Pronunciation of vowels. Posted by hulda on May 10, 2012
Or: how to avoid saying “penis” or something equally embarrassing by accident. While it’s ok to have an accent it’s still crucial to learn to pronounce as correctly as possible and the reason for this is that words easily change their meaning in Icelandic. Before we go on I feel like apologizing for the chosen topic…
Icelandic Immersion Day Posted by sequoia on May 8, 2012
Everyone says the best way to learn a language is through immersion. Whether or not this is true for your learning style it can at the least be a good test of your skills – but how can you be immersed when you’re nowhere near Iceland, Icelanders, or even other learners? Apart from using lots…
The myth of Sæmundur fróði. Posted by hulda on May 7, 2012
In the middle of the clearing, right outside of the old main building of the University of Iceland stands a peculiar statue of a man raising a book against what appears to be a fish of sorts. The fish is actually not a fish but a seal – and the seal is not in fact…
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…
Hafa, eiga, vera með. Posted by hulda on May 4, 2012
Sequoia already went briefly over these three, but I decided to dig a little bit deeper into them and the other rules that are tied to these verbs. Besides, repetition is the mother of all learning! There are three ways of showing ownership in Icelandic, or better said three verbs for it: eiga, hafa and vera…
May Day Posted by sequoia on May 1, 2012
Note: We changed some things in our blog system, so sorry if you saw something strange over the past couple weeks (my posts were a little messed up and I think some of them didn’t show up for a while). Today is May Day (also known as Labour Day – “Verkalýðsdagur / Working-classes’ Day”), always…
Differences between America and Iceland Posted by sequoia on Apr 28, 2012
These are things I had to learn by myself in most cases. I have mentioned similar things in my previous posts too. – Most Icelandic business’ webpages are just a homepage. A physical shop in Iceland very likely has no website that you can buy things from, you have to actually go there in person…