Colloquial Icelandic: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series)

Dr. Neijmann has created the best course you can find. I have learnt the difficult Icelandic tongue so easily that I cannot believe it.
of course, it is a course for serious learners. Those whom take the book twice a week in the evenings will not learn Icelandic, French, German or Chinese whatsoever never ever.

*The* course for learning Icelandic (2/2 people found this helpful)

This new book on Icelandic is a very well structured book that will enable the serious learner to communicate quite confidently in Icelandic. For a long time now, there has been a shortage of good books for people wanting to learn the language; "Teach Yourself Icelandic" is unsatisfactory and Linguaphones outdated version is a catastrophy. This book, on the other hand, is up-to-date and easy to use. In each chapter new vocabulary and aspects of grammar are introduced in a very logic way, gradually building up your language-skills from the beginning.
Since my grandmother speaks a very archaic dialect of Swedish, I found this book extremly easy - 75% of the vocabulary and most of the grammar was already familiar to me. If you don't have that kind of background, be prepared for a rather hard language to learn; the grammar is admittingly a bit complicated. On the other hand, all aspects of grammar are dealt with very thoroughly and they shouldn't present any major problems.

Icelandic is a very interesting language which have remained remarkably true to the language spoken by the Vikings. By learning Icelandic you will not only be able to cope in Iceland, you will also understand the more than 1000 years old nordic sagas in their original form.

Absolutely excellent package. (2/2 people found this helpful)

I'll begin with a general conclusion to start : this book deserves 5 stars. It is, simply, the best book you can buy for Icelandic, as far as content, practicality and overall result go, and this is based on having bought "Teach Yourself Icelandic" and having used "Learning Icelandic" during university classes.

Specifically, as I imagine is the case for all the books in the Colloquial range, the dialogues from the first chapter are not designed to simply equip you with, "Hello, my name is..." which, although useful, is in fact not something you tend to say a lot anywhere you go. Instead, they start with high level language (limited to basic situations) and explain it bit by bit in the rest of the chapter, amidst other useful exercises and diagrams. This can be daunting to start off with, but the point is this : with a hard language like Icelandic, you simply need to accept that until much later on you're not going to always understand the difference between "Reykjavik" and "Reykjavikur", and so learning to say it in set phrases as shown in the dialogue is an extremely effective way of learning it. It is how we learn language as infants; we are not explained grammar at 2 years old, we simply repeat it. This is why this book is so good, simply. You learn to speak high level Icelandic straight away without needing it all explained until you're ready. However, when you are indeed ready it explains all the complex inflections extremely well.

By the end of this book, provided you have the cassette, you will be at an extremely high standard of Icelandic, and be able to read and write your own complex thoughts instead of just repeating set phrases. If you're in learning Icelandic for the long haul, buy this. It's worth every penny and you'll be amazed at how much you learn.

Best you will find (2/2 people found this helpful)

I have all kinds of books that teach Icelandic. None come close to this one. I will keep it simple for you, make yourself the favor of buying one of the best books I have ever seen in learning a new language.

My mother tongue is Spanish so I have learned English as a third language after Thai (yes, from Thailand) and now my fourth language, Icelandic.

I have seen all kinds of books that teach languages, this is the best.

It will not do miracles, of course. It's completely up to you. But this one helped me be as fluent as I am now in Icelandic. I am still learning it but I can say i owe this book most.

So, dont think, buy this one.

very good and helpful overall (10/11 people found this helpful)

I bought this as my first step to learning icelandic. I was not disappointed, though i soon realised how much of a task i had taken on!
It starts off describing to you the different vowel sounds and various pronunciations, which is very helpful. I found listening to a cd from another textbook (i couldnt obtain the cd which matches this book unfortunately) made the pronunciation learning much easier, i would recommend buying the accompanying cd.

It's main beneficial feature, i found, is a simple one, and not found in all other 'colloquial' series language books. It is that up until about two thirds of the way through the book (by which point you are really getting to grips more) the dialogues have a direct english 'translation' to accompany them. This was valuable to me when first stumbling around the language, as it helped me to learn phrases easier, and to establish/identify structures better.

The exercises are good too, my only criticism is that they could be a bit more varied or fun! The odd crossword or two wouldnt have gone amiss! Really though, the exercises do fit very well with the learning curve you'll experience in the book, and don't overwhelm the reader. It also has a full answer key at the back of the book so you can easily check your answers.

Throughout the book, it also has readings, which have no translation beneath. Instead they are at the back of the book to encourage the learner to work at the meaning a bit more. This, having been combined with the help provided by the dialogue translations everywhere else, helps the learner a great deal.

It leaves the complicated grammatical parts until a safe point in the book, where you're relatively comfortable ( if you've worked hard enough!) with the basics of the language. This part really is quite difficult but the book again provides a lot for the learner. My only criticism of this complex grammatical part of the book, is that there really should be more explanation. I find that the book tends to tell you something, but not give an alternative way of explanation so that if you can't follow the first explanation, you have something else to rely on. The back of the book, thankfully, includes a full grammar key which was invaluable which goes some way to making up for the occasional lack of explanation.I would advise anyone learning Icelandic that they should have several books at their disposal to aid them over the particularly tricky area of noun and adjective declensions! Once you've mastered them, you wonder why you found it so hard, but initially, i needed a lot of reassurance that i was using the correct rules. I thought also that the subject of noun declension in particular could have included a lot more exercises, because i tended to be going over the same exercises, and instead of learning the patterns i was really just learning it by rote! obviously if you move on from the initial section on declension, you'll be practising it constantly anyway, because it's part of normal usage in more advanced icelandic.

I would definitely recommend this book to someone starting out learning Icelandic, in conjunction with a few other books. I noticed that this book does not always point out the different in formal/informal vocabulary. for example, there are informal words for mother/father wife/husband etc and this book tends to use the formal, which may make you sound a bit odd if speaking to a native Icelander. The same goes for the greetings, i have learned from internet resources and other textbooks, the slight differences in certain greetings used between young and older people, though this is not as pronounced as it is in the english language for example.

The dictionary at the back of the book is english-icelandic and icelandic-english, making navigating the vocab nice and easy, especially at first, though an internet dictionary or (pricey as they are) a decent normal dictionary is definitely a must. I bought a small dictionary to go with the textbook and it is quite outdated, but it was so cheap and generally handy that i can't quarrel with it! After all dialogues there is a small vocab section which is also very helpful, and as you progress, the vocab tells you more about the grammatical aspects of the words (getting technical for a moment, for example it will tell what case the verbs govern, anyone who has studied german will remember these cases, nominative, dative, accusative and gentitive)
All of this is done clearly and if you are in any doubt, the dictionary at the back can confirm things like verb cases and noun genders.

So, to sum up, what can you expect from this book?
Well, from my experience, you will learn the basics, without being overwhelmed, progress well to advanced understanding and conversation, also learn a few things about icelandic culture, and eventually feel comfortable speaking the language and hopefully, in the midst of all the study, have a bit of fun while you're at it!

Colloquial Icelandic: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series)

Daisy L. Neijmann

Reader Reviews:

Congratulations Dr. Neijmann! (0/0 people found this helpful)

The course for learning Icelandic (2/2 people found this helpful)

Absolutely excellent package. (2/2 people found this helpful)

Best you will find (2/2 people found this helpful)

very good and helpful overall (10/11 people found this helpful)

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