Tag Archives: sample of icelandic
Gotta catch them all! Posted by hulda on Jul 21, 2016
“I caught it! I caught it!” screamed a boy of maybe 10 year old outside my workplace today. I quickly stuck my head out of the door to congratulate him because his joy was just too sincere to ignore. We had a quick chat about his catch and then he went on his way to…
Independently Icelandic. Posted by hulda on Jun 16, 2016
Guess what day tomorrow is? That’s right – Iceland celebrates its independence on the 17th June with Hæ Hó Jibbi Jei, það er kominn sautjándi Júní (= Hi Ho Yippee Yay, it’s come the 17th June), parades, bouncy castles and lots and lots of flags. I’ve already dug out my own 17th June kit well in…
Easter proverb time. Posted by hulda on Mar 28, 2016
What’s Easter without the Icelandic tradition of people giving each other gigantic chocolate eggs filled with more chocolate, candy and proverbs? Not a proper Easter says I! The eggs must absolutely be of the Icelandic variety too, nothing else will do unless… unless the eggs meet a certain criteria. The chocolate itself is delicious but while…
Catastrophic floods in Iceland. Posted by hulda on Oct 1, 2015
Living in a volcanic country is never predictable. When we’re talking about volcanoes and the dangers they bring along many people would probably get a very Pompeiian idea of what that means, but actually the real threat is not fire at all. It’s water. Many of Iceland’s volcanoes are situated under glaciers, and when they…
Icelandic donut craze. Posted by hulda on Aug 6, 2015
A few days ago a friend of mine who lives in the UK contacted me and made some complaints about the state of affairs in their home country. “What about Iceland”, she then asked me, “what’s in the news?” I quickly opened a news site and found out the day’s main news were someone stealing 60…
Icelandic – unchangeable? Posted by hulda on Jun 11, 2015
At some point or another anyone interested in Icelandic will come across the popular idea that Icelandic is being kept unchanged, or at least that it has changed very little with time. Occasionally you’ll even hear people claim that Icelandic is so close to Old Norse that Icelanders can still understand it. Alas, all of…
An Icelander walked past a bar. Posted by hulda on Jan 29, 2015
It happened years ago on an evening in May. I had just met my SO and we were sitting together in a garden swing talking of this and that, and eventually started telling each other jokes. This was the first one he told me. (To understand the following you’ll have to know that reipi means rope, and…