Archive for 'Icelandic grammar'
Getting understood in Iceland: pre-aspiration. Posted by hulda on Apr 23, 2013
One way of describing spoken Icelandic is that Icelanders breathe it out. Take this literally: there are many “hidden” extra h-sounds in the language that aren’t written down but nevertheless are there, which give Icelandic its trademark whisper-like sound that’s unlike all the other Nordic languages. I already wrote about some of them in the…
Subjunctive mood; it can be easy to use! Posted by hulda on Apr 8, 2013
Wouldn’t it be awesome if there was a way of telling when to use this form of verbs in Icelandic? Something that would always, or almost always work for you, and that the exceptions would be easy to tell apart? Here’s the good news – there are such rules! Here’s the bad news – it…
Subjunctive mood and how it’s used, part 1. Posted by hulda on Feb 28, 2013
Viðtengingarháttur, the subjunctive mood, is an often used verb form in Icelandic as it not only shows the typical subjunctive mood unreality – wishes, hopes, suspicions, plans, possibilities etc. – but is necessary for the most common polite phrases. Viðtengingarháttur -forms exist in both present and past tense. The word itself is a compound word…
A 5 step guide to rhythm. Posted by hulda on Feb 6, 2013
Like I promised last month, here’s the entry on the length of vowels and what determines whether a vowel is long or short. For example, why is the name Vala pronounced with a long first “a” but the name Valla with a short one? Why do the words gata (= street) and hús (= house)…
A naked tourist on the Prime Minister’s lawn. Posted by hulda on Jan 31, 2013
One of our current classes is now focusing on what makes written text difficult to read. The most obvious causes are very topic specific vocabulary (that can make the text hard even for the locals), proverbs and idioms that are impossible to understand unless you already know what they mean etc. Then there’s the word…
Personal pronouns, or how polite can be rude. Posted by hulda on Jan 23, 2013
Personal pronouns – something that should be among the easiest things to learn in almost any new language – take a surprising amount of time to learn when it comes to Icelandic. This is partially because of the many declensions they have, but also because there are two different sets of them in use depending…
Getting understood in Iceland, part 1. Posted by hulda on Jan 9, 2013
A typical problem, when trying to use Icelandic to speak with the locals, is that for some reason they look at you quizzically and go “ha”* and you end up repeating yourself over and over again. Yet in the classroom or when talking with your teachers you never run into this same problem. Why is…