All Things Iceland

What I Love & Hate About Learning Icelandic
The words “love“ and “hate“ are very strong words. To be fair, I don‘t actually love or hate any part of learning the Icelandic language but those words work much better in a title than what I “enjoy the most“ and what I “strongly dislike“. So, just take those words with a big grain salt.
Regarding some backstory, I have been learning Icelandic off and on since I moved in 2016. It certainly has not been a linear journey, and I‘ve had many ups and downs but progress is happening.
5 Things I Love About Learning Icelandic Having a secret language you can speak around the world. Most people don’t know the language and being able to speak the language around others without them know what you are saying is pretty cool. There are unusual sounds, such as thedouble ll sound and I enjoy trying to mimic these sounds You have the tools to be able to read Old Icelandic. The language has evolved slowly enough that the current language gives you the ability to read Old Icelandic text, like reading something from the 12th century Interesting insight into the culture. For instance, there are a lot of words for snow like hundslappadrífa (snow flakes that are big like dog paws), Snædís (snow fairy or snow goddess), and so on. When I do speak Icelandic to someone who knows the language well or grew up speaking it, they are delighted to hear that I am learning. The language learning journey has been difficult for me at time, so any and all encouragement is greatly appreciated.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlAApXyLIJQ
5 Things I Hate About Learning Icelandic Icelandic Grammar can be complicated because there are four cases- Nouns, adjectives and pronouns are declined in these cases. There are also several genders and that makes a big difference too. Numbers from 1-4 are also a pain in the butt sometimes
- Remembering how to decline properly can really trip you up
- I used to only make simple sentences for a while because I was so worried about making a mistake with the grammar
- Use the example of a horse
- A Horse – hestur (nominative)
- About a Horse – um hest (accusative)
- From a horse – frá hesti (dative)
- To a horse – til hests (genitive)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkYrJpUFp9k
Random Fact of the EpisodeEiríkur Rögnvaldsson, professor emeritus of Icelandic linguistics, wrote in an article that he would like unions to push for employers to bear the cost of teaching foreign employees Icelandic.
Icelanders need to get used to others learning the subject
We are used to being a monolingual nation. It’s been a while since there were very few foreigners here. In the past, there were merchants and officials who spoke strange Icelandic, and people made fun of it,”
Eiríkur RögnvaldssonTweet
Icelanders are not used to people learning Icelandic and not speaking it perfectly.
“What I was saying is that we just have to get used to it, because it’s quite clear that the number of foreigners will continue to increase here. There is nothing to suggest otherwise. It has been demonstrated that people are needed for work in the coming years.”
Eiríkur RögnvaldssonTweet
Icelandic Word(s) of the Episode
Hata (hate) – ég hata þig
Elska (love) – ég elska þig
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Þakka þér kærlega fyrir að hlusta og sjáumst fljótlega (Thank you kindly for listening and see you soon).
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