Archive for 'Icelandic grammar'
Is your neighbour an elf? Posted by hulda on Jun 22, 2012
Happy Midsummer/Solstice everyone! Unlike many European countries, this time of the year is not celebrated very much in Iceland, at least in comparison. There’s Þórláksmessa (the summer version of it – one is held on 20th June and another on 23rd December) held in the memory of Þórlák hinn helga Þórláksson, the patron saint of…
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)…
Misc. Gender Rules Posted by sequoia on Jun 5, 2012
Here are a few random notes about rules to do with genders. When writing to a mixed group, you can use a slash mark to alternate genders (similar to our “If your student wishes for a bought lunch, he/she can…”). Example: Mig langar til að biðja þig að vera svo góð/ur að svara eftirfarandi könnun…
Prefix and Suffix Meanings Posted by sequoia on Jun 2, 2012
Some affixes add a meaning to the word (such as the prefix ó) and some don’t. There are a few that you can easily look up the meaning of, but many of them don’t exist on their own in the dictionary so here I’m listing mostly ones that you can’t look up. All of these…
Exercise Post Posted by sequoia on May 26, 2012
Here are some things that you can use to study a few of the topics I’ve covered in previous posts. I haven’t taught you all of the grammar needed to understand the questions, or even everything needed to completely understand the posts I’m having you exercise, but that will have to come later or from…
Affixes and Compounds Posted by sequoia on May 19, 2012
This is a companion to the post about compound words that I made earlier. Sometimes Icelandic words are often made of more than one stem/root words at once, along with suffixes, infixes (like a suffix or prefix but in the middle of words), et cetera. This means they’re compound words but not necessarily compounds that…
Compound Words and Genitive Case Posted by sequoia on May 5, 2012
Genitive is one of the most-used cases in Icelandic. Not only is it used to show possession, but it’s also used when making compound words. Compound words are really confusing when you don’t know enough vocabulary to tell where to break the word up in order to look up all the parts in the dictionary…