric should no doubt have taught this better, but part of the problem is that none of these words corresponds neatly to a single English one, so you have to get used to which is appropriate in different contexts in Icelandic. To help with this, here are translations of the relevant entries in the Icelandic dictionary islex.

sem

'who, which, that' when functioning as relative particles (NOT in questions like 'who is here?' or referring to objects like 'I want that one').

'as'.

að

'that', when functioning as a subordinating conjunction (NOT in the sense of 'that child is horrible' or 'I hate that').

Before an infinitive verb. (NB some verbs don't bother with að between them and the ininitive that follows. The main one on the mp3 course is vilja 'want': you say ég vil gera það 'I want to do that', not **ég vil að gera það.)

As a preposition. Etymologically, it is related to English 'at', but needs to be translated in different ways in different contexts because it doesn't correspond neatly in meaning to any English proposition.

useful words and phrases

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