# Icelandic: í, til, á



## LurkingFox

I've been learning Icelandic for the past month, and I'm afraid I still can't make much sense of certain prepositions... Namely: *í, til, á*

As I understand, they can all be meant to mean "to" in the sense of movement (going to the mountain, going to iceland, ...) but they're not all interchangeable. For example I don't understand why one says:
- _í dag_ but _á mánudaginn_
- _fara á bóksnafnið _but_ fara í búsið _or_ fara til Íslands_

Are there rules that dictate when one should use a specific preposition  or do I just have to bite the bullet and learn them all by heart?


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## Silver_Biscuit

I'm afraid it's bad news. Prepositions are one of _the_ hardest points about learning a language and there is really not much help we can give you on here, unless you have a very specific question. It is just down to practice, and in the majority of cases there just isn't an explanation for why certain prepositions are used in certain places. I wouldn't recommend you actually sit down and try to learn them by heart, because that will certainly be a painful experience and I can't imagine particularly productive. Just expose yourself as much as possible to Icelandic, read and listen to it as much as you can and have faith that these expressions _will_ start to sound 'right' or 'wrong'. When you have heard 'á mánudaginn' a hundred times, you're not going to want to say 'í mánudaginn'. You will still make mistakes for a long time, but eventually things will start falling into place, trust me  When I was starting out, for example, I used to mix up _við_ and _með_ all the time. After enough exposure, I learnt sure enough which went where. When I was a complete beginner, I actually tried to translate all the prepositions and learn them that way (by learning that _á_ meant _on_ and so forth). Of course that was a complete waste of time and I wish someone had told me not to bother.

On another note, I'm not sure what you mean by _fara í búsið_ - do you mean get drunk? If so that is not expression I've ever heard before...


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## LurkingFox

I was afraid of that answer, but expecting it all the same. Thank you! 

(ps: I meant to write _í búðið - to the flat_, although I may still be wrong. I will have to check and find where I saw that in my books).


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## Alxmrphi

LurkingFox said:


> (ps: I meant to write _í búðið - to the flat_, although I may still be wrong. I will have to check and find where I saw that in my books).


You might want to check the gender of _búð_. You've used the accusative article in the neuter case and búð is a feminine noun so needs the feminine version.

Accusative: (masculine)_ -inn_ .... (feminine) *-ina* .... (neuter)_ -ið_


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## LurkingFox

Goodness, you're absolutely right. It scares me that I still make these kinds of mistakes. In any case, I have no idea what that expression was supposed to be then, as my penmanship is sometimes difficult to read even to me! It did end in -ið though. I'll have to pore over my books.


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## Silver_Biscuit

_Búð_ also means 'shop' . Flat is _íbúð_. Haha, don't worry about it, these sorts of mistakes are the only way you learn.


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## Alxmrphi

If you're annoyed at yourself for mixing up genders in your first month then you must set a pretty high standard for your learning! I was still doing that in the first two years of my learning (though I was only doing about 30 mins per week for the first six months or so). Anyway, this is a really crude distinction that probably has a lot of exceptions, but it helped me with the distinction between_ á_ and_ í_ with _fara _to mean 'go'. If it's a masculine or feminine noun, try _fara í_ but if it's a neuter noun, try _fara á_. The most notable exception to be aware of is with _staður _(masculine) and _stöð _(feminine). They are especially common nouns that take _*á*_. So, any type of hús (sjúkrahús / kaffihús / eldhús / þvottahús / veitingahús) you already know the preposition is _fara á_. Then, for non-neuter nouns like banki, vinna, búð, kirkja, bíó, garður, (sund)laug you use_ fara í_. Then, once you know the genders of words like _stæði_ (as in bílastæði [neuter] - car park) then you would go for* á *and it'd be correct!

Then other neuter words like_ bókasafn_ or _hótel_ would use the same, while a word like _skóli_ (masculine) takes _fara *í*_. Now, that is only a crude observation from my learning experience and there are other things you internalise on the way, but it's not bad to have something that gets you the correct preposition more than a random guess would. Then, you can build from there and look for other common exceptions. Then,_ til_ is used mainly for actual places, where you use proper nouns or references to people / real places. So, _fara til hans_ (go to his place) or _fara til læknis _(go to the doctor - remember, a person reference) or_ fara til Spánar/Kína_ (go to Spain/China).

Another note is the opposite preposition to use. The opposite of _í_ is _úr _and the opposite of _á_ is _af_. So wherever you go to (í) you come out of (úr) and wherever you go to (á) you come out from (af). So, _fara í vinnuna_ and_ fara úr vinnunni_. And also _fara á þakið_ (go on the roof - notice it's another neuter noun that uses *á*) so to come down from the roof would be _fara af þakinu. _So, if you see this fara úr/af then from that information you can infer the correct preposition when going_* to*_ that place rather than coming _*from*_ it. You will often hear frá used as well and it's not possible to make any inferences when that is used. If it's úr or af, then you can, most of the time.

Again, a note that this is how this exists in my head and I have no statistics to back it up and I am always open to the chance that my experience could have led me to make bad inferences but after so many years the chances of that have to be getting slimmer and slimmer. Hope my post helps!


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## Silver_Biscuit

Wow, I never would have thought of that! Cool system. I said these over in my head and I think I would automatically say "fara í eldhús" and "fara í kaffihús" but that could well be a mistake that I've consistently been making - from google, 'fara á kaffihús' is definitely the more common option (although I'm not alone!). I think the places I do tend to talk more frequently about going (bíó, sund, bær, háskóli, vinna) are all í ones, so I would probably be likely to favour _fara í_ over _fara á_ in my automatic speech, which could easily lead to mistakes when _fara á_ is the correct form. Góðar pælingar!


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## Alxmrphi

I'm with you on_ eldhús _actually. I wrote as many words as I could think of that were places and ended in hús just because I imagined they'd all work the same, but I think another factor makes the í distinction for_ eldhús_ and I imagine it's the sub-unit of the house semantics and less a whole conceptual entity wrapped up in a building like the others. I think as native English speakers there is something that leads us to prefer_ í _as the generalised form when learning Icelandic. I think because it's closer to what we imagine makes sense in our native languages (that 'in(to)' would work but less for the word we know as _on _[á]). Just a few thoughts. I know I overgeneralise the use of í but it's never caused any confusion and I have managed to suppress the annoying feeling of never being sure, but I suppose it's time to sort that out now, I guess. I just made sure I knew the rules for the ones where I could group a whole collection of words together by learning the preposition for something like_ hús_. When an institution kind of thing, then á but if you're talking about entering a house then it's obviously still going to be_ í hús_ like in this book title etc. Actually, the generalised nouns ending with staður/stöð/hús seem to take á but the rest í. Maybe that's a better distinction. That would capture the optionality for á linking to some concept/institution while the others wouldn't be restricted. Need to switch my brain off or I will be thinking about this all night.


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## LurkingFox

*Alxmrphi*: Wow, thanks a lot! That's actually exactly the kind of rule of thumb I was looking for. Something that helps me with most situations at first even if it's not correct in 100% of instances. Then of course I will go from there.


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## Silver_Biscuit

I see you're coming over here in two months. It's really great that you are making an effort to get a head start with the language, honestly not everyone does! But don't worry about achieving fluency before you get here, that's frankly unlikely, and also you will be able to learn more effectively once you're actually in Iceland. You can get by in English no problem whilst you're getting yourself on your feet (although of course try to avoid it when possible), and in the meantime you are obviously making a great start. I was learning Icelandic for two years before I actually got here and still I wouldn't say that I was anywhere near 'fluent' on arrival.


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## LurkingFox

Silver_Biscuit said:


> I see you're coming over here in two months. It's really great that you are making an effort to get a head start with the language, honestly not everyone does! But don't worry about achieving fluency before you get here, that's frankly unlikely, and also you will be able to learn more effectively once you're actually in Iceland. You can get by in English no problem whilst you're getting yourself on your feet (although of course try to avoid it when possible), and in the meantime you are obviously making a great start. I was learning Icelandic for two years before I actually got here and still I wouldn't say that I was anywhere near 'fluent' on arrival.



Obviously, my signature is a bit tongue-in-cheek. I am not expecting to be fully fluent come September. However I would like to be as good as I can be, as I have been in Iceland twice already and I know I suffered a lot from not understanding any Icelandic.  Also because I will be looking for a job...

Thanks for the encouragement!

(Ps: we are all agreed that with FARA I need the accusative case right?)


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## Silver_Biscuit

Well, with _fara í_, yes. But that has nothing to do with _fara_, only to do with the preposition. _Fara_ is an intransitive verb which can't take an object at all. _Fara til_ will be followed by the genitive, because _til_ governs the genitive.

Best of luck with the move to Iceland


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## LurkingFox

Well yes but it is the accusative because it is fara + a or i and it indicates movement, right? (ie vera í + dat)


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## Alxmrphi

LurkingFox said:


> Well yes but it is the accusative because it is fara + a or i and it indicates movement, right? (ie vera í + dat)


Yes, that's correct. I think what SB was getting at was more the fact that if it's any verb indicating direction then the same principle applies (i.e. the accusative doesn't come from the specific verb _fara_, but the general semantics it contains and shares with many other verbs of movement). Þolfall táknar hreyfingu og þágufall kyrrstöðu (Accusative expresses movement and dative that which is stationary). There's not really a good English translation of _kyrrstaða _in a single word I don't think.


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## LurkingFox

Nifty little sentence thanks!


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## Silver_Biscuit

Hm no, that wasn't what I was getting at but I see what happened. I misunderstood your original sentence as "with the verb 'fara', *I* need the accusative case", where I is the English word. I see now that you meant "with 'fara í', I need the accusative case". From the way you wrote it, it seemed like you thought that _fara_ governed the case. Accents are pretty important! Don't mind me


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## LurkingFox

No no it was the English "I", I'm sorry I'm the one who wasn't clear. I just meant fara in this context precisely with these two prepositions we were talking about. But that wasn't clear at all. 

However is there a case where "fara + preposition" doesn't lead to using the accusative (since direction = accusative)?


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## Alxmrphi

LurkingFox said:


> However is there a case where "fara + preposition" doesn't lead to using the accusative (since direction = accusative)?



*Til *governs the *genitive* and you would say _fara til læknis_. Then, there are prepositions that describe motion away from (which is still direction, but not_ to anywhere_ anymore) and in these cases you use the dative i.e. _Knattspyrnumaðurinn vill fara frá Chelsea _or _fara af stað_ (get going) and _fara úr einhverju_ (to take something off [clothes]). You have this accusative = movement / dative = stationary meaning, and that is much deeper and more prevalent than just with_ fara _or with_ í_ and_ á_. You can see it with other prepositions other than í and á actually. If you use the preposition "undir" (under) then you can say:

Barnið skreið undir borðið / borðinu

Where the accusative means the baby started crawling, went under the table and (i.e. motion - possibly passed under it) or if you use the dative then it closes off the table as being the area where the baby is crawling and you're just basically saying he moved around under the table (i.e. the zone under the table is now a stationary place and the baby crawled around in that area) whereas the accusative meant went under as in "passed under" (and came out of the other side) or just started from a position that was not under something and then ended up in a position that was under something.


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## Daniel20

I've been learning a while now - on and off, but consistently for about 6 months, and I'm currently in Reykjavík; I arrived Sunday.

My advice to you would be to nail down the declension patterns, and not worry too much about prepositions just yet, because it's unlikely you're going to be able to, or want to, have a conversation with someone complex enough to require a good knowledge like SB and Alex have - Icelanders will just switch to English anyway. Obviously, í and á are important, but you need to know little more than what nouns they go with, etc. It's more important to deal with every day life, such as going shopping, asking the price of something, and maybe directions. My issue has been asking for something, for example, and having to think some time about how to put it into the relevant case (in this case, accusative): _ég ætla (að) fá_.... . Particularly when numbers are involved! But, my memory is terrible, and some will just pick it up easily.

Edit: also, confidence. I pick cashiers that are older and grumpier because they're a) less likely to know English well and b) less keen to switch into it! I hate speaking Icelandic to people my age!


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## Silver_Biscuit

Daniel, if you do drink, I recommend putting yourself in social situations involving alcohol. I know how that sounds (not good, haha), but it did kind of help me get up the courage to socialise in Icelandic (rather than just function in public). Your language skills might suffer, for obvious reasons, but if you're like me, you will stop caring so much and just start communicating as best you can. 
Don't worry about 'sentence planning', where you think carefully about what you're going to say before you say it. I did this for sooo long and in fact I still do for unfamiliar situations. You think you will never be able to just produce, say, dative feminine adjectives without carefully thinking about the declension tables, but I promise you that it gets easier. One day you will find yourself declining and conjugating automatically, just like you already do for English. It just takes time.


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## LurkingFox

Daniel20 said:


> I've been learning a while now - on and off, but consistently for about 6 months, and I'm currently in Reykjavík; I arrived Sunday.
> 
> My advice to you would be to nail down the declension patterns, and not worry too much about prepositions just yet, because it's unlikely you're going to be able to, or want to, have a conversation with someone complex enough to require a good knowledge like SB and Alex have




Are you there to live or just on holidays? I'm moving there in September, and to be very honest, and although I know it to be quite a lofty goal, what I want is to be able to converse a bit in real-life situations (friends, ...). I don't really care about asking cashiers for the price in Icelandic, I mean of course it's important but it's the kind of things you can do so easily in English, it doesn't really matter. 
What I want and need is to be able to understand at least some of what is going on when I'm with Icelandic friends, and be able to say some stuff back / answer or ask questions, without having to switch to English systematically. That's at least what I have in mind as I'm learning. I know from experience that Icelanders speak Icelandic between themselves (which is of course completely normal and to be expected! It's their language!) - the whole "they all speak English" I  found to be kind of a myth. Of course the rate of English speaking is much higher than in most other countries, but it's still an effort for most of them, and if you only speak English you find yourself locked out of 90% of conversations. You won't have eveyone in a room speak English just for your benefit. At least that's been my experience.



> Edit: also, confidence. I pick cashiers that are older and grumpier because they're a) less likely to know English well and b) less keen to switch into it! I hate speaking Icelandic to people my age!



That is a very good strategy I think! I'll try that. Zooming in on defenseless unsuspecting senior citizens. Plus they can't run away!


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## Daniel20

Silver_Biscuit said:


> Daniel, if you do drink, I recommend putting yourself in social situations involving alcohol. I know how that sounds (not good, haha), but it did kind of help me get up the courage to socialise in Icelandic (rather than just function in public). Your language skills might suffer, for obvious reasons, but if you're like me, you will stop caring so much and just start communicating as best you can.
> Don't worry about 'sentence planning', where you think carefully about what you're going to say before you say it. I did this for sooo long and in fact I still do for unfamiliar situations. You think you will never be able to just produce, say, dative feminine adjectives without carefully thinking about the declension tables, but I promise you that it gets easier. One day you will find yourself declining and conjugating automatically, just like you already do for English. It just takes time.



This is not necessarily just confidence but, in this case, also skill. I do not know nearly enough to socialise in it; and I know this because I get lost in 99% of the conversations around me!



LurkingFox said:


> Are you there to live or just on holidays?



Sort of both. I'm here for 6 weeks, and maybe more, working at the University; but it isn't a permanent thing. 



> I'm moving there in September, and to be very honest, and although I know it to be quite a lofty goal, what I want is to be able to converse a bit in real-life situations (friends, ...).
> What I want and need is to be able to understand at least some of what is going on when I'm with Icelandic friends, and be able to say some stuff back / answer or ask questions, without having to switch to English systematically.



I won't say you can't, because everyone learns at different paces for different reasons, but I suspect two months will probably be too little. It is not so much knowledge and vocabulary but also the speed they speak, which is extremely fast. Even when I know what's being said (in simple situations), it takes a while to fully understand it. Also beware your accent - mine is obviously quite poor as some Icelanders look quite bemused when I speak, even though they know what I'm saying.



> You won't have eveyone in a room speak English just for your benefit. At least that's been my experience.



Correct. It can be quite an alienating experience but sometimes you just have to roll with it.


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