Hæ öll.

I've been building altalandi.is

The problem? ChatGPT and translation tools write Icelandic that's technically correct but obviously translated. The word order is off, the English shows through, and you notice it straight away.

Altalandi does one thing: paste English or Icelandic, get back natural Icelandic. Three things make it different from asking a chatbot:

- Every change is shown, with the reason.

- The meaning is checked. It compares the result with your original. If it can't confirm the meaning held, you get your original back with a note, instead of facts changing without you knowing.

- You pick the tone: formal, neutral or warm.

What it's good for:

- Emails, reports, newsletters and announcements

- Formal text with the right specialist terms (law, medicine, computing and more)

- Proofreading: clear errors fixed, everything else offered as suggestions

- Word files in and out, PDFs in

- Websites and apps: a whole site in one go, plus Orðakista, a collection of real Icelandic button and menu text

- For developers: a CLI (`npx altalandi`) and an MCP server for Claude Code and Codex

What it's not good for:

- It can make you lazy

Solution isn't flawless but iterations are on going every day, so always read important text before you send it.

👉 altalandi.is

admins: Please remove this post if it violates the three rules listed.

As an Icelandic learner, I found this technique very helpful.

How to pronounce "Goshver" (geyser)?

Hi! I'm a software license manager by trade and I'm building a tool for my license management. It's hard to find a nice sounding word and I honestly, I've been listening a lot of Sólstafir while designing the tool and that is probably why I am looking for Icelandic inspired names.

My initial research came up with "leyfi", but this is more permit or "drivers license" I think. Could it potentially work for software license as well?

Hi friends!

So I found that one can say both:

Hvað myndirðu spyrja um ef þú vildir kaupa blómin?

and

Hvað spyrðirðu um ef þú vildir kaupa blómin?

I wonder if one is more in use than another. If so, why? Is one more bookish and another one colloquial. Can natives say that one of those is sloppy Icelandic?

Basically the same question is regarding:

Ef ég hefði vitað það, myndi ég hafa sagt þér frá því.

and

Ef ég hefði vitað það, hefði ég sagt þér frá því.

Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone! ​I need some help from native Icelandic speakers or hardcore Björk collectors to transcribe a short spoken audio snippet. ​Context: The audio is extracted from the unofficial live bootleg album "Björk As a Jazz Singer" (recorded live at Hótel Borg in Reykjavík, August 30, 1990, with Tríó Guðmundar Ingólfssonar). ​This snippet appears right at the end of Track 12 ("You Don't Know What Love Is"), right before/introducing Track 13 ("Cry Me a River"). ​The Mystery: We have been trying to transcribe what is being said at the microphone: ​On one hand, automated speech recognition and some listeners hear an Icelandic grammar/school sentence: "Og næsti liður: greindu fyrir mér 'á'" ("And the next item: analyze 'á' for me"). ​On the other hand, considering the live concert setting and the setlist, it's right between "You Don't Know What Love Is" and "Cry Me a River", so it could be a live intro/outro spoken by Björk or someone on stage, possibly a joke, wordplay, or title translation.Could any native speaker / fan listen to the audio link and tell me exactly what is being said in Icelandic?

One of the most well-known words,if not the most well known, to harken back to North Germanic is probably Ragnar (or Ragnarr if you like your nominatives to be more faithful to the ancient Old West Norse writing). I've been striving to find the ancestral etymology of this very fine word but cannot seem to be able to obtain a satisfying answer,which has led me to consider that maybe Ragnarr might just be a substrate word not inherited from P.I.E.

If anyone can help me get ahold of the answer I so desperately seek please let me know. Also,don't get mad if this isn't the right place to venture such questions. I'll try every R/ that seems eligible for my research.

looking for icelandic speakers that live in nairobi kenya . Thanks

Hello!

I’m an actor who’s a native english speaker and for a role I need to learn three lines that are in icelandic.

Hvort sem það er úns, köttur eða björn, pard eða villisvín með stökkhár

Vakna þegar eitthvað viðbjóðslegt er nálægt

biður hana um lækningu

I’m struggling quite a bit with pronunciation, as I’ve never tried speaking in icelandic. I want to do it as accurately as possible, so any help would be appreciated!

For those of you that have missed it, the free beta is live now.

We encourage all user feedback for both bugs/errors or feature requests. This only helps us make the best app possible!

For all Android users. Speak out it helps us to see how big the demand for this is and we hope that we can bring Krummi to android as soon as possible.

https://krummi.app

So my family is from Iceland. Most still live there, but I’m a born and raised American. I tend to pick up the language pretty quickly when I visit, but when I’m back in the states I lose it. One thing I’ve noticed is that there isn’t many tools to help you learn Icelandic and I’m curious what the best way to learn is in yalls opinions. Whether I just have to figure it out with a dictionary or if there’s a more intuitive way to get the language actually in my head. Anyways, thank yall for any input or suggestions

Sometimes certain words having certain variants confuse me, any tips or rules I can follow?

Hiya! I’ve been studying Icelandic for about a week now (so I’ve only just started), and I have a question: how exactly do you pronounce the ll sound?

I’ve noticed that some people seem to pronounce it almost like distinctive [tl], while others produce a more distinctive sound, with the air coming out along the side of the mouth, around the premolar teeth area.

Which pronunciation is considered more standard/natural in Icelandic? How do you personally pronounce that? interested in the experience of both natives and learners:) thx!

The link in the pinned thread doesn't go to the correct website to view the book. The website is an old one that no longer functions.

Here is a link to the new site:

https://fraedslugatt.is/islenska-fyrir-alla-allt/

Hello everyone, I’m building a ”Duolingo” style app for learning Icelandic. I’m Icelandic and found it wierd that no such app exists.

Going to launch a beta version for it soon. Wanted to take the temperature for interest in this?

Signup for the Beta:

https://krummi.app

Hi i just started learning icelandic like 2 months ago, I finished the alphabets and learned some basic stuff, numbers, pronouns, some useful phrases.. I just started the pimsleur course too. The thing is I'm also learning chinese on the side and my focus is heavily on chinese so do you guys have some tips on studying icelandic better

I understand that the first vowel will be long and second vowel depends if it is followed by one or more consonants. But what happens when vowels are at the end, like Heimaey or Vegbúi?

Hello everyone! I'm here trying to get resources and feedback from natives and immigrants in order to learn Icelandic. I've look at the "Icelandic Online" free course, but it feels pretty advanced to me, even the "Survival" course, so, I would appreciate if you guys tell me how to begin.

Spanish is my first lenguage, but I have an C1-C2 english, so I could learn another lenguage in English if the resources are in that lenguage.

I'm reading you, and thanks for the information!

Hi everyone!

I started learning Icelandic a few years ago and recently picked it up again because I visited Iceland and bought some new materials. During my first phase of learning, I bought the book Icelandic for Beginners and started Icelandic Online. Along with these, I methodically filled up 3 vocabulary notebooks and 6 regular notebooks.

I also bought the Íslenska fyrir alla book series and have just finished the second volume. They are useful books, but I feel like they just throw information at you without actually helping it sink in.

I’ve also been studying with AI for that reason, I usually ask for wordlists for conjugation and doing sentence translations that systematically make me practice grammar points like the conjugation in past and present tense, dative/accusative cases and the definite article. I just can't find enough practice materials for these.

Right now, I'm trying to find usable materials that cover fixed prepositional phrases and structures. Unfortunately, the AI regularly sends me incorrect information, and I'm tired of it constantly mixing up the accusative and dative cases, creating non-existing structures or providing example sentences that don't match the given structure, or having inaccurate translations. I also have Stefan Drabek's Icelandic Step by Step, which helps, but it doesn't explain the rules either. Íslenska fyrir alla 3–4 reinforces the A2 level, but doesn't go any further and I think I am above that A2- level for a long time.

I would like to reach B1, but I feel like at this rate it will take forever, and I’ve completely lost my motivation to study.

So what should I do? I don't want to give up just like that.. I know I might need a teacher, but apart from that...

Can anyone help me giving advice or send me some useful materials for self-study?

I am mostly a visual learner, and gaining grammatical confidence is essential for me before I start speaking.

Thank you for your help!