Handy Icelandic Phrases

Update: You can now listen to an audio file of the most common Icelandic phrases as spoken by my partner, a native Icelander.

Wikipedia has a page dedicated to the most common phrases in 100 languages. Language 39 is Icelandic. The Wikipedia page is marked for deletion because it’s too long and uses non-standard pronounciation information. For my own reference and before the page is deleted, I’ve copied the phrases from Wikipedia, minus the pronounciation info:

Learning Icelandic – svangur

Ok, today’s icelandic word is

svangur meaning hungry pronounced svowngur (first part ryhmes with frown)

I am hungry translates to ég er svangur. This is the masculine adverb.

Learning Icelandic- bíll

Ok, today’s icelandic word is

bíll meaning car pronounced biikll

Two letter ls together sounds like the kl of the word klingon. It appears in the middle or at the end of a word.

Learning Icelandic – afmæli

I’m gonna be learning one icelandic word a day starting today. By learning I mean remembering the spelling and the pronounciation. The word for today is:

afmæli meaning birthday pronounced aam-eye-lei

which is apt, as it’s Steinunn’s birthday today. We spent half the morning recovering from last night’s impromptu drinking session. We watched England lose the football at the Three Sisters in Cowgate, met Lee from Lancaster spout on about how life was brilliant, passed a few cheeky half pints through the iron railings of the pub to a man who called himself Jesus, and then hit a few more pubs in the Grassmarket.

The second half of the morning Steinunn opened up the pressies I got for her that took me about an hour to wrap! I’m sure it would have taken most folk just 5 minutes, but like most blokes, I’m useless at wrapping. I think she liked the stuff i got.