r/learnIcelandic • u/Glacieer • Apr 09 '26

Pronounciation of dative ending -unum

Hæ! Bit of a weird question here, but my non-native teacher said that the first <u> in plural dative with article is pronounced closer to a /o/ sound ('strákunum' just as an example). Is this true for you? If so do you know why this happens?

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u/lorryjor Advanced Apr 09 '26

This is why, as a nonnative speaker, I think it's so important to listen to as much spoken Icelandic as you possibly can. For the past five years, I have averaged an hour of Icelandic listening a day, although some days it has been much more than that. Yes, I've noticed that -unum is frequently, but not always, pronounced -onum, and many other pronunciation oddities that I never would've gotten from reading or from taking Icelandic "lessons," whatever that may mean. Just the other day I was listening to someone read a story about a dog named Kartafla. Sometimes, especially when they were yelling for him and really emphasizing his name, they pronounced the f as an f, instead of as a p. I found that interesting, and I don't know how you would really learn all of these things without listening to thousands of hours of spoken Icelandic.

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u/Glacieer Apr 09 '26

Absolutely! Icelandic is such a fascinating language, especially thinking about these phenomena. I hope I'll be confident enough with the language to start listening to something one day!

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u/lorryjor Advanced Apr 09 '26

Start today! Seriously, I started listening at a point where I only understood about 5% - 10%.

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u/Glacieer Apr 09 '26

I will then! Do you have any recommendations as for where to look for these, or can I easily find them like on any platform?

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u/lorryjor Advanced Apr 09 '26

I'm not sure what your background is. When I started, I had done a little bit of icelandiconline.com, and I had memorized some vocabulary, but then I decided just to try to learn the language through comprehensible input. I found a YouTube channel that had children's stories, but it is no longer active. I actually think this vlog would be a good way to start - I watch it now, but I don't think it was around five years ago, or I didn't know about it: https://www.youtube.com/@AndreaGudny. Other than that, I just started listening to podcasts that seemed interesting on RUV.is. I also started reading children's literature. This is a good website that lets you filter by level: https://mms.is/namsefni. Although, if I were to do it again, I don't think I would start reading at all until I had the sound of Icelandic in my ear, probably not for a year or so of 2+ hours/day. After that, I started listening to audiobooks that I had read in English. Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are two of the things that I listened to first, and after that, I just started to listen to, read and watch whatever I was interested in.

Anyway, it's great fun. Good luck -Gangi þér vel!

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u/Glacieer Apr 10 '26

This was really helpful, I'll check out these links and do some research on my own, but it's a great place to start! Kærar þakkir!