{"id":1322,"date":"2012-07-09T18:57:47","date_gmt":"2012-07-09T18:57:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/?p=1322"},"modified":"2012-07-09T21:52:37","modified_gmt":"2012-07-09T21:52:37","slug":"a-hot-dog-for-mr-clinton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/2012\/07\/09\/a-hot-dog-for-mr-clinton\/","title":{"rendered":"A hot dog for Mr. Clinton."},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I put together a short grammar lesson with some easy rules on the use of hj\u00e1<\/em>, vi\u00f0<\/em> and me\u00f0<\/em>, \u00a0three prepositions that can all be translated as \u201cwith\u201d. The difficulty lies in the different nuances and usage of all three, and getting them mixed up will hardly ever work in a grammatical sense. And since I was feeling nostalgic I decided to illustrate it in style with the ones I myself grew up with* while studying f.ex. English as a child: this is Jack, that is Jill, see Jack run** \u2013 you know how those pictures would have looked like, don’t you? But I digress.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0(= Bill is planning to buy a hot dog at B\u00e6jarins Beztu***. This really did happen by the way<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Hj\u00e1<\/strong><\/p>\n

Possibly the easiest one of the three, hj\u00e1<\/em> translates also as \u201cbeside\u201d, \u201cnear\u201d, \u201cat\u201d and \u201cby\u201d. This preposition is a student friendly one in that it only takes a \u00fe\u00e1gufall<\/em> after it. Hj\u00e1<\/em> refers most often to a location that is next to something, for example:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(= B\u00e6jarins Beztu can be found by Kolaporti\u00f0.)<\/p>\n

Hj\u00e1 can also be used to describe f.ex. living arrangements \u2013 Barni\u00f0 b\u00fdr hj\u00e1 m\u00f6mmu sinni<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Vi\u00f0<\/strong><\/p>\n

It gets a little bit tricky when it comes to deciding which one of these needs to be used in which occasion, and vi\u00f0<\/em> is possibly the most difficult to use. I remember asking our professor if there was any rule to the situations that needed vi\u00f0<\/em>. She thought about it for a moment, shrugged and said in an airy tone:
\n\u201cYou’ll just have to learn it by heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

I’m sad to say this but it’s largely true. However, there are at least guidelines to the usage of vi\u00f0<\/em> which she happily did tell us about in great detail. For example, vi\u00f0<\/em> is nearly always used with the verb tala <\/em>(= to speak).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(= Bill tries to speak Icelandic with the lady. Shush, Bill is allowed to do that if he wants to!)<\/p>\n

Me\u00f0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Me\u00f0<\/em> tends to be the one most often used to describe being with someone: \u00e9g er me\u00f0 vini m\u00ednum <\/em>(= I’m with my friends),<\/em>\u00a0or when talking about an item that goes with another item: \u00e9g drekk vatn me\u00f0 kaffinu <\/em>(= I drink water with coffee), mig langar a\u00f0 hafa herbergi me\u00f0 tveimur gluggum <\/em>(I want to have a room with two windows). Most times\u00a0me\u00f0<\/em> goes with a \u00fe\u00e1gufall<\/em>. Sometimes, although rarely, me\u00f0<\/em> takes a \u00feolfall<\/em> when it goes with the verbs fara<\/em> (= to go), koma<\/em> (= to come) or as a combination vera me\u00f0<\/em> (I already wrote about that one\u00a0here<\/a>): komdu me\u00f0 kaffi\u00f0 <\/em>(= Bring over the coffee)!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(= I’d like to have one with everything****. Direct translation would be “I’m going to have one with everything” but it is actually a perfectly polite way of ordering food.)<\/p>\n

It can be a little bit difficult to tell vi\u00f0<\/em> and me\u00f0<\/em> apart. Ertu me\u00f0 b\u00f3kina? J\u00e1, h\u00fan er \u00e1 bak vi\u00f0 pokann<\/em>\u00a0(= Do you have the book? Yes, it’s behind the bag). The difference is not great but it is there: with me\u00f0<\/em> the book simply is with you, somewhere, with vi\u00f0<\/em> it has an exact location.<\/p>\n

Vi\u00f0<\/em> goes most often with \u00feolfall<\/em> but in some rare cases it can take a \u00fe\u00e1gufall<\/em> as well. These are usually situations where something is being received \u2013 \u00e9g t\u00f3k vi\u00f0 peningum af honum<\/em>\u00a0(= I received money from him) \u2013 or a “reaction” to something is included \u2013 svar vi\u00f0 br\u00e9fi <\/em>(= a reply to a letter).<\/p>\n

Another way that you can try to tell which one you should use is by simple mathematics. First see whether action of any kind is involved because \u00feolfall<\/em> is more often used to describe that than \u00fe\u00e1gufall.<\/em>\u00a0In most cases vi\u00f0<\/em>, rather than me\u00f0<\/em>, takes \u00feolfall,<\/em>\u00a0so… er, alas this is not a foolproof method but it still is one that our professor suggested. Well, I did warn you it would not be easy! It might just be best to do it the other way she also suggested and simply learn all the uses of vi\u00f0<\/em> by heart, one by one as they come.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*Or perhaps the heatwave has softened my will to live and I just couldn’t muster the energy to be creative.<\/p>\n

**On some days this still seems to be all I’m capable of, I’m afraid. Here is Ann, there is John, the sun is hot, may I please have a glass of water…<\/p>\n

***B\u00e6jarins Beztu is often jokingly called the most well-known restaurant of Iceland. It’s a small hot dog stand by the harbour and famous visitors have indeed included Bill Clinton. They still have a photo of that printed on the stand!<\/p>\n

****I’m sorry about this but I – I lied. Bill Clinton only wanted mustard on his hot dog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PS It struck me that if there are any new readers I should probably translate the case names – \u00feolfall<\/em> is usually translated as accusative and \u00fe\u00e1gufall<\/em> as dative. I prefer to use the Icelandic names because the way these cases work is quite unlike what the English translations would let you assume. It may be a little bit confusing at first but I promise that once you study further, using the Icelandic terms may actually help you to make more sense of the grammar rules.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Today I put together a short grammar lesson with some easy rules on the use of hj\u00e1, vi\u00f0 and me\u00f0, \u00a0three prepositions that can all be translated as \u201cwith\u201d. The difficulty lies in the different nuances and usage of all three, and getting them mixed up will hardly ever work in a grammatical sense. And…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":1349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[91175],"tags":[70,178,91386,91396],"class_list":["post-1322","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-icelandic-grammar","tag-food","tag-history","tag-icelandic-lessons","tag-so-icelandic"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1322"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1340,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1322\/revisions\/1340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}