English "get" is one of the busiest verbs in the language, covering receiving, acquiring, fetching, becoming, obtaining, and a dozen idioms besides. Icelandic refuses to overload a single verb that way, and "get / obtain" alone splits across at least three: fá is the general "receive / get"; eignast is "come to own, acquire" — the verb for lasting possessions and life events; and verða sér úti um is "procure, get hold of," for actively obtaining something. Choosing wrongly produces sentences that are grammatical but mean something subtly off, and one of them is a genuine howler: "they had a baby" is þau eignuðust barn — using fá there (\þau fengu barn) misses the whole point that a baby is something you *come to have for keeps, not something handed to you. This page draws the three lines and shows where each verb actually lives.
This is a choosing page, not a full conjugation reference: fá's complete paradigm (fæ / fékk / fengu / fengið) lives on its own verb page. Here the question is which verb.
The core distinction in one sentence
fá = receive / get (something comes to you); eignast = come to own / acquire (you gain a lasting possession); verða sér úti um = procure / get hold of (you actively obtain something, often with effort).
Think of it as three angles on "getting." fá is reception — the thing arrives, is given, is granted. eignast is acquisition into ownership — afterwards it is yours, durably (a house, a car, children, friends). verða sér úti um is procurement — you went and got it, sourced it, secured it. English "get" blurs all three; Icelandic makes you say which.
fá: the general 'receive / get'
fá is the default, all-purpose verb for getting in the sense of receiving — something comes to you, is given to you, or is granted to you. You fá a letter, a present, a salary, an answer, a cold, permission. It takes an accusative object (fá bréf, fá gjöf) and is strong/irregular: present fæ / færð / fær, past fékk / fékkst / fékk … fengu, supine fengið. It also heads the hugely common construction fá að + infinitive, "get to / be allowed to" (fá að fara "get to go / be allowed to go").
Ég fékk fallega gjöf frá ömmu minni.
I got a beautiful present from my grandmother. — fá = receive; past fékk + accusative gjöf.
Fékkstu svar við tölvupóstinum?
Did you get an answer to the email? — fá for receiving a reply; 2sg past fékkst.
Krakkarnir fá að vera lengur úti á sumrin.
The kids get to stay out later in summer. — fá að + infinitive = 'get to / be allowed to'.
Ég held ég sé að fá kvef.
I think I'm getting a cold. — fá for catching an illness, exactly like English 'get a cold'.
eignast: 'come to own / acquire' — the life-event verb
eignast is the verb for coming into lasting possession — acquiring something that then belongs to you durably. It is the -st middle voice of eigna (related to eiga "to own"), and that middle voice is the point: eignast means literally "come to own oneself (something)." Crucially, it is the standard Icelandic verb for the major acquisitions and family milestones of a life: having children, getting a home, getting a car, making friends. eignast barn is "to have a baby"; eignast bíl is "to get / acquire a car (that's now yours)"; eignast vini is "to make friends." It is weak (-st middle): present eignast (same for all persons in the singular), past eignaðist / eignaðist / eignaðist … eignuðust, supine eignast.
Þau eignuðust sitt fyrsta barn í fyrra.
They had their first child last year. — eignast for having a baby; past plural eignuðust. NOT *þau fengu barn.
Við eignuðumst loksins íbúð eftir margra ára leigu.
We finally got a flat of our own after years of renting. — eignast = come to own; the flat is now lastingly theirs.
Hún eignaðist marga góða vini í háskólanum.
She made many good friends at university. — eignast vini = 'make friends' (come to have friends), a lasting acquisition.
Ég er búinn að eignast nýjan bíl.
I've got a new car. — eignast = acquire into ownership; the perfect with supine 'eignast' (the supine looks like the present).
Why eignast, not fá, for a baby
The contrast is worth dwelling on because it's so counter-intuitive from English. fá frames the object as something that comes to you — handed over, granted, received. A baby is not "received" in that sense; the parents come to have a child who is now permanently theirs. Icelandic insists on that ownership-acquisition framing, so it uses eignast (the "come to own" verb) for births, just as it does for getting a house or a car. fengu barn would suggest the baby was delivered to them like a parcel — which is exactly the wrong picture. The same logic explains eignast vini "make friends": you don't receive friends, you come to have them.
verða sér úti um: 'procure / get hold of'
verða sér úti um is a fixed periphrastic verb meaning "procure, get hold of, secure" — to actively obtain something, often something not simply lying around. It is built on verða "become" plus the reflexive dative sér and the prepositional phrase úti um, and it takes an accusative object after um. The flavour is of going and getting: sourcing tickets, securing a permit, getting your hands on a hard-to-find item. It is a touch more formal and deliberate than fá, and it stresses the effort or initiative in obtaining.
Hann varð sér úti um miða á tónleikana þótt þeir væru uppseldir.
He got hold of tickets to the concert even though it was sold out. — verða sér úti um = procure with effort; past varð, accusative miða.
Við þurfum að verða okkur úti um góðan lögfræðing.
We need to get hold of a good lawyer. — note the reflexive agrees with the subject: okkur (us), not sér; 'procure for ourselves'.
Hún varð sér úti um öll tilskilin leyfi áður en framkvæmdir hófust.
She secured all the required permits before construction began. — procurement with deliberate effort; formal register.
Note the reflexive: it agrees with the subject, so it's verða sér úti um (he/she/they), verða mér úti um (I), verða okkur úti um (we). It is not interchangeable with bare fá — fá miða is simply "get tickets" (they came to you), while verða sér úti um miða foregrounds that you went and obtained them.
A quick decision guide
| The "getting" is… | Use | Example |
|---|---|---|
| receiving / being given / being granted | fá (+ acc.) | fá bréf, fá gjöf, fá að fara |
| coming to own lastingly (home, car, pet) | eignast | eignast íbúð, eignast bíl, eignast hund |
| a life event — having a child, making friends | eignast | eignast barn, eignast vini |
| actively procuring / getting hold of | verða sér úti um (+ acc.) | verða sér úti um miða |
The fastest check: if the thing durably belongs to you afterwards, lean eignast; if you went and sourced it, verða sér úti um; otherwise, for plain receiving, fá.
Common Mistakes
❌ Þau fengu barn í síðasta mánuði.
Wrong verb — 'have a baby' is eignast barn, not fá. fá frames the baby as something handed to them; eignast = come to have (lastingly): þau eignuðust barn.
✅ Þau eignuðust barn í síðasta mánuði.
They had a baby last month.
This is the signature error. A baby is something you come to have, not something received — so it's eignast, the life-event verb, never fá.
❌ Ég fékk nýjan bíl í fyrra og á hann enn.
Off — if you mean you came to own it (and still do), that's eignast: ég eignaðist nýjan bíl. fá works only if it was given to you (e.g. a gift).
✅ Ég eignaðist nýjan bíl í fyrra.
I got a new car last year (and it's mine). — eignast for acquiring into lasting ownership.
For coming to own something durably, use eignast. fá is fine only if the car was literally given to you; for a purchase you came to own, it's eignast.
❌ Hún fékk marga vini í skólanum.
Wrong verb — 'make friends' is eignast vini (come to have friends), not fá. You don't 'receive' friends.
✅ Hún eignaðist marga vini í skólanum.
She made many friends at school.
Friends are something you come to have, not something handed over — so eignast vini, the same acquisition logic as for possessions and family.
❌ Ég varð sér úti um miða.
Reflexive error — the reflexive must agree with the subject: with ég it's 'mér', so ég varð mér úti um miða. 'sér' is only for 3rd person.
✅ Ég varð mér úti um miða.
I got hold of tickets.
In verða sér úti um, the reflexive agrees with the subject: mér (I), þér (you), sér (he/she/they), okkur (we). It isn't a frozen sér.
❌ Ég eignaðist svar við spurningunni.
Wrong verb — an answer is received, not 'come to own'. Use fá: ég fékk svar. eignast is for lasting possessions, not replies.
✅ Ég fékk svar við spurningunni.
I got an answer to the question.
An answer, a letter, permission, a cold — these are received, so fá. Reserve eignast for things you come to own/have durably.
Key Takeaways
- English "get / obtain" splits across three Icelandic verbs by how you get the thing: fá = receive, eignast = come to own, verða sér úti um = procure.
- fá (fæ / fékk / fengið, + acc.) is the general "receive / get": fá bréf, fá gjöf, fá svar, fá kvef, and fá að
- inf. "get to / be allowed to."
- eignast (-st middle, past eignaðist / eignuðust) is "come to own / acquire" — the verb for lasting possessions and life events: eignast íbúð, eignast bíl, eignast barn ("have a baby"), eignast vini ("make friends").
- "They had a baby" = þau eignuðust barn, never *fengu barn. A baby is something you come to have, not receive.
- verða sér úti um (+ acc.) is "procure / get hold of," stressing effort/initiative — verða sér úti um miða. The reflexive agrees with the subject (mér / þér / sér / okkur).
- Quick check: durably yours afterwards → eignast; you sourced it with effort → verða sér úti um; plain receiving → fá.
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Start learning Icelandic→Related Topics
- fá (to get / receive)A1 — Full conjugation of the irregular strong verb fá (fæ / fékk / fengu / fengið), with the present fæ/færð/fær, the benefactive fá sér 'have/get oneself', fá að + infinitive 'be allowed to', and the irregular past fékk.
- eiga (to own / ought to)A1 — Full conjugation of the preterite-present verb eiga (á / átti / áttu / átt), its possession sense ('have/own', distinct from hafa), the obligation modal eiga að ('be supposed to'), and the past subjunctive ætti.
- The Middle Voice (-st): OverviewB1 — An orientation to the Icelandic middle voice — the verb form built by suffixing -st — covering its four meaning-types (reflexive, reciprocal, anticausative/passive-like, and lexicalised) and the crucial fact that the meaning of an -st verb is not predictable from its base, so many are their own dictionary entries.
- verða vs vera: 'Be' and 'Become'B1 — Both touch on English 'be', but vera is the stative copula — being in a state — while verða is the verb of change, future, and necessity, covering 'become' (hann varð reiður), 'will be' (það verður gott veður á morgun), and 'have to' (ég verð að fara). The split usually comes down to one question: state (vera) or change/future (verða)? — and English's flat 'be' hides all three of verða's jobs at once.
- Verbs and the Case of Their ObjectsB1 — Icelandic verbs assign a fixed case to their object that you cannot predict from meaning: most take the accusative (sjá hann), a sizable cluster take the dative (hjálpa honum), a few take the genitive (sakna hennar), and ditransitives take dative-then-accusative (gefa honum bók) — why object case is lexical, and the high-frequency dative-governing verbs to memorise.