# Icelandic: Fyrirgefðu fyrir að hafa ruglast á tungumálinu þínu



## KarenRei

<So, when I was in Iceland recently, I discovered something: unlike with Japan where everyone says that they all speak English well but they actually don't, people in Iceland all (pretty much) do actually speak English incredibly well.  This was actually problematic for me, as I was hoping to practice my Icelandic, but as soon as I opened my mouth and they heard my poor beginner Icelandic, they'd switch to English.  So, I'm thinking about, for the next time I travel, making a T-shirt like this (rough draft):

http://www.daughtersoftiresias.org/images/t-shirt.jpg

The reason I'm posting here, however, is if I'm to make something like that, it'd be really embarrassing if I got the Icelandic on it wrong!  Can someone with more experience than myself let me know where I messed up?  

 - Karen

<< No longer needed. >>


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## Alxmrphi

Nice idea 
The only thing I can see is the capitals for the languages which Icelandic doesn't use (so* íslensku* and *ensku* would be fine).
Oh and there's an accent missing of* þú *on the bottom line. Maybe you'd want to think about using the plural ykkar instead of singular þín, but I don't think that'd matter too much.

I'll step aside and wait for an Icelander to confirm it sounds okay.


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## KarenRei

Hmm, I think I found another one myself -- leiðrétta should take þolfall, not þágufall.  But I'll wait a bit and do all the corrections at once.


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## Alxmrphi

KarenRei said:


> Hmm, I think I found another one myself -- leiðrétta should take þolfall, not þágufall.  But I'll wait a bit and do all the corrections at once.


Hárétt hjá þér


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## KarenRei

Hmm... hvað þýðir hárétt?  Þetta orð er ekki í orðabók minni.


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## Alxmrphi

KarenRei said:


> Hmm... hvað þýðir hárétt?  Þetta orð er ekki í orðabókminni.


Þýðir _alveg réttur_, eins og 'completely right!' á ensku. 
Það er forskeyti 'há-' (i.e. _high-_) sem leggur áherslu á einhverju.


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## sindridah

Hahaha, guilty as charged! 

Fyrirgefðu fyrir að hafa ruglast á tungumálinu þínu

Hjálpaðu mér að læra íslensku með hægum og einföldum setningum og með því að leiðrétta mistökin mín

Ef þú talar bara ensku hvernig á ég þá að geta lært íslensku?

And I notice you use capitals in ensku and íslensku and so on, If you see *sk* in these words nouns/adjectives then it's a small capital. 

enskur/enska ( non capital ) Englendingur ( no *sk, *capital ) 

danska/danskur   Dani  and so on.... I hope this explaination makes sense


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## KarenRei

Thanks so much!  Just for my understanding:

1) Why is it "að hafa ruglast á" instead of "að rugla"?
2) Why does the definite article get affixed, aka. "tungumálinu þínu"?
3) Why is "mistökin mín" in nefnifall?  Is it because of the use of "að leiðrétta" instead of "leiðréttir"?
4) When does one use that "hvernig á" construct?  I sometimes see sentences with it and sometimes without it ("hvernig veit ég", etc), and I'm a little confused by it.  First off, is that á from eiga?

I need to get used to when to expect these sort of patterns.    And yes, your capitalization explanation makes good sense.


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## Alxmrphi

> 2) Why does the definite article get affixed, aka. "tungumálinu þínu"?


That's the standard way to indicate possession in Icelandic, if you use your possessive adjectives the noun normally needs to be in the definite-form, save for a few nouns that indicate close personal relationships (and a few other special circumstances).


> 3) Why is "mistökin mín" in nefnifall?  Is it because of the use of "að leiðrétta" instead of "leiðréttir"?


Neuter plurals look exactly the name in nominative/accusative plural (see)


> 4) When does one use that "hvernig á" construct?  I sometimes see  sentences with it and sometimes without it ("hvernig veit ég", etc), and  I'm a little confused by it.  First off, is that á from eiga?


This *á* (eiga) is like should / can, so here it means "how am I to / how would it be possibile ... to learn Icelandic".
It's something that comes with time  I usually see it as "How can I/am I supposed to", but it's fairly flexible in its English translations.

I can't help you with #1, sorry.


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## KarenRei

#2 & #4: Takk fyrir.  
#3: Mér finnst svo heimsk


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## Donnerstag

If you say "ég rugla tungumálið þitt", then that means that you are deliberately messing up/mixing up the language. Notice that this form is in the active voice.

If you say "ég ruglast á tungumálinu þínu" - this is the passive voice, and means that the language is what is confusing you - not that you are trying to confuse the language.

It's similar to the difference between "I confuse your language!" and "I'm confused by your language"

This "sk" rule which Sindri mentioned is taught to students in elementary school as a tool to remember which nouns to capitalize. Basically, all country names (e.g. Ísland, Bandaríkin), city names (Osló, Bangkok) and nationalities (Íslendingur, Bandaríkjamaður) are capitalized, while languages (íslenska, enska) and adjectives describing nationalities (íslenskur, kanadísk) are written in lower-case.

Funny t-shirt anyhow. Ég er samt viss um að það sé bara nóg að segja fólki að þú viljir tala á íslensku en ekki ensku. Þá ættu flestir að skipta strax, held ég


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## Donnerstag

Sorry, I thought a bit longer about this, and realised that this form is not the passive voice, but rather the middle voice! Which doesn't exist in English. It is a very rare language feature which I think no other modern European language has. I know it exists in Ancient Greek, but that's about it.

Here's information from wikipedia about the middle voice:

_Some languages have a *middle voice*.  This is a set of inflections or constructions which is to some extent  different from both the active and passive voices. The middle voice is  said to be in the middle between the active and the passive voices  because the subject often cannot be categorized as either agent or  patient but may have elements of both. For example it may express what  would be an intransitive verb in English. For example, in The casserole cooked in the oven, cooked is syntactically active but semantically passive. In Classical Greek,  the middle voice often has a reflexive sense: the subject acts on or  for itself, such as "The boy washes himself", or "The boy washes". It  can be transitive or intransitive. It can occasionally be used in a  causative sense, such as "The father causes his son to be set free", or  "The father ransoms his son"._

All verbs end in -st when the middle voice is employed.


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## KarenRei

LOL.  Jæja að minnsta kosti að eiga skyrtuna ættu að hjalpa mér man þessi reglurnar    Og að segja að ég vil að tala á íslensku er gótt fyrir löngum samtölum, en samtöl byrjanda er oft líkir "hvað kostar þetta?" eða "hvaðan ertu?" eða "hvaða leið fer ég?".


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## Donnerstag

Hehe, það er rétt. Ég myndi nú ekki hugsa of mikið um þessa miðmynd (middle voice) samt - hún er mjög lítið notuð. Ég held að þetta sé miðmynd í þessu tilviki að ofan, en er ekki viss, ég er enginn málfræðingur. 

<friendly, but off-topic>


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## NoMoreMrIceGuy

Ein athugasemd: Ég myndi persónulega nota "klúðrað" í staðinn fyrir "ruglast á". Þegar ég heyri "ruglast á" virkar það fyrir mér eins og eitthvað vanti þar sem maður ruglast venjulega á einum hlut og öðrum.

Dæmi:
Hann ruglaðist á besíni og dísel.
Fyrirgefðu mér að hafa ruglast á tungumálinu þínu _(og einhverju öðru)_.

Minn 1/50 dollari.


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## sindridah

Já ég er sammála ykkur, mér finnst mjög svo skrýtið að nota sögnina ruglast í þessu tilviki en sá samt ekkert athugavert við það. En er sammála síðasta ræðumanni.


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## hanne

This thread is being closed because it has no clear focus, and far too many topics. Anyone who wishes to add something to the discussion, should contact a moderator about re-opening the thread, or splitting off relevant parts to a new thread.


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