The most difficult thing to find when you don’t live in Iceland is the Icelandic for things that you would never talk to someone else about. You might be able to get some of this from reading a lot of varied books, but unless you have a friend in Iceland willing to take photos or record conversations for you then some things will probably remain a mystery unless you end up moving to Iceland. I remember when I was sitting in a coffee shop in the US and a French man came in. When the cashier asked if he “wanted room” in his coffee he had no idea what she was talking about and she couldn’t think of how to explain it in a way he understood either. The idea of being in that sort of situation haunts me – and I don’t think the average Icelandic learner wants to be in that situation either, so here are some photos with vocabulary that might one day help you a little.

An elevator.

A pay phone (located in the Nordic House in the coat-rack area next to the bathrooms).

A University of Iceland print-out telling you that you have too few print credits (“print quota”) available and that you need to add more credit. Notice that they say “outprints” instead of “print-outs”.

A crane-game machine at BSÍ, the long-distance bus station in Reykjavík. It’s saying that you can also pay via phone if you send a text to this number, then you get two tries.

Notice of a street being closed due to construction. Orange signs in the capital basically mean construction or road closures.

Washing machine instructions.