Overview of the Icelandic Verb System

There are many ways to analyse and categorise the Icelandic verb system. Here I’ll show you how I, personally, conceptualise the Icelandic verb system and how I teach it to my students.

My main goal with this conceptualisation was to strike a good balance between the academic analyses I'm familiar with as a linguist on the one hand, and clear and useful insight for second-language learners like my students on the other. If you look to other sources and see things set up differently, don't be surprised.

The 6 Categories of Verbs

I consider Icelandic verbs to belong to one of 6 categories. Most actually belong to the first three: 

1. -a verbs
2. -i verbs
3. strong verbs
4. ey-j-ur verbs
5. Hybrid verbs
6. Preterite-Present verbs + verða‍

The ey-j-ur verbs and hybrid verbs don't actually bring anything new to the table: they just sort of mix-and-match -i verb and strong verb features. That means that after learning -i verbs and strong verbs, they will be easy. The preterite-present verbs + verða are mostly irregular.

There is also a tiny, unimportant category called -ri verbs, but it’s so tiny (only 4 verbs) and unimportant (they’re mostly quite rare) I generally advise just ignoring it, unless you’re a real perfectionist.

-a verbs and -i verbs are generally considered sub-categories of weak verbs, but since they’re different enough that a second-language learner needs to study them separately, I consider them separate categories here.

How Can I Tell What Category a Verb Belongs To?

How can you tell? You can’t.

 Not just from looking at the infinitive, anyway. You’ll have to check a dictionary (I like Digicoll) or BIN.

I’ll show you what to look for with each category below.

-a Verbs

The defining features of -a verbs is that:

• they form the ég present with an -a ending. Ég ætla (I am going to), ég tala (I speak), ég nota (I use)‍
• they form the ég past with an -aði ending. Ég ætlaði (I was going to), ég talaði (I spoke), ég notaði (I used)

This is the largest category, but the verbs in this category are not necessarily the most frequently used of verbs. Despite its size it “only” accounts for about 11% of verbs used on a daily basis.

-a verbs are generally considered the only open category of verbs, which means that nearly all new verbs that come into the language become -a verbs. Here are a couple of examples.

• ‍að gúgla > to google‍
• að fríka út > to freak out‍
• að seifa > to save

You can tell that a verb is an -a verb because Digicoll will show you its past tense ending: -aði. 

You might also know this category as:

• Category 1 verbs
• Weak verbs (veikar sagnir)
• W1 (V1)
• Regular verbs
• -a, -ar verbs

-i Verbs

The defining features of -i verbs are that:

• they form the ég present with an -i ending. Ég geri (I do), ég reyni (I try), ég bendi (I point)‍
• they form the ég past with a -ði, -di or -ti ending. Ég gerði (I did), ég reyndi (I tried), ég benti (I pointed)

This is the second-largest category of verbs, and accounts for about 15% of all verbs used.

You can tell that a verb is an -i verb because Digicoll will show you its past tense ending: -ði, -di, -ti, or -ddi. 

You might also know this category as:

• Category 2 verbs
• Weak verbs (veikar sagnir)
• W2 (V2)
• -i, -ir verbs

Strong Verbs

The defining features of strong verbs are that:

• they form the ég present with no ending (and maybe a vowel shift, depending). Ég verð (I will be, I become, I must), ég fer (I go), ég tek (I take)
• they form the ég past with no ending and a vowel shift. Ég varð (I became, I had to), ég fór (I went), ég tók (I took)

Because of the lack of ending, strong verbs are always just one syllable in the past tense singular (I, you, he, she, it). This can help you recognise them at a glance.

This is a small category of verbs – there are fewer than 200 in the language – but these are some of the most frequently used verbs, so they account for 26% of all verbs used on a daily basis. 

You can tell that a verb is a strong verb because Digicoll will show you 5 principal parts.

Principal parts are those conjugation parts which are not predictable and must be memorised, but from which you can deduce all the rest of the conjugation. You can learn to use those here.

 You might also know this category as:

• Category 3, 4, and 5 verbs

Ey-j-ur Verbs

The defining features of ey-j-ur verbs are that:

• they form the present tense like strong verbs. Ég tel (I count), ég legg (I lay), ég flyt (I move)‍
• they form the past tense with an ending like -i verbs, but with a vowel shift. Ég taldi (I counted), ég lagði (I laid), ég flutti (I moved)

The reason for the name of the category is that nearly all of the ey-j-ur verbs have three things in common:

• their stem vowel is nearly always e or y
• their infinitive ending is always -ja (except fela. There’s always one)
• they all form the 2nd and 3rd person singular (you and he, she, it) with -ur

This category is quite small, only about 40 words or so, and it accounts for about 3% of all verbs used on a daily basis.

You kind of get this category for free by learning -i verbs and strong verbs, but you do need to just memorise which words are ey-j-ur words. The -ja ending and e or y stem are not always giveaways: some -a, -i, and strong verbs have those features as well.

You can tell that a verb is a ey-j-ur verb because Digicoll will give you its whole past tense (not just the ending like with -i verbs).

You might also know this category as: 

• Weak verbs (veikar sagnir)
• Irregular weak verbs
• W3 verbs (V3)
• -ur verbs
• Mixed class, mixed conjugation (blandaðar sagnir)

Hybrid Verbs

The defining features of the hybrid verbs is that:

• they either form the present tense like strong verbs but the past tense like -i verbs, or
• they form the present tense like -i verbs but the past tense either entirely like strong verbs, or with a strong-verb-like vowel shift.

These verbs are frequently labelled as irregular, but I think it’s more helpful to think of them as hybrids between weak verbs (-i verbs, specifically) and strong verbs. Most of them aren’t irregular, per se, they just pull from more categories than most verbs. The ey-j-ur verbs are technically just a sub-category of this, but they’re a large enough sub-category that I think it’s useful to think of them as their own thing.

I’m aware of 17 hybrid verbs, and a few of them are extremely common; they account for 15% of all verbs used on a daily basis.. Granted, 9% is just from the verb hafa (have) and 4% just from segja (say), but still: impressive!

You can tell that a verb is a hybrid verb because it will be confusing as hell. You’re probably better off memorising these, at least the frequently used ones.

You might also know this category as:

• Irregular verbs

Preterite-Present Verbs + Vera

The defining features of the preterite-present verbs are that:

• they form the present tense with the past tense (AKA preterite) endings of the strong verbs. Ég á, þú átt, hann á (I own, you own, he owns); ég þarf, þú þarft, hún þarf (I need, you need, she needs)‍
• they form the ég past with an -i ending. Ég átti, þú áttir, hann átti (he owned, you owned, he owned); ég þurfti, þú þurftir, hún þurfti (I needed, you needed, she needed)

There are only 10 preterite-present verbs, but they’re so frequently used that together with vera they account for a whopping 30% of all verbs used on a daily basis.. Granted, 24% of that is just vera, but still: impressive!

You can tell that a verb is a preterite-present verb (or vera) because you should damn well memorise them.

You might also know this category as:

• Irregular verbs
• Mixed conjugation verbs

Summary

Icelandic verbs can be grouped into 6 categories. The first three are the largest.

1. -a verbs
2. -i verbs
3. strong verbs
4. ey-j-ur verbs
5. Hybrid verbs
6. Preterite-Present verbs + verða