# Icelandic: lesa bók / lesa í bók



## 极限激活

I'm a total newbie for Icelandic. When I focus on the usage of preposition , i become confused about the difference between "*lesa bók*" and "*lesa í bók*".

-Do both phrases above make sense? or One of them is wrong ?
-If correct, what's the difference between them ?


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## Silver_Biscuit

They both make sense, and can mean basically the same thing (although lesa í bók is literally 'read in a book' and can also be used in that sense). I believe it is more common in 21st-century Icelandic to just say 'lesa bók'.


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## Segorian

We may distinguish between at least three expressions:


(1) _lesa bók_
(2) _lesa í bók_
(3) _lesa á bók_


Expressions (1) and (2) have the same meaning, “to read a book”. However, they differ in usage in that (2) is normally used specifically for the ongoing action of reading. In other words, _lesa bók_ corresponds to “read a book” generally while _lesa í bók_ corresponds to “reading a book”:


_   Um þetta leyti *las ég bók* um keisaradrottninguna í Kína_ (“Around this time I read a book about the Empress of China”)
_   Skipstjórinn sat við borð í klefa sínum og *las í bók*_ (“The captain sat at a table in his cabin, reading a book”)

Expression (2) can also mean simply “to read [something] in a book”:


_   Hann hafði einhvers staðar *lesið í bók*, að vofur sem birtust í herklæðum hefðu alltaf græn augu_ (“He had read in a book somewhere that ghosts appearing in armour always have green eyes”)


Expression (3) is used in specific contexts in the meaning “to be able to read [written text]”:


_   Róbert var læs á nótur áður en hann *las á bók*_ (“Kjartan was able to read music before he could read books”)


In (1) and (2), the word _bók_ can be replaced with other terms for printed material. (3) is however more of a fixed expression.


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## 极限激活

Takk fyrir！lol
Icelandic prepositions are just killing me :--<


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## 极限激活

Thank you so much,it's so helpful for me to study the usage of the prepositions.

 BTW,can I say “Ég les í *bækur*” so as to emphasize that I am reading lots of books at a time? :>


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## myšlenka

Segorian said:


> We may distinguish between at least three expressions:
> 
> 
> (1) _lesa bók_
> (2) _lesa í bók_
> (3) _lesa á bók_
> 
> 
> Expressions (1) and (2) have the same meaning, “to read a book”. However, they differ in usage in that (2) is normally used specifically for the ongoing action of reading. In other words, _lesa bók_ corresponds to “read a book” generally while _lesa í bók_ corresponds to “reading a book”:


Hi,
I am guessing that Icelandic works like Norwegian in this case so that _lesa bók_ would mean reading a book until you have completed it, it is telic. The other expression, _lesa í bók _does not imply completion, it is atelic. Describing the meaning difference between these with reference to ongoing action is unfortunate as Icelandic already has a construction to express this: _að vera a__ð lesa bók_.

Or I am completely wrong?


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## Silver_Biscuit

To be honest, if you're a complete beginner, I wouldn't necessarily worry all that much about this specific example. You can get pretty far simply learning how to use _að __lesa_ and _að vera að lesa _(and combinations with various other verbs, e.g. _að ætla_ and _að vilja)_, not bothering about prepositions with _að lesa_. I'd say that once you bring in prepositions with that verb, it's not really beginner material. If you want to say you are reading many books, the simplest option by far is 'Ég er að lesa margar bækur'. In my experience, prepositions are such that you cannot really learn them preposition by preposition, but rather verb by verb or phrase by phrase, always in context. To start off with it's probably best to focus on the most commonly used constructions, I would say. Different people learn in different ways, though, and maybe what worked for me won't work for you, so of course ignore this if you prefer a different approach!


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## 极限激活

I get it.Maybe i should just read a lot more Icelandic and learn them by heart.


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## Daniel20

I know this is an old thread now, but thought I´d throw my 2 cents in about prepositions, if you´re still learning Icelandic or struggling with them. I´d echo Silver_Biscuit´s advice that it´s not worth learning prepositions in isolation, except in their most simple forms, e.g:

*Um *means _about_
*Við *means _with_...
... so does *með.
Til *means _to_. 
*Fyrir *means _for_.

And the cases which they govern, whilst acknowledging that some govern different cases in different contexts. Just being open to these possibilities is a big step and can be hard to get your head around. More importantly, if you learn the prepositions in a strict sense, you´ll confuse yourself when you come across times when the prepositions are part of a phrase, or where prepositions mean slightly different things e.g when _við _doesn´t mean _with, _but it might mean _at _(like in Segorian´s sentence, _Skipstjórinn sat við borð..._). And some prepositions, as SB said, come with verbs, e.g að hlusta á...

So, don´t worry too much about them. It´ll come with practice. Trying to learn them will hold you back, trust me.


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