Let's Learn Icelandic with Harry Potter (Beginner Level)

Or better, follow me--I'll show you how I learn Icelandic on a complete beginner level.

A huge disclaimer: I don't teach Icelandic on this blog--I simply document my journey and share what I learn and how I learn.

And now, let's begin.

I decided not to overthink--which doesn't happen often--so I picked a random paragraph from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Harry Potter og Viskusteinninn).

(Well, not that random, since I only have one chapter printed out in English and Icelandic. The chapter is 'The Mirror of Erised', if you're wondering.)

So, what I did in the 'intro' part:

1. I--obviously--read the paragraph in Icelandic. At least, tried to read, as there are still some pronunciation details I eventually forget about. As for the level of understanding, I could capture the main idea because I remembered the plot very well (who doesn't).
2. Good. Now, the English version. Got all the details.
3. And finally, step number three. I re-read the Icelandic text to naturally find new associations: 'naturally' means without dictionaries. (OK, 'cloak'--extremely useful. Let's put it down.)

And now, the active part that I'm sharing with you. Enjoy the ride.

Sentence #1:

First, I always try to decompose the phrase:

[Spegillinn] [verður fluttur] [á nýjan stað] [á morgun], Harry.

Spegillinn is THE mirror. The -inn ending is the 'The' for masculine singular. Two n's, two bal--well, find your own mnemonic.

'Verður' must have something to do with 'að vera'--or maybe not? When in doubt, go on Ylhýra:

We all love a good exception. (No, we don't.)

Logically, 'fluttur' will be 'moved'. Nothing extraordinary--just the standard masculine ending -ur.

The chunk [á nýjan stað] seems the most intuitive in the phrase. Á reminds me of 'á Íslandi', *in* Iceland. 'Nýjan' is definitely 'new': I don't know the cases yet, but will try to remember [á nýjan stað]. 'Stað' is 'home' or 'place', logically.

Á morgun. I let you guess. Not that you have the translation.

Let's move to the second sentence.

The decomposition:

[Ég {ætla að] [biðja þig} um] [að leita hans ekki] [aftur].

Two types of brackets: yeah, baby, let's make it even more complicated.

'Ég ætla að' means 'I'm going to':

If you tried flashcards on Ylhýra, you *know* this collocation.

'Biðja þig um'. 'Biðja' looks a lot like 'bid'. This will definitely be 'ask' from the English sentence. Ask whom? You, þig. Again, I haven't studied cases yet, but I will learn the chunk as it is. And the preposition we gracefully left without attention: 'biðja þig um'. Ask you TO.

'I'm going to ask you to.' OK.

Why the other pair of brackets? I simply wanted to focus on 'að' in this collocation: {ætla að biðja þig}.

Now, the tricky part: [að leita hans ekki].

First of all, we don't include 'aftur' cause it's not 'after': my initial thought was 'chasing after something'--it's not. 'Aftur' is 'again'.

So, in [að leita hans ekki] we have the negative particle 'ekki'. I couldn't find out 'að leita', 'to search', by myself, so I looked up the translation on Google Translate--OMG.

Hans? Him, the mirror (remember it was masculine singular?)--'it' in English.

It turns out 'hans' is in genitive case. Good to know.

Sentence number three!

The structure is not quite the same, but you can still trace the structure.

[Ef þú skyldir {rekast] á hann}, [þá ertu viðbúinn].

Once again, double brackets: I'm sorry.

'Ef þú skyldir rekast' = If you should... what? Run across. Interesting. I didn't manage to find out the meaning of 'rekast', even with the context, en þú? By the way, 'skyldir and should' look like 'skip and ship'.

{rekast á hann}, just to emphasize the preposition.

What is þá? I personally hate short words because I always mess them up. Þá, þú, af, að, en, og... Just be longer.

Oh, yes, 'þá' means 'then'.

Next, ertu viðbúinn. Once again, we have the masculine singular ending in viðbúinn. But what about “ertu”? I found a good explanation on Reddit:

Wonderful.

Distant drumroll. My favorite quote!

I love it. So magical, so ephemeral, yet so deep. Oh.

Language-wise?

[Það dugar ekki] [að dvelja í draumi] [af því að] [þá] [gleymirðu {að lifa] í vöku}, [mundu það].

The verb in 'Það dugar ekki' is 'dugar' and it means 'to be enough', 'to suffice'. 'It is not enough', good.

'Að dvelja í draumi' is extremely close to the English 'to dwell on dreams'.

Then, the horrible [af því að] which is simply 'because'. Once again, I had it in my cards on Ylhýra:

I decided not to include [þá] in the previous chunk--I don't like sequences of small words. (Too confusing for my fragile brain.) It means 'then'.

[gleymirðu að lifa]: OK, 'to live' is obvious. What about 'gleymirðu'? It's 'you forget', but I must confess I don't know yet why 'ðu' is positioned after the verb. I'll update the post when I figure it out.

{að lifa í vöku}--to live 'in the wake'! Beautiful.

[mundu það]--Remember that. Can you see 'mind' here? ;)

[En nú] [finnst mér að] [þú ættir] [að klæða þig] [í fallegu skikkjuna þína] [og drífa þig í rúmið]!

[En nú] = but now. It would be much more natural to use 'and', but it's not the same word! 'And' is 'og', and 'but' is 'en'. 'And' is an addition, 'but' is an opposition.

[finnst mér að] = It seems to me that.

[þú ættir] = You should. I thought 'ættir' was related to 'ought to', but apparently it's not.

[að klæða þig] = Have you spotted 'to cloth'? :) 'To cloth you', literally.

[í fallegu skikkjuna þína] = 'In beautiful cloak yours'.

[og drífa þig í rúmið] = 'And hurry yourself to the bed'. Noticed the neuter form 'rúmið' thanks to the -ið ending. Pure joy.

Well, 'á fætur' literally means 'on feet'. I love the brutality of Icelandic.

This is all extraordinary, but what can I do with these findings?

This is what I did:

I 'translated' (let's say did my best) each phrase from the English paragraph without consulting my notes. (Judge me.)

I couldn't recall some completely new words but I was overall satisfied. I genuinely enjoyed the process and learned something new without, say, grammar drilling (by the way, I'm totally OK with drilling grammar, but only when I'm in the right, less-than-creative mood).

I will post this now, but will probably come later to add information and the IPA transcription.

Thanks for reading. I wanted to show that 30 minutes could be more than enough to have a proper session. Remember how to say 'be enough'? Nope? It's in the post.

Bless bless.