Learning Icelandic: Icelandic Tutorial - Icelandic has many English sounds as both languages coming from the same language tree. Icelandic is not largely a grammatical language, but instead a lexical language.

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Icelandic Tutorial written by Daniel Roche


1. Pronunciation

Icelandic has many English sounds due the languages both coming from the same language tree. Unless mentioned, assume English pronunciation.

Á á - said as “ow” as in cow
Ð ð - said as “th” in the
E e - said as the short “ai” sound in air
É é - said as yeah, but shorter
F f - at the start of words it is said as the English f. Between vowels as English. Before l or n as a b. Fnd is said as English m and fnt is said as hm
G g - At the beginning of words it is said as a hard English g. In between vowels and at the end of a word a very soft throaty g resembling a toned down German “ch” at the back of the throat.
It is not pronounced between accented vowels. It is said as an Icelandic j between a vowel and j. After a vowel and before a t or s it is a hard German “ch”
I i - said as “I” in win
Í í - said as “ee” in we
J j - said as a “y” at the beginning of words. Elsewhere it is aspirated before the “y” sound
O o - said as “o” in hot
Ó ó - said as “oh”
R r - is always rolled
S s - always an “s”, never said as a z
U u - said as the French “eux” but shorter
Ú ú - said as the “ew” sound in yew
X x - said as a hard German “ch”
Y y - see I
Ý ý - see í
Þ þ - said as the “th” sound in thing
Æ æ - said as “eye”
Ö ö - said as “ur” as in murder

Hv - as “kf” in thankful
Ll - as “tl”
Nn - as tn after accented vowel or diphthong. This also happens between rl, rn, sl and sn
Pp, tt, kk are all aspirated
Au - is said as “öj”
Ei and ey - said as the “a” sound in case

2. Alphabet and the names of the letters

A a a N n enn
Á á á O o o
B b bé Ó ó ó
D d dé P p pé
Ð ð eð R r er
E e e S s ess
É é é T t té
F f eff U u u
G g ge Ú ú ú
H h há V v vaff
I i i X x ex
Í í í Y y ufsilon y
J j joð Ý ý ufsilon ý
K k ká Þ þ þorn
L l ell Æ æ æ
M m emm Ö ö ö

3. Nouns and Cases

Cases are simply the ending of a noun. In Icelandic most nouns are declined. There are 3 genders (masculine, feminine and neuter) and 4 cases (nominative, accusative, dative and genitive). Icelandic is not largely a grammatical language, but instead a lexical language. This means that is it is verbs and prepositions which govern cases, rather than sentence position. If there is both a verb and preposition in the sentence it will be the preposition rather than the verb which decides the case.

4. Nominative Case

This is the case in which all nouns appear in the dictionary. If the verb in the sentence does not govern a case, and there is no preposition then the noun will be in the nominative case. The nominative singular endings are as follows:

Masculine: ur, l, n, i
Feminine: a, or no ending
Neuter: no endings, although nouns ending with accented accents are usually neuter.

5. Accusative Case

The singular accusative case endings are as follows:

Masculine: remove the nominative ending. If the noun ends in i then it changes to a.
Feminine: if the noun had no ending in the nominative, it will have no ending in the accusative. If the noun ended in a it will change to ur.
Neuter: no ending.

6. Dative Case

The dative singular endings are:

Masculine: very irregular group. Some acquire i, others do not. If the noun ended in i in the nominative, it will end in a in the dative.
Feminine: the same rules apply as the feminine accusative.
Neuter: add i.

7. Genitive Case

Masculine: add s. If the noun ended in i in the nominative, it will end in an a in the genitive.
Feminine: nouns which ended in a become ar. Nouns which had no ending remain ur.
Neuter: add s.

8. Plurals

The table below shows the case endings in the plural:


Masculine
-ur, l, n -i Feminine
No ending -a Neuter
Nominative ir ir ur Vowel shift See section 8
Accusative a ir ur
Dative U(m)*
Genitive a