Tag Archives: vocabulary
Icelandic sweater I love you. Posted by hulda on Sep 10, 2014
There are few items of clothing that could ever take the place of lopapeysa, the Icelandic wool sweater, in my heart. Made of Icelandic wool it quickly felts into an all-weather garment that will keep you warm and dry in almost any possible condition, and wearing two on top of each other will easily get you…
Smoky vikings of Smoky Bay. Posted by hulda on Jul 31, 2014
As I was browsing through my notes about hljóðbreyting (= metathesis) for another entry that I currently have in the works I found something interesting that I thought might amuse you while not being quite as heavy as learning the theory of different sound changes. I understand many of you, dear readers, have recently suffered…
Icelandic horses for courses and… courses. Posted by hulda on Jul 17, 2014
Question and answer time! During the last month you’ve asked the Icelandic blog, via both the e-mail and the comments section, a couple of interesting questions that I’ll try to answer today. First a question was about horses: what are all the different words that mean horse in Icelandic? The most obvious one is hestur of…
Reykjavík calling: we’re on fire (again). Posted by hulda on Jul 11, 2014
Hi all, it’s been quite an insanely busy and action-packed week, not to mention a small injury in the family has momentarily made a nurse out of me (although hopefully if you ever need a nurse it will be someone with better handling skills). We’re doing fine at the moment despite all my best efforts at…
Nightless nights, dayless days. Posted by hulda on May 26, 2014
Like A hundred names for snow might show, Icelandic has quite a rich vocabulary when it comes to nature and the seasons. An obvious example besides snow is light and darkness and the change from one to other, because the time during which day and night are about the same length is very, extremely short. Due…
Not just a number. Posted by hulda on Mar 31, 2014
Explaining one’s age or the length of time that’s not measured with a clock (weeks, months, years etc.) in Icelandic is a mildly complex sport. My best advice for a student would be to just learn the example sentences by heart and use them until they come automatically; it takes some time but it’s far…
Hekla volcano – temperature on the rise. Posted by hulda on Mar 25, 2014
As spring approaches we begin to look at the volcanoes a bit more closely, especially the two that are overdue their eruption schedule: Katla and Hekla. In Iceland it’s actually very typical that eruptions begin in the spring or early summer because that’s when the snow and ice melt off the mountains and even subglacial…