Iceland AMA

[Puffinshop]

I'm a naturalised Icelandic citizen, born and raised in England and living in the capital area of Iceland for over a decade. Fluent Icelandic speaker, mother of Icelandic children.

Can't offer a native Icelandic perspective but if you have any questions about Iceland please feel free

I love the golden plovers, the oystercatchers and the Arctic terns especially. The summer birds.

The language is beautiful and endlessly fascinating to me. It has four cases and three genders, so adjectives and nouns have many different forms as well as verbs of course. On the other hand, the spelling is very standardised, much easier than English. It has three special characters not used in English: æ, þ, ð as well as accents etc.

My kids speak Icelandic with DP, English with me, and mostly English amongst themselves, Icelandic at school.

I am not at all afraid of volcanoes. But then I do not live where one could get our house! Nobody has been directly killed by a volcano in Iceland in recorded history.

Haha 😄 I don't know - I do know football training is bloody intense for Icelandic children so it must produce some good players, but also I think people underestimate Iceland and assume it'll be a walkover.

What is the latest news for the people of Grindavik? Do you think they will ever be able to live in the town again?

They are always more colourful through a lens. So some weak lights may look green on a photo but only white/grey to the naked eye. However, it is very common to see green and I have seen purples and pinks occasionally.

I dont think anyone underestimates individual icelandic athletes, it is just with having such a tiny population to choose from, assuming most dont play football anyway, and taking out the too young and the too old.... we assume that we have a much much greater choice of players to put in the team - 50 times more choice, at least, really. That is why we expect to win!

can you tell us some icelandic words please? There is nothing on duolingo, I have just looked

Just popping on to say we had the most wonderful week in Iceland at end May - stayed in Reykjavik and Vik and saw as many sights as we could. Spectacular country, lovely people

Hi OP

I would like to visit Reykjavik as a solo female traveller. I presume it's very safe to do so?

I prefer dark nights and don't like hot weather. I would like to see the Northern Lights via a tour and I would also love to go whale watching.

What month do you feel would be most suitable for me? Ideally not when it's crowded if that's realistic...

Thank you x

I had a fab holiday in Iceland one Easter many years ago. It's a gorgeous country.

How many months is it dark for and how do people cope? Do you have special daylight bulbs in homes and schools?

Conversely, in Summer do you have lots of midges in Reykjavik?

I holidayed in Iceland back in the 1990´s and loved it (I’m an outdoorsy person). Do you still have the naming system that your surname is your father’s first name plus “…son” for a boy or “…dottir” for a girl? So for example, if you’re married to a man named Thor Ralfson, your children’s surnames would be Thorsson or Thorsdottir? It must be hard keeping track of family relationships.

9 and almost 7.

Preschool is almost universal from 2 - 6, but not compulsory. School starts the autumn of the year you turn 6 and is compulsory for 10 years. Then you can go to upper secondary for three years (used to be four until very recently) and university after that. Most kids go to a state university which has no tuition fees but private universities are available.

So my kids are in early primary still and my personal is not much!

No, we're not married but have been together over a decade and it's just laziness really. We intend to get married at some point.

Yes, cats are common pets.

We go swimming, cycling, to the library. Sometimes hiking or day trips. Just normal stuff.

It's not a country that's got anything that special that's aimed specifically at kids (the pools are amazing though!) but they'll enjoy it if they're outdoorsy and adventurous. There are some good museums with things that kids will like but nothing purely child focused. Árbæjarsafn is cool!

There's a parliament and a president and local municipalities. The president is mostly a figurehead but has some powers (can call for referenda for example). Municipalities do handle local stuff. Obviously Reykjavík is by far the biggest municipality so Mayor of Reykjavík is a big deal.

There's a lot of cronyism and politicians almost NEVER resign no matter how much they have disgraced themselves. They just stay quiet for a bit and it blows over 🙄

Interesting thread thanks OP. What’s a typical meal in your house?

Unsurprisingly it's overwhelmingly, though not exclusively, white. It's about 10% immigrant though. Poles are the largest immigrant group.

Yes, it's common to find some kind of connection with people you meet. No, it's not an issue finding non relatives to date. Icelanders are generally a healthy population and 350,000 is quite enough to prevent inbreeding issues 😄

I was capable of communicating well a year or so after moving here but obviously have improved a lot since then in terms of vocabulary and fluency. I did a Master's degree in Icelandic my second year of living here, so I was at a reasonable standard. I had studied independently before moving here for about 2 years though, reading novels and doing the Icelandic Online course from UI.

It is a lot easier to progress once you live here, but you need a good accent to stop them switching to English right away.

Yes, you can turn up, it's fine. A lot of tourists attend these days. I go to the twelfth night bonfire usually and it has got a lot busier in recent years.

17°! It's boiling! I am chilling in the garden 😎

Not a typical summer's day by any means.

August or September.

Kind of. There's a FB group where we talk about sausages, biscuits and teabags.

No, I still have my surname. It's my name, I wouldn't give it up unless I had to. A patronymic doesn't make sense for me because neither I nor my father is native Icelandic.

It's a long time since you had to take an Icelandic name to become a citizen! Some foreign women take on their husband's patronymic but in all honesty I think it's silly because the names have such a literal meaning. They are not sons, never mind their FIL's son.

My children don't have my surname though. They have patronymics.

Most people speak good English, but not everyone by any means. A lot of people don't speak it as well as they think iyswim (in a professional context, not conversational). Some people are not confident with English, it's not that rare but it is the exception.

Iceland in Icelandic is Ísland, pronounced eese-lahnd. A poetic name for the country is Frón (frone) and it's colloquially often called klakinn or skerið (the ice cube or the skerry).

I’m in Italy and it was 11 today 🤣

Personally I think not. Some people have been living there when allowed. No families really. The community is scattered. I think mostly people are moving on with the assumption that they won't return.

A fun word is rannsaka which mean to research but is a cognate of ransack.

There are loads of fun cognates like that and a lot of links with English that makes it fun to learn.

I like skafrenningur which means swirling snow that's been blown up from the ground by the wind.