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Signs part two Posted by sequoia on Jun 30, 2012
Here are some signs, mostly from downtown Reykjavik. Reykjavík is very fond of frosted glass and many houses have it, especially on doors, although it’s less common for businesses. This and the one before it are signs put up by the public. Often if there’s some kind of protest planned, or if a new club…
Months and Dates Posted by sequoia on Jun 26, 2012
Month names are easier to remember than the days of the week because they’re so similar to English. Month names aren’t capitalized, unless another capitalization rule overrides it (such as when they’re at the beginning of a sentence). This post is more useful in conjunction with the posts about days of the week, number post…
National Dress Posted by sequoia on Jun 23, 2012
A little while ago, nearer to May Day, was National Dress Day (peysufatadagur). I had to wait to make this post because it took some time for people to start uploading all their photos and videos. Otherwise, this post is so late because I have my posts for this blog written and scheduled over a…
When the free dictionary is wrong Posted by sequoia on Jun 19, 2012
This is about when you can’t find the meaning of a word because the free dictionary doesn’t have it or is wrong. This will happen more and more as you read in Icelandic. Part of it is because English is a much more specific language, like how we have many words with very similar meanings…
Days of the Week Posted by sequoia on Jun 16, 2012
Here are the days of the week. Names of the months and how to write dates will come in a later post. sunnudagur – Sunday (sun-day) mánudagur – Monday (moon-day) þriðjudagur – Tuesday (third-day) miðvikudagur – Wednesday (mid-week day) fimmtudagur (sometimes spelled as “fimtu”, especially in older texts) – Thursday (fifth-day) föstudagur – Friday (fasting-day)…
Dogs Posted by sequoia on Jun 12, 2012
Reykjavík-ians (Reykvíkingar – often towns and small areas have a special name for their inhabitants, although I think it only shows up in Icelandic about as much as in English) have a strange thing with dogs. It’s said that in the past, dogs were completely banned from the capital and you couldn’t even own one…
Apartment Hunting Posted by sequoia on Jun 9, 2012
Finding an apartment near the capital that’s both within a budget and not completely broken-down or in a bad area is pretty hard. The second hard thing is knowing what your budget will be after necessities, if you have little idea of prices in Reykjavík. First we’ll estimate the monthly expenses that you’ll have to…