{"id":1754,"date":"2012-10-12T13:44:22","date_gmt":"2012-10-12T13:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/?p=1754"},"modified":"2014-07-01T10:05:19","modified_gmt":"2014-07-01T10:05:19","slug":"here-there-trolls-everywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/2012\/10\/12\/here-there-trolls-everywhere\/","title":{"rendered":"Here, there, trolls everywhere!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Tr\u00f6lli\u00f0 vi\u00f0 Sk\u00f3garfoss by Sigur\u00f0ur J\u00f3nsson<\/p><\/div>\n

Tr\u00f6lli\u00f0 er \u00fear \/ tr\u00f6lli\u00f0 er \u00fearna; tr\u00f6lli\u00f0 er h\u00e9r \/ tr\u00f6lli\u00f0 er h\u00e9rna<\/em>: which sentences do you think should make you react faster? What about the difference between tr\u00f6lli\u00f0 kemur h\u00e9\u00f0an<\/em>\u00a0as opposed to\u00a0tr\u00f6lli\u00f0 kemur hinga\u00f0<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Of the first two examples both translate as \u201cthe troll is there\u201d and the latter two as \u201cthe troll is here\u201d but Icelandic has two ways of saying \u201chere\u201d and \u201cthere\u201d. Two of them only mean that the troll’s location is known, wherever that is, whereas the others mean that the troll is already so close you can see it. It’s vital that you learn the difference, especially if you happen to be a young man. The trolls vary greatly in character but the friendly ones are unlikely to seek your company, so a troll coming at you is more likely than not looking for dinner \u2013 or in case of the young human men, bed mates. Strangely enough women seem to be relatively safe as the male trolls don’t really seem interested in human females in this particular way, but don’t take this to mean that you can relax around them. Women fit the oven just as easily.<\/p>\n

H\u00e9r<\/em> and \u00fear<\/em> describe a general direction. H\u00e9rna<\/em> means something is within your immediate surroundings, \u00fearna<\/em> means it’s a bit further away but within your vision. H\u00e9r<\/em> is similarly closer than \u00fear<\/em>. To make this a bit more complicated neither can be translated as \u201cover there\u201d or \u201cover here\u201d. Those two would much rather be \u201c\u00fearna megin<\/em>\u201d and \u201ch\u00e9rna megin<\/em>\u201d, although the \u201cover here\/there\u201d has to be occasionally used in translations depending on the nuances of the situation.<\/p>\n

The above words all show kyrrsta\u00f0a<\/em>, no movement. There are other words that hint at direction which either fall under hreyfing fr\u00e1<\/em> (= movement from); h\u00e9\u00f0an\/\u00fea\u00f0an<\/em>, and hreyfing til<\/em> (= movement towards); hinga\u00f0\/\u00feanga\u00f0<\/em>. If you need to describe the direction from which the troll is coming or the direction that it’s going you’re going to have to use those instead.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Sj\u00f8trollet: Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

Tr\u00f6lli\u00f0 kemur h\u00e9\u00f0an<\/em> (= the troll comes from over here). Perhaps the troll has passed some lucky person without noticing him and he’s trying to warn you. The troll is coming right from the place where the speaker is.
\nTr\u00f6lli\u00f0 kemur \u00fea\u00f0an<\/em> (= the troll comes from over there). This troll is coming from a known location: f.ex. it has been seen using the same route often or someone’s seen it go to place X \u2013 its location and the direction it’s moving are known but you don’t necessarily see it at the moment. If it’s always using the same route and you want to point this out to someone you can say: \u201cTr\u00f6lli\u00f0 kemur alltaf \u00fea\u00f0an<\/em>\u201d (= the troll always comes from over there).<\/p>\n

For movement towards something you should use hinga\u00f0<\/em> and \u00feanga\u00f0<\/em> (= towards here\/there). Tr\u00f6lli\u00f0 kemur, komdu hinga\u00f0 til minn\/m\u00edn<\/em> (= the troll is coming, come here where I am)! Tr\u00f6lli\u00f0 f\u00f3r \u00feanga\u00f0<\/em> (= the troll went over there\/to that place\/to that direction). Here are some more examples of other directions working the same way as the words h\u00e9r<\/em> and \u00fear<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Heima; (a\u00f0) heiman, heim<\/em> (= at home; from home, to home)
\nNi\u00f0ri; (a\u00f0) ne\u00f0an, ni\u00f0ur<\/em> (= at below; from below, to below)
\nUppi; (a\u00f0) ofan, upp<\/em> (= at above; from above, to above)<\/p>\n

The following directions work a bit differently, however:<\/p>\n

Fyrir nor\u00f0an, fyrir sunnan, fyrir austan <\/em>and fyrir vestan<\/em> mean “at north\/south\/east\/west” even though they look like the same form as the from-directions mentioned above. To describe movement from these directions you’ll simply have to use the preposition a\u00f0<\/em>:
\na\u00f0 nor\u00f0an, a\u00f0 sunnan, a\u00f0 austan, a\u00f0 vestan<\/em> (= from the north\/south\/east\/west). And strangely, to describe movement towards these directions you would use the forms:
\nNor\u00f0ur, su\u00f0ur, austur, vestur<\/em> (= towards north\/south\/east\/west).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The first image is by Sigur\u00f0ur J\u00f3nsson and can be found here on Flickr<\/a>. Alternatively you can visit her at Sk\u00f3gafoss.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Tr\u00f6lli\u00f0 er \u00fear \/ tr\u00f6lli\u00f0 er \u00fearna; tr\u00f6lli\u00f0 er h\u00e9r \/ tr\u00f6lli\u00f0 er h\u00e9rna: which sentences do you think should make you react faster? What about the difference between tr\u00f6lli\u00f0 kemur h\u00e9\u00f0an\u00a0as opposed to\u00a0tr\u00f6lli\u00f0 kemur hinga\u00f0? Of the first two examples both translate as \u201cthe troll is there\u201d and the latter two as \u201cthe troll…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":1757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[90791,91175],"tags":[91386,91387,91396,6977,91395,13],"class_list":["post-1754","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-icelandic-culture","category-icelandic-grammar","tag-icelandic-lessons","tag-sample-of-icelandic","tag-so-icelandic","tag-supernatural","tag-useful-phrases","tag-vocabulary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1754","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=1754"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3432,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1754\/revisions\/3432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/icelandic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}