Quantity, Amount, and Approximation Phrases | Icelandic Grammar

Once you can count in Icelandic, the next job is everything around the numbers: saying there's "lots of" something, "a bit" of something, "roughly ten," "at least twice," "twice as big." These quantity-and-approximation phrases come up in almost every conversation, and they hide three pieces of grammar that English doesn't prepare you for — a partitive built with af + dative, a set of approximation hedges with their own abbreviations, and a genuinely Icelandic way of saying "X times as much" that uses the dative of a fraction-noun. This page covers all three. (For the declension of the numerals themselves, see numbers/cardinals-5-plus; for the quantity adjectives like margir and fáir, see adjectives/quantity-adjectives.)

The af-partitive: "lots of", "enough of", "a bit of"

When you say how much of a mass or how many of a set, Icelandic reaches for a quantity word plus af ("of"), and af always governs the dative. This is the single most important pattern on the page. English says "lots of money," "plenty of people" — and the Icelandic of is af + the dative form of the noun.

Phrase	Meaning	Register
mikið af dat.	a lot of, much of	neutral
lítið af dat.	little of, not much of	neutral
nóg af dat.	enough of, plenty of	neutral
fullt af dat.	loads of, lots of	(informal)
helmingurinn af dat.	half of	neutral
fullt, fullt af dat.	loads and loads of (emphatic reduplication)	(informal)

Notice the dative endings in the examples: peningar ("money") → peningum, fólk ("people") → fólki, tími ("time") → tíma. The af is doing the same job as English of, but it forces the case.

Það var fullt af fólki á tónleikunum í gær.

There were loads of people at the concert yesterday. (fullt af + dative fólki; 'fullt af' is the everyday 'loads of')

Hún á fullt af peningum en eyðir engu.

She has loads of money but spends nothing. (af + dative peningum)

Við höfum nógan tíma — engin þörf á að flýta sér. Það er nóg af kaffi líka.

We have plenty of time — no need to rush. There's plenty of coffee too. (nóg af + dative kaffi)

Ég borðaði bara lítið af morgunmatnum, ég var ekki svöng.

I only ate a little of the breakfast, I wasn't hungry. (lítið af + dative morgunmatnum)

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Bolt af + dative onto every quantity word. fullt af peningum, mikið af fólki, nóg af tíma — the noun after af is always dative, never the bare genitive an English speaker might expect from "a lot of."

Why af and not the genitive?

English speakers who know a little Icelandic sometimes reach for a bare genitive here, because the genitive is the case that often means "of": bók kennarans ("the teacher's book"). But the partitive — "some/much/a lot out of a larger amount" — is built with af in modern Icelandic, not the bare genitive. The genitive can appear in fixed, more literary measure phrases, but the living, everyday measure phrase also uses af + dative: lítri af mjólk ("a litre of milk"), glas af víni ("a glass of wine"). For mass and count partitives the everyday pattern is quantity word + af + dative. When in doubt, use af.

"A bit": svolítið and dálítið

For "a bit, a little, somewhat," Icelandic has two near-synonyms, svolítið and dálítið. Both literally contain lítið ("little") and both work as an adverb of degree ("a bit") or as a quantifier of a mass noun ("a little of"). They are interchangeable in most contexts; svolítið is marginally more colloquial.

Ég er svolítið þreyttur eftir ferðina, en það er allt í lagi.

I'm a bit tired after the trip, but it's fine. (svolítið as a degree adverb, 'a bit')

Geturðu sett dálítið meira salt í súpuna?

Could you put a little more salt in the soup? (dálítið as 'a little [more]')

Hún talar svolitla íslensku — nóg til að bjarga sér.

She speaks a bit of Icelandic — enough to get by. (svolítil agrees with feminine íslensku; 'a bit of')

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svolítið and dálítið both mean "a bit / a little." Used as a quantifier before a noun they agree with it like an adjective (svolítil íslenska, svolítið vatn); used as a degree word before an adjective they stay neuter (svolítið þreyttur).

Approximation: um það bil and u.þ.b.

To say "approximately, roughly, about," Icelandic uses um það bil — literally "about that interval." It comes before the number it hedges. In writing you will constantly meet its abbreviation u.þ.b. (with that distinctive þ), which is read aloud as the full um það bil.

Phrase	Meaning	Note
um það bil	approximately, about	abbreviated u.þ.b.
um (+ number)	about, around	shorter, very common in speech
í kringum	around (a number)	"in the region of"
eða svo	or so	follows the number: tíu eða svo

Það tekur um það bil tíu mínútur að ganga niður í bæ.

It takes approximately ten minutes to walk into town. (um það bil before the number)

Fundurinn byrjar u.þ.b. klukkan þrjú.

The meeting starts at approximately three o'clock. (u.þ.b. = the written abbreviation of um það bil)

Það komu um hundrað manns, kannski hundrað og tíu.

About a hundred people came, maybe a hundred and ten. (the short 'um' + number, 'about')

Note that plain um before a number ("um tíu mínútur," "um hundrað manns") is the quick spoken way to say "about" — shorter than the full um það bil and just as common in conversation.

"At least" and "at most": að minnsta kosti and í mesta lagi

Two fixed superlative phrases bracket a quantity from below and above. Að minnsta kosti ("at least," literally "at the least choice/option") sets a floor; í mesta lagi ("at most," literally "in the most amount") sets a ceiling. Both are frozen — you don't change the superlatives inside them. In writing að minnsta kosti is often abbreviated a.m.k.

Ég hef farið til Íslands að minnsta kosti tvisvar.

I've been to Iceland at least twice. (að minnsta kosti = 'at least', sets a floor)

Þetta kostar í mesta lagi þrjú þúsund krónur — sennilega minna.

This costs at most three thousand krónur — probably less. (í mesta lagi = 'at most', sets a ceiling)

Það verða a.m.k. tuttugu gestir, kannski fleiri.

There'll be at least twenty guests, maybe more. (a.m.k. = the written abbreviation of að minnsta kosti)

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Learn three abbreviations together, because you will read them constantly: u.þ.b. (um það bil, "approx."), a.m.k. (að minnsta kosti, "at least"), and þ.e. (það er, "i.e."). The þ is part of the spelling — never write uthb or amk without the dots and the thorn.

The big one: helmingi stærri — "twice as big"

Here is where English instincts fail completely. To say "twice as much / twice as big," English multiplies: two times as much. Icelandic does it differently and far more idiomatically: it takes a fraction-noun in the dative and pairs it with a comparative adjective. The everyday pattern is helmingi + comparative, where helmingi is the dative of helmingur ("a half").

So "twice as big" is literally "bigger by a half-portion" — helmingi stærri. The logic feels backwards until you see it: helmingi is the measure of difference in the dative ("by half again"), and the comparative carries "more/bigger." The same frame scales:

Icelandic	Literally	Idiomatic English
helmingi stærri	bigger by a half	twice as big
helmingi meira	more by a half	twice as much
helmingi minna	less by a half	half as much
þriðjungi dýrari	dearer by a third	a third more expensive
mun / miklu stærri	much bigger	much bigger (unspecified)

The key insight: the dative of a fraction-noun marks "by how much." helmingi (by a half), þriðjungi (by a third), miklu (by a lot) — all dative, all answering "bigger by how much?" This is the same dative-of-measure you meet with comparatives generally (see adjectives/comparative-syntax). Once you see helmingi as "by half" rather than "half," the construction clicks.

Nýja íbúðin er helmingi stærri en sú gamla.

The new flat is twice as big as the old one. (helmingi stærri — dative 'by a half' + comparative; not 'tvisvar sinnum stór')

Þessi sími kostar helmingi meira en hinn.

This phone costs twice as much as the other one. (helmingi meira)

Húsnæði í Reykjavík er þriðjungi dýrara en úti á landi.

Housing in Reykjavík is a third more expensive than out in the countryside. (þriðjungi dýrara — 'by a third' + comparative)

There is a multiplying construction — tvisvar sinnum ("two times"), þrisvar sinnum ("three times") — and it's correct with verbs of repetition (ég hef komið hingað tvisvar sinnum, "I've come here twice"). But for "twice as big/much," the natural Icelandic is helmingi + comparative, not tvisvar sinnum stór. Reserve tvisvar/þrisvar sinnum for "how many times something happens."

Common Mistakes

❌ Það var fullt fólks á tónleikunum.

Incorrect — the partitive needs 'af' + dative, not a bare genitive: fullt af fólki.

✅ Það var fullt af fólki á tónleikunum.

There were loads of people at the concert. (fullt af + dative)

The English "a lot of" tempts a bare genitive (fólks), but the living partitive is af + dative: fullt af fólki, mikið af peningum.

❌ Íbúðin er tvisvar sinnum stór en sú gamla.

Incorrect — a literal calque of 'two times as big'; Icelandic uses helmingi + comparative.

✅ Íbúðin er helmingi stærri en sú gamla.

The flat is twice as big as the old one. (helmingi stærri)

Don't multiply. "Twice as big" is helmingi stærri ("bigger by a half"), with the fraction-noun in the dative and the adjective in the comparative.

❌ Ég á mikið peninga.

Incorrect — 'mikið' needs 'af' before the noun in a partitive: mikið af peningum.

✅ Ég á mikið af peningum.

I have a lot of money. (mikið af + dative)

❌ Það tekur tíu mínútur um það bil.

Word-order slip — the approximation hedge sits before the number, not after the noun.

✅ Það tekur um það bil tíu mínútur.

It takes approximately ten minutes. (um það bil before the number)

❌ Ég hef farið þangað minnst tvisvar.

Wrong phrase — 'at least' as a quantity floor is the fixed að minnsta kosti, not bare 'minnst'.

✅ Ég hef farið þangað að minnsta kosti tvisvar.

I've been there at least twice. (að minnsta kosti / a.m.k.)

Key Takeaways

Partitives use a quantity word + af + dative: fullt af fólki, mikið af peningum, nóg af tíma. Never a bare genitive.
fullt af is the everyday (informal) "loads of"; mikið af, lítið af, nóg af are neutral.
"A bit" is svolítið / dálítið — agreeing like an adjective before a noun, neuter before an adjective.
Approximation: um það bil (written u.þ.b.) and plain um before the number; "at least" = að minnsta kosti (a.m.k.), "at most" = í mesta lagi.
"Twice as big/much" is helmingi stærri / helmingi meira — the dative of a fraction-noun ("by a half") plus a comparative. Scale it with þriðjungi ("by a third"). Reserve tvisvar/þrisvar sinnum for counting repetitions. </content> </invoke>

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