Tag Archives: so icelandic
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 2. Posted by hulda on Jan 16, 2013
“It didn’t sound anything like Icelandic.” “What didn’t?” “Well, for example Thorin’s name isn’t really pronounced like that.” Roughly a week ago we went to see Hobbit, or There and Back Again and the discussion above happened right after the movie was over. We agreed that the movie itself was awesome, but the Icelandic viewers…
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…
Gleðilegt nýtt ár! Happy New Year! Posted by hulda on Dec 31, 2012
New Year is called áramót, or nýár, in Icelandic. Whereas the latter needs no specific translation the former is rather poetic and means “years meeting” or “the meeting of the years”. New Year’s Eve is gamlárskvöld, “old year’s evening”, and New Year’s day nýársdagur, “day of the new year”. New Year’s celebrations in Iceland are…
Gleðileg jól! Posted by hulda on Dec 24, 2012
It’s the 24th and I’m glad to say we’re all still alive. Some door slamming activity has been noted and I’ve had to make piparkökur, gingerbread twice because they keep randomly disappearing, but other than that we may have managed to avoid luring in any of the local “Santas“. Let’s celebrate this by reading more…
Jólasveinar, the Icelandic Yule lads. Posted by hulda on Dec 12, 2012
What if there was no Santa Claus but thirteen trolls instead? What if your main task for the Christmas season was not to be good so that you’d get presents but to be good so that you might live through it? What if talk of the Christmas trolls was once officially banned due to their…