Language Archives - All Things Iceland

Rökkvi Vésteinsson on Using LingQ to Learn Languages & More

Jewells Chambers — Thu, 09 May 2024 20:44:36 +0000

Rökkvi Vésteinsson was born in 1978 in Iceland. He had a multicultural upbringing, living in Chicago at age 11, and spending summers in Denmark and Sweden during his teens. By age 20, he was fluent in four foreign languages, thanks to his travels and a stint as an au pair in Germany.

Rökkvi began his professional journey guiding one-day tours from Reykjavík to Kulusuk, Greenland at 23, leveraging his language skills in English, German, and Danish. He simultaneously embarked on a career in stand-up comedy starting in 2003.

After completing degrees in Biochemistry and Computer Science at Háskóli Íslands, he worked in Montreal as a programmer and software tester from 2004-2005, where he continued his comedy career. He also intermittently guided tours in Greenland and Iceland.

In 2017, Vésteinsson transitioned to full-time tour guiding, leading a variety of tours across Iceland, including multi-day and cruise ship tours, distillery tours, and city walks in Reykjavík. His guiding languages expanded to include Icelandic, English, German, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, and French, reflecting his continuous language learning.

Vésteinsson’s passion for languages led him to LingQ in 2019, where he learned French and other languages to literacy. He collaborated with LingQ’s CEO, contributing significantly to their Icelandic resources and successfully advocating for free Icelandic learning on the platform.

Today, Vésteinsson continues to add educational content to LingQ and promotes language learning in Iceland. He also performs comedy in multiple languages across various countries, showcasing his diverse linguistic and cultural fluency.

Have a Question for Rökkvi

Through my link for “Ask Jewells Anything”, feel free to submit a question for Rökkvi. Please add into the description box that it is for him.

Learn More About Greenland

During the interview, Rökkvi and I talked about Greenland. Here is an episode where you can learn more about modern Greenland and how some Greenlandic activist are working to reclaim their culture.

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Þakka þér kærlega fyrir að hlusta og sjáumsy fljótlega.

The post Rökkvi Vésteinsson on Using LingQ to Learn Languages & More appeared first on All Things Iceland.

What I Love & Hate About Learning Icelandic

Jewells Chambers — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 12:42:35 +0000

The words “love“ and “hate“ are very strong words. To be fair, I don‘t actually love or hate any part of learning the Icelandic language but those words work much better in a title than what I “enjoy the most“ and what I “strongly dislike“. So, just take those words with a big grain salt.

Regarding some backstory, I have been learning Icelandic off and on since I moved in 2016. It certainly has not been a linear journey, and I‘ve had many ups and downs but progress is happening.

5 Things I Love About Learning Icelandic

Having a secret language you can speak around the world. Most people don’t know the language and being able to speak the language around others without them know what you are saying is pretty cool.
There are unusual sounds, such as thedouble ll sound and I enjoy trying to mimic these sounds
You have the tools to be able to read Old Icelandic. The language has evolved slowly enough that the current language gives you the ability to read Old Icelandic text, like reading something from the 12th century
Interesting insight into the culture. For instance, there are a lot of words for snow like hundslappadrífa (snow flakes that are big like dog paws), Snædís (snow fairy or snow goddess), and so on.
When I do speak Icelandic to someone who knows the language well or grew up speaking it, they are delighted to hear that I am learning. The language learning journey has been difficult for me at time, so any and all encouragement is greatly appreciated.

5 Things I Hate About Learning Icelandic

Icelandic Grammar can be complicated because there are four cases
- Nouns, adjectives and pronouns are declined in these cases. There are also several genders and that makes a big difference too. Numbers from 1-4 are also a pain in the butt sometimes
- Remembering how to decline properly can really trip you up
- I used to only make simple sentences for a while because I was so worried about making a mistake with the grammar
- Use the example of a horse
  1. A Horse – hestur (nominative)
  2. About a Horse – um hest (accusative)
  3. From a horse – frá hesti (dative)
  4. To a horse – til hests (genitive)

There are a decent amount of exceptions in the language that can be a little frustrating too. This happens with nouns and verbs. Sometimes there is a not a clear answer as to why that is the case. Sometimes if I ask for an explanation about something, my teacher will just say af því bara ( just because).
I sometimes sound hesitant when I speak because I am not sure if I said it correctly.
1. An example is if I want to say ég fór til Reykjavíkur, my inflection might sound like there is a question mark at the end because I am not sure if what I wanted to say is correct.
Homynoyms in Icelandic can be confusing, at times.
1. Bóndinn á Á á á á á
2. The farmer at a farm called Á has an Ewe by a river
3. Homonyms can make it tricky
Icelanders like to practice their English and can easily switch over to speaking English or they want to feel like they are helping you when they hear that you do not speak the language well
1. It can also be that they think the person sucks at the language (LOL)
2. To combat this, I try to let people know I am practicing Icelandic so they don’t immediately switch to English

Random Fact of the Episode

Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson, professor emeritus of Icelandic linguistics, wrote in an article that he would like unions to push for employers to bear the cost of teaching foreign employees Icelandic.

Icelanders need to get used to others learning the subject

We are used to being a monolingual nation. It's been a while since there were very few foreigners here. In the past, there were merchants and officials who spoke strange Icelandic, and people made fun of it,"

Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson Tweet

Icelanders are not used to people learning Icelandic and not speaking it perfectly.

"What I was saying is that we just have to get used to it, because it's quite clear that the number of foreigners will continue to increase here. There is nothing to suggest otherwise. It has been demonstrated that people are needed for work in the coming years."

Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson Tweet

Icelandic Word(s) of the Episode

Hata (hate) – ég hata þig

Elska (love) – ég elska þig

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Þakka þér kærlega fyrir að hlusta og sjáumst fljótlega (Thank you kindly for listening and see you soon).

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The post What I Love & Hate About Learning Icelandic appeared first on All Things Iceland.

A Simple Resource for Learning Icelandic-Interview with Karítas

Jewells Chambers — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 23:20:42 +0000

Karítas Hrundar Pálsdóttir is the author of Ástiðir and Dagatal, two books about short stories in Icelandic. In this interview we talk about how short stories in various levels of Icelandic help learners of the language to learn faster and easier.

Karítas is currently pursuing her Ph.D in Creative Writing in the U.K. and was a teacher of Icelandic. She has learned Japanese, so she has an idea about the trials and tribulations that language learning students go through. In fact, her idea for publishing these books came when she was teaching Icelandic. She even tested out many of the stories on her students to see how impactful they were as the students studied the language

Questions I asked Karítas Hrundar Pálsdóttir

What inspired you to write Ástiðir and Dagatal?
What was it like studying Japanese?
What challenges did you notice your students faced while learning Icelandic?
What advice do you have for people learning Icelandic?
What is your favorite Icelandic Word or Phrase?

Connect With Karítas

You can connect with Karítas on Instagram.

Here is where you can purchase Ástiðir.

Here is where you can purchase Dagatal

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Þakka þér kærlega fyrir að hlusta og sjáumst fljótlega

(Thank you for listening and see you later)

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The post A Simple Resource for Learning Icelandic-Interview with Karítas appeared first on All Things Iceland.