Personal Pronouns: Full Declension | Icelandic Grammar

This is the master table for Icelandic personal pronouns. Every one of them declines through all four cases — nominative, accusative, dative, genitive — and you will reach for every case in ordinary conversation. Reflexives (sig/sér/sín) and possessives (minn, þinn…) have their own pages; this page is the personal pronouns themselves. Learn the table as ten little verbs-of-being: each row is a person, each column a case.

The full paradigm

Person	Nominative	Accusative	Dative	Genitive
1st sg. (I)	ég	mig	mér	mín
2nd sg. (you)	þú	þig	þér	þín
3rd sg. masc. (he)	hann	hann	honum	hans
3rd sg. fem. (she)	hún	hana	henni	hennar
3rd sg. neut. (it)	það	það	því	þess
1st pl. (we)	við	okkur	okkur	okkar
2nd pl. (you all)	þið	ykkur	ykkur	ykkar
3rd pl. masc. (they)	þeir	þá	þeim	þeirra
3rd pl. fem. (they)	þær	þær	þeim	þeirra
3rd pl. neut./mixed (they)	þau	þau	þeim	þeirra

A few structural mercies hide in this table. In the plural, the accusative and dative of "we" and "you" are identical (okkur/okkur, ykkur/ykkur), so you only learn one form for both. And across all three genders of "they," the dative is always þeim and the genitive always þeirra — the gender split exists only in the nominative and accusative. So once you are past the subject and object, "they" is just þeim / þeirra regardless of who is in the group.

💡

The dative is the case learners drop most often: mér, þér, honum, henni, því, okkur, ykkur, þeim. It is the case of indirect objects, of many prepositions, and of "experiencer" subjects (below). If a form feels unfamiliar, it is usually because you skipped the dative.

First and second person: ég and þú

These are the forms you will say most, and their accents are phonemic — mín and þín (genitive) differ from any unaccented stem.

Ég tala íslensku, en þú talar betri ensku.

I speak Icelandic, but you speak better English.

Hún bauð mér og þér í kaffi.

She invited me and you for coffee. (dative after bjóða)

Þetta er bíllinn þinn, ekki minn.

That's your car, not mine. (þinn/minn here as possessives, built on the same stems)

Notice in the second example that bjóða ("invite, offer") takes the dative, so both "me" and "you" appear as mér and þér. A learner who only knows accusative mig/þig will produce the wrong case here.

The third person singular: gender follows the noun

Hann, hún, and það are not just "he, she, it" by biology — they track the grammatical gender of the noun. A masculine noun like síminn ("the phone") is hann; a feminine noun like borgin ("the city") is hún; a neuter noun like húsið ("the house") is það. English speakers must resist the urge to make every inanimate thing "it."

Hvar er síminn? – Hann er í vasanum.

Where's the phone? – It's in my pocket. (sími is masculine → hann)

Borgin er falleg; hún er við sjóinn.

The city is beautiful; it's by the sea. (borg is feminine → hún)

Note the asymmetry in the masculine: hann is the same in nominative and accusative (Ég sá hann, "I saw him/it"), but the dative is honum and genitive hans. The feminine and neuter each have a distinct accusative (hana, það).

Ég gaf honum bókina.

I gave him the book. (dative honum)

Ég treysti henni fullkomlega.

I trust her completely. (treysta takes dative → henni)

það: "it" and the dummy subject

The neuter það is also the all-purpose dummy subject — the placeholder that fills the subject slot when there is no real subject, like English "it" in "it's snowing" or "there is/are." In its dative and genitive (því, þess) it also serves as "that/it" pointing back at a whole idea.

Það snjóar úti.

It's snowing outside. (dummy það)

Það er einhver við dyrnar.

There's someone at the door.

Ég er sammála því.

I agree with that. (sammála + dative því)

The third-person plural: three genders, then merger

Here is the feature with no English analogue and very high frequency. "They" comes in three flavours in the nominative and accusative:

þeir / þá — an all-masculine group (the men, the boys).
þær / þær — an all-feminine group (the women, the girls).
þau / þau — a neuter group, or any mixed-gender group.

The rule that trips everyone up: a mixed-gender group takes the neuter plural þau. A man and a woman, a class of boys and girls, a couple — all þau, never þeir. The neuter is the default for "humans of more than one gender." After the accusative, the gender distinction vanishes: dative þeim and genitive þeirra for all three.

Strákarnir komu seint; þeir misstu af strætó.

The boys came late; they missed the bus. (all-male → þeir)

Stelpurnar unnu leikinn; ég sá þær spila.

The girls won the match; I saw them play. (all-female → þær)

Mamma og pabbi hringdu; ég talaði við þau í gær.

Mum and Dad called; I talked to them yesterday. (mixed → þau, acc. after við)

Ég gaf þeim allt sem þau áttu skilið.

I gave them everything they deserved. (dative þeim — same for every gender)

💡

Default "they" to þau for any group that isn't all-male or all-female. A couple, a family, a mixed party of friends — all þau. Using þeir for a mixed group is a real grammatical error, not just a stylistic slip.

Dative-experiencer subjects: mér finnst, honum líkar

One construction makes the dative indispensable from your very first conversations. A whole class of Icelandic verbs of feeling, opinion, and liking puts the experiencer in the dative, not the nominative. In English I think, I like — the experiencer is the subject. In Icelandic the experiencer is dative, and the grammatical subject is something else (or absent).

Mér finnst þetta skemmtilegt.

I think this is fun. / This seems fun to me. (lit. 'to-me finds this fun')

Honum líkar ekki kaffi.

He doesn't like coffee. (lit. 'to-him likes not coffee')

Henni er kalt.

She is cold. (lit. 'to-her is cold')

This is why mér, honum, henni show up constantly: finnast ("seem, think"), líka ("like"), and the state verbs of being cold/warm/bored all demand a dative experiencer. There is no logical shortcut — you memorise which verbs are "dative-subject" verbs, and the full account lives on the quirky-subjects page. But you cannot say the most basic thing — "I think…" / "I like…" — without it, so meet it now.

Common Mistakes

❌ Mér og þú förum saman.

Incorrect — the subject must be nominative: ég og þú.

✅ Ég og þú förum saman.

You and I are going together.

When the pronoun is the subject, it is nominative — ég, not the dative mér. (English speakers sometimes overcorrect after learning the dative exists.)

❌ Ég treysti hana.

Incorrect — treysta takes the dative: henni, not the accusative hana.

✅ Ég treysti henni.

I trust her.

The verb selects the case. Many common verbs (treysta, hjálpa, bjóða, líka) take the dative, so you must learn each verb's case, not assume accusative.

❌ Jón og Anna fóru heim; þeir voru þreytt.

Incorrect — a mixed group is þau, and the adjective is neuter plural þreytt.

✅ Jón og Anna fóru heim; þau voru þreytt.

Jón and Anna went home; they were tired.

A man and a woman are þau. Defaulting to masculine þeir is a frequent transfer error from genderless English "they."

❌ Ég finnst þetta gott.

Incorrect — the experiencer of finnast is dative: mér.

✅ Mér finnst þetta gott.

I think this is good.

With finnast, líka, and feeling verbs, the experiencer is dative, never a nominative subject. Ég finnst is one of the most common beginner mistakes.

❌ Talaðu við þeir.

Incorrect — við takes the accusative: þá (masc.) or þau (mixed).

✅ Talaðu við þá.

Talk to them. (an all-male group)

After the preposition við you need the accusative, so masculine "them" is þá, not the nominative þeir.

Key Takeaways

Memorise the table by rows: ég/mig/mér/mín, þú/þig/þér/þín, hann/hann/honum/hans, hún/hana/henni/hennar, það/það/því/þess, við/okkur/okkur/okkar, þið/ykkur/ykkur/ykkar, þeir/þá/þeim/þeirra, þær/þær/þeim/þeirra, þau/þau/þeim/þeirra.
In the plural, acc. = dat. for "we/you" (okkur, ykkur); for "they," dat. = þeim and gen. = þeirra across all genders.
Hann/hún/það follow the noun's grammatical gender, not biology; það is also the dummy subject.
A mixed-gender plural is neuter þau — the most distinctive rule on this page.
The dative experiencer (mér finnst, honum líkar, henni er kalt) makes the dative essential from day one.

Now practice Icelandic

Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.

Start learning Icelandic→