Tag Archives: intermediate
Dive right in! Posted by hulda on Jan 16, 2014
How can you apply learning in practice if you don’t live in Iceland? It’s entirely possible, although it will naturally take you some extra effort. It will also pay you back well if you ever chance to visit Iceland – in some situations it’s good to instinctively know what to say, such as “hjálp” (=…
Learning Icelandic vs. speaking Icelandic Posted by hulda on Jan 8, 2014
Hello again and welcome to the year 2014 with the Icelandic blog and Hulda! For January there’ll be a theme again, and this time it’ll be… dun dun duuunnn… practical learning; Icelandic in the daily life of a language-learner. I will be aiming for installing just a little bit of Icelandic language into your daily…
New Year’s party in Iceland Posted by hulda on Dec 30, 2013
The year is almost over and we’re all heading for a new one, so let’s take a moment to have a look at the past, present and future of Iceland and this particular Icelandic blog shall we? 😉 PAST Well, that sounds dramatic but in fact I just wanted to take a quick look back…
A Yule story Posted by hulda on Dec 21, 2013
Many Icelandic stories of Christmas time are about elves visiting humans, for one reason or another. They’re not always evil after all, many times they may be in need of help instead or just generally curious, even well-meaning if they like their human neighbours. Elves often gave gifts to people they liked in particular and…
The Christmas Cat is coming to town! Posted by hulda on Dec 12, 2013
You better watch out, you better not cry… and you better receive at least one item of clothing for Christmas. This is how you’ll live to see the New Year, at least according to an Icelandic tradition. As a typical Christmas time scare for children, Urðarkötturinn (= the cliff cat) is actually so frightening that…
Getting understood in Iceland: eight times G. Posted by hulda on Dec 4, 2013
Back to the pronunciation series! Speaking a new language is something that’ll grow on you little by little so don’t even think you’re supposed to learn this all in one go, but it may be helpful to read over and then go back to if/whenever something puzzles you. Something probably will, sooner or later, because…
Thor son of Odin wears it best. Posted by hulda on Nov 30, 2013
“What’s the most typical syllable that names begin in Medieval, Norwegian sagas?” our professor asked on our this week’s Medieval literature lesson. People guessed immediately Þór/Þor, which was actually not correct for Norway but rather Iceland. If you’ve ever read Icelandic sagas you’ll totally understand this one… it’s almost comical to try to follow the…