Icelandic is not the easiest language to learn. Its difficulty arises from two main factors: a complicated grammatical system, and a limited pool of resources. In order to speak correctly, the student of Icelandic will need to spend several weeks drilling grammatical paradigms; and even if the student has a good basic command of the language, it will be difficult to find Icelanders who will speak only Icelandic without switching to English. Almost all Icelanders speak English, and they tend to be proud of it. When foreigners come, they enjoy showing off their abilities in English and they want to use the opportunity to practice their English, particularly with Americans and Brits. Despite the difficulties, however, there are a number of resources to help you in learning the language, and with perseverance you can become fluent.
Grammar
Icelandic is a Germanic language. It is related to the other Germanic languages: German, English, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, and most closely, Faroese. Because the literary tradition of Icelandic began in the Middle Ages, the language has remained relatively stable for the last 800 years. This means that Icelandic preserves more inflection than the other Germanic languages.
Inflection is a system by which grammatical function is marked by the shape of a word. We see inflection in English pronouns: for example, the pronouns he, him, and his. “He” indicates the subject, “him” indicates an object, and “his” indicates the possessive. In Icelandic, the system of inflection is rather complicated. There are, for instance, 18 distinct ways of saying the number one, depending on the case and the grammatical gender.
The best way to learn Icelandic grammar is just to buckle down and drill it. Actively memorize all the grammatical paradigms. Trying to do it all at once, however, can be overwhelming, so I recommend taking 15-20 minutes a day just to work on grammar. Over a few weeks, this time will really add up into something meaningful.
Resources
In contrast to Spanish or Chinese, there are not many resources for learning Icelandic. Getting a hold of the few resources there are can be difficult, and sometimes expensive. What follows is a list of the main resources for learning Icelandic and a review of each of these resources.
Teach Yourself Icelandic – A good place to start, but not a particularly thorough resources. Make sure to get the audio CD’s along with the book. This is one of the weaker books in the Teach Yourself series in my opinion, but it is one of the more readily available resources.
Learning Icelandic – This book and tape combo is used for the beginning level of the summer intensive course in Icelandic in Reykjavik at the University of Iceland. It is quite basic in scope, and is mostly a bunch of phrases and dialogues with pictures. It’s light on grammar, but the audio materials are good.
Colloquial Icelandic – Probably the best book and CD combo available for Icelandic. There are some errors in the book, so watch out, but on the whole it is excellent. The dialogues can get complicated quickly, so this is probably not the best place to start; work up to it through the other two books mentioned above. The grammar summary at the end of this book is really handy.
Icelandic – This is an older book by Stefán Einarsson. It’s a great resource for grammar and has a good reader as well. It can be quite technical, and some of the language is a bit archaic. Also, there are no audio files. Nonetheless, it’s a classic and I’m a big fan.
Icelandic online – This is the online course hosted by the University of Iceland and serves as the prerequisite for the summer course. When I tried it a few years ago, I was not a fan, but I believe they have improved it since then.
Websites – You can get the news at mbl.is and watch TV or listen to radio in Icelandic at ruv.is.
Kid’s Books – If you can get a hold of children’s books in Icelandic (nearly impossible in the US, but a bit easier in the UK) they can be a good way to practice and build vocabulary. I scored aHarry Potter at a used bookstore in Reykjavik along with several other children’s books, and they’ve been good to me.
Dictionaries – Dictionaries are really expensive, and there is no satisfactory English-Icelandic/Icelandic-English Dictionary. You can get them separately, but that’s the only way. Other dictionaries include:
• A pocket dictionary that goes in both directions by Arnold R. Taylor, but it’s pretty weak.
• The glossary at the end of Einarsson’s Icelandic can serve as a basic dictionary.
• If you go to Iceland, there is a picture dictionary you can buy there called Stóra Mynd Orðabókin, “The Big Picture Dictionary.” It’s really expensive, but it has detailed pictures of all manner of objects labeled in five languages: Icelandic, English, German, French, and Spanish.
• A good Icelandic-Icelandic dictionary will run you about $130.
• You can find an Icelandic-English dictionary online at:
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/IcelOnline/IcelOnline.TEId-idx?id=IcelOnline.IEOrd
Another useful site for learning the declensions is:
http://bin.arnastofnun.is/
Learn Icelandic Online / May 2013
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