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    Beginner's Icelandic with Online Audio
    Beginner's Icelandic with Online Audio
    Beginner's Icelandic with Online Audio
    Ebook378 pages4 hours

    Beginner's Icelandic with Online Audio

    By Helga Hilmisdóttir and Jacek Kozlowski

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    About this ebook

    Learn Icelandic with this complete course, now with free audio download!

    Icelandic is a North-Germanic language spoken by over 300,000 people, mainly in Iceland where it is an official language. The language can be traced back to the Old Norse brought by settlers from Norway in the 9th and 10th centuries. Because of Iceland’s isolation and remote location, the linguistic changes that occurred in other Scandinavian languages are not seen in Icelandic, which still has complicated grammar systems.

    Ideal for those new to Icelandic, learning at home or in the classroom, Beginner’s Icelandic with Online Audio includes:

    • Fourteen carefully-paced and practical lessons with dialogues, vocabulary, expressions, and exercises
    • An alphabet and pronunciation guide
    • English-Icelandic and Icelandic-English glossaries
    • A brief introduction to Iceland’s history and culture
    • Online MP3 audio files for download featuring pronunciation by native speakers
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHippocrene Books
    Release dateOct 6, 2020
    ISBN9780781887328
    Beginner's Icelandic with Online Audio
    Author

    Helga Hilmisdóttir

    Helga Hilmisdóttir is an associate professor at the University of Helsinki in Finland. She has taught Icelandic at universities in Finland, Iceland and Canada. She is author of Icelandic Practical Dictionary, published by Hippocrene Books in 2017.

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      Book preview

      Beginner's Icelandic with Online Audio - Helga Hilmisdóttir

      PRONUNCIATION

      A note on pronunciation: this book is not meant to be a course on linguistics, so many of the sounds and concepts have been simplified for ease of learning.

      The Icelandic Alphabet

      The Icelandic alphabet contains 32 letters in the following order:

      a á b d ð e é f g h i í j k l m n o ó p r s t u ú v x y ý þ æ ö

      In the following chart, the first column contains each letter in its upper-case and lower-case form followed by the way that it is spelled in Icelandic in parentheses. The second column gives the approximate pronunciation of each letter, and the third column gives a few examples from Icelandic.

      It is important to memorize the Icelandic letter order, especially when using a dictionary.

      Special Letter Combinations

      The letter combinations au, ei, and ey are pronounced in a special way in Icelandic:

      Pronunciation of vowels before ng and nk

      Vowels before ng and nk go through a change and are pronounced differently than usual. A summary of the vowel changes is shown below:

      Double Consonants

      Double consonants such as mm, bb, and rr are pronounced as longer sounds than their single-consonant counterparts. The sounds p, t, and k are pronounced with a breath of air before them when these consonants are doubled. Thus, pp is pronounced close to hp, tt is pronounced ht, and kk is pronounced hk.

      There are two double consonants that have a special pronunciation: ll and nn.

      Double-l is pronounced with a t-insertion, so that it becomes tl. The word sæll hi is pronounced more like sætl. You should practice this quite a lot since it occurs often in Icelandic. Note that the t-insertion does not occur in loan words such as grilla to barbecue and nicknames such as Halli or Kalli (short for Haraldur and Karl).

      The following are a few examples of words with double-l that do not have a t-insertion:

      Double-n is also pronounced with a t-insertion, but only after an accented vowel or the special letter combinations au, ei, and ey. The word einn one is pronounced eitn because the double-n follows the letter combination ei, and the word fínn elegant is pronounced fítn because the accent is on the vowel preceding the double-n. The verb að finna to find, however, does not have t-insertion in it since the i before the double-n is not accented.

      The following words are pronounced without t-insertion:

      T-insertion occurs in other Icelandic consonant combinations that are not double consonants but are worth bringing up here. The consonant clusters sl, sn, rl, and rn are pronounced respectively stl, stn, rtl, and rtn.

      Stress

      By stress, we generally mean which syllables receive most of the emphasis when speaking. Compare in English: I subject myself to hard work with My subject is the future of robots. Notice that in the first sentence, subject receives stress on the second syllable while in the second sentence the stress is on the first syllable.

      In Icelandic, the stress pattern does not change word to word. Stress in Icelandic is always on the first syllable. Secondary stress or half-stress sometimes occurs in longer words, but the important thing to remember is that the first syllable of a word must be stressed. This is especially important for words which are similar in Icelandic and English since it is very tempting to pronounce them as they are pronounced in English. Compare where the stress is in Icelandic versus English:

      Length of Vowels

      Vowels in Icelandic can be either short or long. If a syllable is unstressed, its vowel is always short; if a syllable is stressed, its vowel is long. However, if a stressed syllable occurs before a double consonant, its vowel is short. Thus, in dama lady, the first a is long and the second is short. However, in amma grandmother, the first a is short and so is the second a.

      Also, a vowel is long if it is followed by pr, tr, kr, gr, or gð.

      A vowel is short before pn, tn, kn, pl, tl, or kl.

      How to use this book

      This book is designed to provide the reader with a general vocabulary of common words and the basics of Icelandic grammar. The material it covers is equivalent to a first-year university course in Icelandic. Each lesson introduces everyday situations in which visitors to Iceland could find themselves. Upon completing the book, readers will have the vocabulary and grammar that will enable them to participate in simple conversations on everyday topics.

      The aim of this book is to present the basic grammatical structure of Icelandic. The most common categories of regular nouns and the conjugation of verbs in the present tense will be introduced. For ease of use, the grammatical discussion has been simplified and exceptions are generally not noted. The past tense of verbs and the subjunctive form are not addressed, although a few instances of these forms occur in the dialogues.

      LESSON 1

      Kveðjur

      Greetings

      Samtal 1: Kveðjur

      Jeremy situr á kaffistofu háskólans og er að drekka kaffi. Kona sem situr við borðið fer að tala við hann.

      Samtal 2

      Næsta dag hittir Jeremy Hrafnhildi og manninn hennar Gunnar á kaffistofunni.

      Dialogue 1: Greetings

      Jeremy is sitting in the university cafeteria having a cup of coffee. A woman sitting at his table starts talking to him.

      Dialogue 2

      The following day, Jeremy meets Hrafnhildur and her husband Gunnar in the cafeteria.

      How to use the vocabulary lists in this book

      Some of the words in the vocabulary lists in this book appear in a form that is slightly different from that which you see in the dialogues.

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