ICELAND - REYKJAVIK

Usually, when I travel to foreign countries, I try to familiarize myself with the areas I am going to, learn about the traditions and even some words to get around. For example, when going to Spain I refresh the basics like “Hola” or “Una cerveza por favor”. In the case of Iceland, it turned out to be a very difficult endeavor – not to say impossible. Although, there is an app, similar to Duolingo, which tries to provide a platform for beginners, it is a real hurdle to get started and even harder to keep going.

The Icelandic language is not only very difficult to understand, but also very hard to speak. Only about 350,000 people around the globe speak the language, with the vast majority of whom live in Iceland. According to Linguistics, the language is most closely related to Faroese and Western Norwegian. Further, they also have additional letters, which are very hard to pronounce for non-Nordic people. I have heard from people from Norway and Sweden, that some words sound similar in their language, but other than that, the language provides hardship for them as well. Moreover, in order to preserve their language, Icelanders have decided to convert new words, especially originated from the English-speaking countries, to their lang“snjallsíma”uage. For example, Laptop, which Germans just integrated in their language as is, Icelanders call “Fartölva”. Another example would be “smartphone”, which they call .

Especially because Icelanders know that Icelandic is not spoken outside of their island, they are very committed when it comes to learning and speaking foreign languages. The children already start at a very young age to learn additional languages – starting with English followed by e.g. French, Spanish or any other Nordic language. Therefore, you usually never have a problem with speaking English in Iceland. To be honest, I have not encountered a single Icelandic person, who doesn’t speak English. This made it very comfortable for me as an exchange student and for sure makes life a lot easier.

Although this might seem to be an advantage in the first place, it has certainly also its disadvantages. For example, a lot of signs, boards or descriptions are still written in Icelandic. This is why, for example, I was walking around with a translator in the supermarket for the first few weeks in order to identify the goods and especially cooking ingredients I needed. Additionally, there is the social aspect. Everybody knows how comfortable it is to speak in his/her own language with peers. This is also the case in university. This is why Icelandic people, foremost also only talk in their language. For a person not speaking the native language, it makes it impossible to be part of a conversation or even understand what they say. As Icelanders are not that open, from a cultural perspective e.g. compared to Spanish people and usually remain very calm and more introverted, it makes it hard to build up a personal connection.

Nevertheless, for only being there for a semester, I think English is completely sufficient to succeed in university and in everyday life. I have also heard that it takes up to two years to be able to speak Icelandic on a basic level, which basically leaves you with two options: Either you start early in your preparations or you settle with speaking English. If you plan to move there for an extended period of time or even completely emigrate to Iceland, I would recommend to begin learning Icelandic as it surely helps for the integration process and in one’s social life and interactions with other Icelanders.