Tag Archives: pronunciation
Ice Cream Iceland! Posted by hulda on Oct 16, 2013
“It’s too cold for ice cream” – said no Icelandic person ever. I have no explanation to how a country that has a cold climate, has its capital city located 66°north and is even called Iceland is able to develop such a fierce passion for ice cream as the Icelanders have. They’re more than willing…
A sheep by any other name… Posted by hulda on Oct 8, 2013
Afi á Á á á á á is a perfect example of the dangers of speaking Icelandic; it has a good selection of both homophones and homonyms. Homophones, words that are written differently but pronounced almost or exactly the same will become a challenge when you speak, homonyms such as á that are spelled and…
Feeling under the weather? Posted by hulda on Sep 15, 2013
A certain sign of autumn has now arrived to Iceland: the storms. It’s good to remember that Icelanders call some kinds of storms drizzle, a bit breezy etc., so always be prepared to almost get your window blown in if the weather forecast states there’ll be light rain and some wind. Rubber boots and a…
Traveling in Iceland – ghosts and hidden people. Posted by hulda on Jul 31, 2013
Near the Valahnúkur cliffs is a hot spring area called Gunnuhver, Gunna’s hot spring. It’s easily accessible so if you’re visiting the lighthouse you should definitely go see this place as well. There are two roads that lead there, one from the main road and one from the lighthouse. Something has once been built here…
Traveling in Iceland – Reykjanes. Posted by hulda on Jul 29, 2013
After a whole month of bad weather the summer finally arrived to Iceland. We made some quick plans – quick because they had been made before and always abandoned because of the continuous rain – packed our tent and other camping items into the jeep and headed out. We decided to stay close to Reykjavík…
Swearing in Icelandic. Posted by hulda on Jul 24, 2013
Now for the blog post that some of you may have been waiting for! 😀 In fact the thing that prompted this blog post is that my SO has recently acquired new PS3 games, which means that our home is now filled with a steady stream of “Neiiii!!!” followed by something that would probably turn…
Getting understood in Iceland: the difficult sounds R, Þ, Ð and LL. Posted by hulda on Jun 28, 2013
If studying Icelandic in a large, varied group of foreigners teaches you anything, it’s that different mother tongues create different areas of difficulty for the language learner. The most obvious hurdle arrives in pronunciation lessons, what’s difficult to an English speaker to learn will be quickly learned by a Swedish speaker, what’s near impossible for…