Greetings are the first words you will ever say in Icelandic, and the good news is that the casual ones are effortless. But two features set Icelandic apart from English the moment you open your mouth: one common greeting, sæll / sæl, changes its ending depending on whether you are speaking to a man or a woman, and the polite time-of-day greetings sit in a grammatical case (the accusative) for a reason that, once explained, makes them stop feeling random. There is also one thing Icelandic does not have — a formal "you" — and knowing that frees you from a search that will only frustrate you.
The casual greetings: halló, hæ
For everyday, friendly contact — friends, shopkeepers, anyone you would relax around — Icelanders use short borrowed-sounding words. Halló and hæ (informal) are the workhorses, and they are completely invariable: no gender, no case, nothing to agree with.
Hæ! Hvað segirðu?
Hi! How's it going? (casual)
Halló, er einhver heima?
Hello, is anyone home?
Hæ is as light as English "hi"; halló is a touch more like "hello," and is also what you say when you pick up the phone. Neither carries any formality risk — you can use them with almost anyone you are not trying to impress.
The time-of-day greetings: góðan dag(inn), gott kvöld
The more neutral, slightly more polite greetings name the time of day. These are what you say to someone you do not know well, in a shop, an office, or to an older person:
| When | Greeting | Literally |
|---|---|---|
| daytime | góðan dag / góðan daginn | (a) good day |
| evening | gott kvöld / góða kvöldið | (a) good evening |
| at night / parting for sleep | góða nótt | (a) good night |
Góðan daginn! Get ég aðstoðað?
Good day! Can I help you? (a shop assistant)
Gott kvöld og velkomin.
Good evening and welcome.
Góða nótt, sofðu vel.
Good night, sleep well.
Why the accusative? A hidden wish
Here is the insight most courses skip. Why is it góðan dag and not góður dag? Because these greetings are shortened wishes: the full thought is "(I wish you) a good day." That invisible "I wish you" is a verb whose object stands in the accusative case — so dag (kk, day) and its adjective góðan are both accusative, exactly as they would be after "I wish you…". The same logic gives góða nótt (nótt is feminine, accusative nótt, with the adjective góða) and gott kvöld (kvöld is neuter). Once you see the buried wish, the case stops being a mystery you have to memorise blindly.
The longer forms with the article — góðan daginn, góða kvöldið — are extremely common and sound natural; the bare and the -inn/-ið versions are interchangeable as greetings.
sæll / sæl: a greeting that agrees with you
Sæll (to a man) / sæl (to a woman) is a warm, friendly hello — roughly "well met / hello there." It is an adjective in origin (it means "happy, blessed"), and like all Icelandic adjectives it agrees with the person it describes — here, the person you are greeting. So the ending depends on the addressee's gender, not yours:
| You are greeting… | Say |
|---|---|
| a man | Sæll! / Komdu sæll! |
| a woman | Sæl! / Komdu sæl! |
| more than one person | Sæl! (Komið þið sæl!) |
Sæll, Jón! Gaman að sjá þig.
Hello, Jón! Good to see you. (greeting a man → sæll)
Sæl, Anna! Hvað segir þú?
Hello, Anna! How are you? (greeting a woman → sæl)
Komdu sæll og blessaður!
Welcome / hello there! (a warm full greeting to a man)
The fuller forms add komdu ("come" — literally "come, well met"): komdu sæll (to a man), komdu sæl (to a woman). You will also hear the expanded sæll og blessaður / sæl og blessuð, which is friendlier still. The key point for an English speaker: you cannot pick one fixed form. If you say sæll to a woman, it is a grammatical error and sounds odd — like calling her a grammatically masculine thing.
Farewells: bless, bless bless, sjáumst
Leaving is simpler. The all-purpose goodbye is bless (and the doubled bless bless, which is breezy and very common). Sjáumst means "see you" (literally "we'll see each other"). The parting counterpart of sæll/sæl is vertu sæll / vertu sæl ("be well"), again agreeing with the addressee.
Bless bless, sjáumst á morgun!
Bye bye, see you tomorrow!
Vertu sæl, Anna, og takk fyrir mig.
Goodbye, Anna, and thank you (for having me). (to a woman → sæl)
Terms of address and endearments
Icelandic uses warm address words freely. Common ones: vinur (kk, "friend," to a man) / vina (kvk, to a woman); elskan (kvk, "darling, love," used with mín) and ástin (kvk, "(my) love"). The possessive usually follows: elskan mín, ástin mín.
Elskan mín, ertu til í kaffi?
My love, do you fancy a coffee?
Takk fyrir hjálpina, vinur.
Thanks for the help, mate. (to a man)
There is no formal "you"
English speakers often hunt for a polite "you" the way French has vous or German Sie. Modern Icelandic has none. You address everyone — your boss, a stranger, the president — with þú. An old plural-of-respect (þér) survives only in very formal letters and is now perceived as archaic and stiff (archaic/very formal). Politeness in Icelandic is carried by word choice and tone, not by a special pronoun: you reach for góðan daginn and a respectful manner, not for a different "you."
Common Mistakes
❌ Sæll, Anna!
Incorrect — Anna is a woman, so the form is sæl, not sæll.
✅ Sæl, Anna!
Hello, Anna!
Sæll/sæl agrees with the addressee's gender: sæll to a man, sæl to a woman.
❌ Góður dagur!
Incorrect as a greeting — the greeting is in the accusative: góðan dag(inn).
✅ Góðan daginn!
Good day!
The greeting is a reduced wish ("(I wish you) a good day"), so it takes the accusative góðan dag(inn), not the nominative góður dagur.
❌ Searching for a polite 'you' to use with your boss
There is no V-pronoun in modern Icelandic — use þú with everyone.
✅ Góðan daginn. Má ég trufla þig aðeins?
Good day. May I bother you for a moment? (politeness via phrasing, not pronoun)
Do not try to map a formal register onto a special pronoun; it does not exist. Be polite with góðan daginn and courteous wording.
❌ Góða nott
Incorrect spelling — it's góða nótt, with ó in nótt.
✅ Góða nótt
Good night
Keep the accents: góða nótt, góðan dag(inn), góða kvöldið are all written with ó — dropping it is a spelling error.
Key Takeaways
- Casual: halló, hæ — invariable, friendly, safe almost everywhere.
- Time-of-day: góðan dag(inn) (day), gott kvöld (evening), góða nótt (night) — all accusative, because they are shortened wishes.
- Sæll (to a man) / sæl (to a woman) — agrees with the addressee; full form komdu sæll/sæl.
- Farewells: bless, bless bless, sjáumst, vertu sæll/sæl.
- Endearments: elskan mín, ástin mín, vinur/vina.
- There is no formal "you" — everyone is þú; politeness comes from phrasing and tone.
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Start learning Icelandic→Related Topics
- Greetings, Openers, and ClosingsA2 — The formulae that frame an Icelandic conversation — gender-agreeing greetings (sæll to a man, sæl to a woman), the how-are-you ritual (Hvað segirðu gott? — Allt fínt), the attention-getter heyrðu, and leave-takings (bless, sjáumst, hafðu það gott).
- Social Formulae and Set PhrasesA2 — The frozen social phrases of daily Icelandic — takk fyrir mig, gangi þér vel, verði þér að góðu, til hamingju með — and the hidden grammar inside them: most are frozen subjunctive optatives, so you start 'using the subjunctive' long before you study it.
- Icelandic Adjectives: Agreement and Two DeclensionsA2 — The big picture of the Icelandic adjective: it agrees with its noun in gender, number, and case, AND it has two complete declensions — strong (indefinite, gamall maður) and weak (definite, gamli maðurinn) — so a single adjective has dozens of forms, chosen by the definiteness of the whole noun phrase.