A beginners' mp3 course in modern Icelandic

This is an experimental eight-hour beginners' Icelandic course, based on Alaric's experiences living in Iceland in 2010, and of learning French through the self-teaching course by Michel Thomas. It's quite rough and ready, certainly not complete, and may contain one or two mistakes. But Alaric hopes that it nonetheless provides a confidence-building and efficient way to get started with Icelandic--and to get towards the point where you can say enough to Icelanders in their own language that they will talk back to you in it, giving you a chance to get better. Alaric also hopes that it's a good way to get started on learning Old Icelandic.

Lots of things here could be done better, and Alaric hopes one day to do a better job, so he would really appeciate your feedback: alaric@cantab.net.

• the mp3s
• course contents list
• some extra grammar points, not covered on the mp3s
• list of vocabulary encountered on the course, spreadsheet (.xls)
• list of vocabulary encountered on the course, spreadsheet (.csv)
• list of vocabulary encountered on the course, as a PDF
• exercises for practicing spelling and grammar
• Memrise site for learning the vocab from the mp3s

credits

This course was designed by Alaric and recorded by Alaric, Laura Boehm and Alistair Woods at the University of Leeds in January 2011. It was funded by a University of Leeds Teaching Fellowship. Thanks also to Kate Zalzal and Claire Musikas for helping to pilot the course, and to Paul Sturtevant for lending us the recording equipment.

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Some other suggested resources

This is just a bit of a grab-bag of material which Alaric finds useful in teaching modern Icelandic language and culture, with a bias to stuff that's available free online and in English translation. Some of the URLs for videos are liable to prove unstable so may not be up to date--but if something's disappeared from one site, it's probably appeared on another (try the Google video advanced search option).

Icelandic

• Alaric's Modern Icelandic magic sheet
• Memrise site for learning the 250 commonest words in Icelandic speech
• How to use the Beygingarlýsing íslensks nútímamáls
• Icelandic Online dictionary and resources
• Old Icelandic resources by Alaric

Music

These documentaries are good introductions to current Icelandic popular music--and other aspects of culture.

• Screaming Masterpiece, dir. by Ari Alexander Ergis Magnússon (2005): general tour of the scene; full movie.
• Heima, dir. by Dean DeBlois (2007): Sigur Rós rockumentary; full movie.
• Electronica Reykjavik/Rafmögnuð Reykjavík, dir. by Arnar Jónasson (2008): more talk than music; full documentary.
• Backyard, dir. by Árni Sveinsson (2010): seriously endearing tour of Kimi Records bands; film website.

For an interesting commentary on some of this, see Nicola Dibben, ‘Nature and Nation: National Identity and Environmentalism in Icelandic Popular Music Video and Music Documentary’, Ethnomusicology Forum, 18 (2009), 131–51, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17411910902816542.

Movies

Just a few that have caught Alaric's eye that he thinks are really worth watching.

• Síðasti bærinn, dir. Rúnar Rúnarsson (2004): short film; full movie, and the same at Youtube.
• Mávahlátur, dir. Ágúst Guðmundsson (2001): feminist movie set in postwar Iceland; hard to get hold of though--find a friend with a copy...; IMBD entry.
• Astrópía, dir. Gunnar B. Guðmundsson (2007): okay, not a great movie, but possibly the only Icelandic film which is not about being Icelandic; it is in fact about being a role-player; and it's good for learning Icelandic from; full movie.
• Bræðrabylta, dir. Grímur Hákonarson (2007): short film; full movie (but you have to pay).

Literature

Infamously, the number of novels and poems published in Iceland in a given year is N^2.4, where N is the size of the Icelandic population. Still, here are some pointers.

• Jónas Hallgrímsson: Selected Poetry and Prose, ed. and trans. by Dick Ringler (1998): great literature, great translations, great introduction to the intellectual life of nineteenth-century Iceland; including one of the best guides to poetic metre in the field; full text.
• Icelandic Folktales and Legends, trans. by Jacqueline Simpson (London: Batsford, 1972) (rev. edn published by Stroud: Tempus, 2005): does what it says on the tin; preview.
• Seven Icelandic Short Stories, ed. by Ásgeir Pétursson and Steingrímur J. Þorsteinsson (Reykjavík: Ministry of Education, 1960): good introduction to late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century prose; full text.
• Anything by Iceland's foremost novelist, Halldór Laxness, many of whose books are available in translation. The big classic is Sjálfstætt fólk (Independent People) which is good if you have a dark sense of humour and like thick books; reputedly the text which bagged him the Nobel Prize for Literature is Atómstöðin (The Atom Station), which is psychadelically confusing to the outsider but also witty, insightful and beautiful; another favourite is Íslandsklukkan (Iceland's Bell), set in the eighteenth century.
• Hallgrímur Helgason, 101 Reykjavik, trans. by Brian FitzGibbon (London: Faber, 2002): 1990s Reykjavík through the eyes of first-person misogynist; unlike the rather warm film adaptation, a really nasty book. But very good at what it does!
• Alaric also has a soft spot for Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl's work.

And there's all that crime fiction. Of translated authors, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir seems to be the most highly regarded by Alaric's friends.

Commentary

Not very well thought through yet.

• The University of Victoria archive of Beck Lectures have something for pretty much everyone.
• The Reykjavík Grapevine is half tourist guide, but the other half is often edgy, interesting political and cultural coverage.