You have met prepositions that take the accusative and prepositions that take the dative. The third and smallest group takes the genitive — and it contains one of the most common words in the entire language, til "to." Because til is so frequent (you use it every time you go to a place), the genitive it forces shows up constantly, and getting the genitive ending wrong on a place name or a person is one of the most audible learner errors there is. This page covers the everyday genitive prepositions — til, án "without," vegna "because of," milli "between," auk "in addition to," and the pair innan / utan "inside / outside of" — and the two surprises English speakers keep tripping on: til genitivises even names, and vegna often comes after its noun.
The list: these take the genitive
Commit this short set to memory as the genitive-governing prepositions. (For why the genitive exists and how to form it, see nouns/genitive-forms.)
| Preposition | Core meaning | Example (genitive object) |
|---|---|---|
| til | to / of | til Reykjavíkur (to Reykjavík) |
| án | without | án peninga (without money) |
| vegna | because of / for the sake of | vegna veðursins (because of the weather) |
| milli / á milli | between | milli húsanna (between the houses) |
| auk | in addition to / besides | auk þess (in addition to that) |
| innan | inside of / within | innan klukkustundar (within an hour) |
| utan | outside of | utan borgar (outside the city) |
til — "to" and "of," and the genitive it forces
til is the everyday word for "to (a place / a person)" and also "of" in possession-like phrases. It is by far the most common genitive preposition, and its grammar holds a trap: til genitivises whatever follows it, including place names and personal names. "Going to Reykjavík" is fara til Reykjavíkur; "going to Jón's" is fara til Jóns; "going to the doctor" is fara til læknis. English "to" leaves the place name untouched (to Reykjavík), so the forced genitive ending is exactly what learners forget.
Ég er að fara til læknis á morgun.
I'm going to the doctor tomorrow. (til + genitive læknis)
Við keyrðum alla leið til Akureyrar um helgina.
We drove all the way to Akureyri over the weekend. (til Akureyrar — place name in the genitive)
Hann fór til Jóns að fá lánaða borvél.
He went over to Jón's to borrow a drill. (til Jóns — personal name genitive)
til also covers the "of" relationship in many fixed frames: til hvers? "what for?", til dæmis "for example" (literally "to/of an example"), and the standard span frá … til … "from … to …" (frá Reykjavík til Akureyrar). In all of them the noun after til is genitive.
Til dæmis gætum við hist á föstudaginn.
For example, we could meet on Friday. (til dæmis — fixed genitive phrase)
Það er löng leið frá Reykjavík til Húsavíkur.
It's a long way from Reykjavík to Húsavík. (frá … til, both place-name genitives)
án — "without"
án means "without" and takes the genitive: án efa "without doubt," án vandræða "without trouble," án þín "without you." Note the accent on the á — án, not an — a small but mandatory detail. It is the natural opposite of með "with" (which takes the dative), so the case actually flips between the two.
Hún kláraði verkefnið án vandræða.
She finished the project without trouble. (án + genitive vandræða)
Ég get ekki lifað án kaffis á morgnana.
I can't survive without coffee in the mornings. (án kaffis — genitive)
Þetta er án efa besta myndin í ár.
This is without doubt the best film this year. (án efa — fixed genitive phrase)
vegna — "because of," and the postposition trick
vegna means "because of / for the sake of / on account of" and takes the genitive. Here is the surprise: vegna very often comes after its noun rather than before, especially with pronouns and short nouns. "For my sake" is mín vegna (literally "of-me because"), "for that reason" is þess vegna, "for your sake" is þín vegna. With heavier nouns it usually precedes (vegna veðursins "because of the weather"), but the postposed pattern with pronouns is the everyday norm and English has no parallel for it.
Leikurinn var blásinn af vegna veðursins.
The match was called off because of the weather. (vegna preceding: vegna veðursins)
Þú þarft ekki að gera þetta mín vegna.
You don't have to do this for my sake. (postposed: mín vegna — pronoun first)
Þess vegna fór ég snemma heim.
That's why I went home early. (þess vegna — 'for that reason', postposed)
milli, auk, innan, utan
milli (also á milli) means "between" and, being genitive, naturally takes a plural or a coordinated pair: milli húsanna "between the houses," milli okkar "between us," á milli klukkan tvö og þrjú "between two and three o'clock." auk means "in addition to / besides": auk þess "in addition (to that), moreover." innan and utan mean "inside of / within" and "outside of" — used both spatially (utan borgar "outside the city") and temporally (innan klukkustundar "within an hour").
Það var bara mjó gata á milli húsanna.
There was only a narrow lane between the houses. (á milli + genitive plural húsanna)
Auk þess þarf ég að kaupa mjólk.
Besides, I need to buy milk. (auk þess — 'in addition', genitive þess)
Pakkinn ætti að koma innan viku.
The parcel should come within a week. (innan + genitive viku — temporal)
Þau búa rétt utan bæjar.
They live just outside town. (utan + genitive bæjar)
Why the genitive feels alien here
English marks the genitive only with 's on possessors (the dog's bone) and never after prepositions — to Reykjavík, without money, because of the rain all leave the noun bare. Icelandic, by contrast, requires the noun itself to change shape after these prepositions, and crucially does so even for proper names: til Reykjavíkur, til Jóns, án Önnu. There is no semantic logic to extract — the prepositions simply assign genitive the way til always has — so the task is mechanical: learn which prepositions are genitive, and drill the genitive endings (including on names and places) until they are automatic.
Common Mistakes
❌ Ég er að fara til Reykjavík.
Missing genitive — til forces the genitive even on place names: til Reykjavíkur.
✅ Ég er að fara til Reykjavíkur.
I'm going to Reykjavík. (til + genitive Reykjavíkur)
This is the single most common genitive-preposition error: leaving the place name in its bare/nominative form after til. The name must take the genitive — Reykjavíkur, Akureyrar, Húsavíkur.
❌ Hann fór til lækninum.
Wrong case — that's the dative; til takes the genitive: til læknis.
✅ Hann fór til læknis.
He went to the doctor. (til + genitive læknis)
Reaching for the dative (the case of so many other prepositions) after til is a classic slip. til is genitive, always.
❌ Ég gerði þetta vegna þú.
Wrong form and order — 'for your sake' is þín vegna: pronoun in the genitive, vegna following.
✅ Ég gerði þetta þín vegna.
I did this for your sake. (postposed þín vegna)
With pronouns, vegna follows and the pronoun goes genitive: mín / þín / þess vegna. Treating it like an English "because of you" (preposition + object pronoun) gets both the case and the order wrong.
❌ Þetta er an efa frábært.
Dropped accent — it's án (with the accent), not an, which is a different/non-word here.
✅ Þetta er án efa frábært.
This is without doubt great. (án efa)
The accent on án is not optional. A missing accent is a spelling error, and here it also blurs the word into nonexistence.
❌ Milli húsin var mjór stígur.
Wrong case — milli takes the genitive: milli húsanna, not the bare/definite nominative húsin.
✅ Milli húsanna var mjór stígur.
Between the houses was a narrow path. (milli + genitive plural húsanna)
Key Takeaways
- The genitive prepositions: til (to/of), án (without), vegna (because of), milli / á milli (between), auk (besides), innan / utan (within / outside).
- til is the high-frequency one and forces the genitive even on place names and people: til Reykjavíkur, til Jóns, til læknis.
- án carries an obligatory accent (án, not an) and is genitive: án efa, án þín.
- vegna often follows its noun, especially with pronouns: mín vegna, þín vegna, þess vegna ("therefore").
- English never genitivises after prepositions, so the noun-ending changes — and the proper-name endings most of all — are pure drill.
Now practice Icelandic
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Icelandic→Related Topics
- Prepositions and Case: OverviewA2 — The central fact of Icelandic prepositions: every preposition governs a case — accusative, dative, or genitive — and a famous handful govern TWO cases, accusative for motion and dative for location, with the motion/location alternation being the single highest-value preposition rule in the language.
- Using the Genitive: Possession and BeyondB1 — What the genitive case DOES and where it sits in the sentence — the neutral postposed possessor (bók kennarans 'the teacher's book'), the partitive, governance by prepositions like til, án and vegna, and the meaningful contrast between the default postposed order and the emphatic preposed possessor (mín bók).
- Dative-Only Prepositions: af, frá, hjá, úr, að, gagnvartB1 — The prepositions that always govern the dative no matter what — af ('off/of/by'), frá ('from'), hjá ('at someone's place / with / in someone's view'), úr ('out of'), að ('to/toward'), gagnvart and andspænis ('vis-à-vis') — with the crucial úr-vs-af-vs-frá contrasts and the chez-word hjá that English has no clean equivalent for.
- Forming the Genitive Across ClassesB1 — A single reference for the genitive endings of every noun class — the most variable and error-prone case. Strong masculine -s / weak masculine -a, strong feminine -ar, weak feminine -u, neuter -s, and the overwhelmingly regular genitive plural in -a (with a -na variant for weak and some feminine nouns). Plus the i-umlaut on monosyllabic feminines (hönd → handar) and proper-name genitives.
- Accusative-Only Prepositions: um, gegnum, kringumB1 — The prepositions that always take the accusative, no matter whether there is motion or rest: um ('about / around / during'), gegnum ('through'), and (í) kringum ('around') — with special focus on the wildly polysemous um, which covers topic, path, and time spans (um helgina) and lives in countless idioms (tala um, hugsa um).