Translationese, Anglicisms, and Natural Idiom | Icelandic Grammar

By C1 your Icelandic is grammatical. That is no longer the problem. The problem is that grammatical Icelandic can still be wrong in a way no rule book catches: it can be un-idiomatic — correct word by word, yet English in its shape, so that a native reader frowns and says þetta er svolítið þýðingarkennt ("this is a bit translation-ish"). This page is about that frontier. Everything here is grammatically licit; everything here is also what a careful Icelandic writer avoids. We deal with grammatical anglicisms and translationese — calqued constructions and word order — not with the lexical purism of coining native words for borrowings, which is its own topic (word-formation/loanwords-purism). The single insight to carry away: competitors stop at grammaticality, but the last 10% of fluency is idiom, and idiom is mostly a matter of not letting English structure leak through.

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The advanced learner's signature error is not a broken sentence — it is a sentence that works but sounds translated. Natives call it þýðingarmál or þýðingarkennt mál ("translation-language"). The four big leaks are the over-used progressive (vera að), English word order, periphrastic comparison (meira/mest for a plain -ari/-astur), and calqued prepositions. Train your ear to hear the English underneath.

Leak 1: the over-used progressive vera að

English marks ongoing action obsessively: "I'm working," "she's living in Reykjavík," "we're hoping it'll clear up." Icelandic has a progressive — vera að + infinitive — but uses it far more sparingly. It signals an action genuinely in progress right now or vividly unfolding; it is not the default present. Many English present-progressives correspond to a plain Icelandic simple present.

The classic leak is using vera að for states, habits, and stable facts — exactly where English uses the progressive but Icelandic does not. States especially reject it: you cannot be "in the middle of" living somewhere or owning something.

❌ Ég er að búa í Reykjavík.

Translationese — búa ('to live/reside') is a state; the progressive forces a 'right-now-in-the-act' reading that's odd for residence. English 'I'm living in Reykjavík' leaks through.

✅ Ég bý í Reykjavík.

I live in Reykjavík. — the plain simple present is the idiomatic form for a state.

✅ Ég er að flytja til Reykjavíkur.

I'm moving to Reykjavík. — here vera að is right: a dynamic action genuinely in progress.

The same applies to habits and to verbs of cognition and emotion. Ég er að vona ("I'm hoping") for a settled hope, hún er að elska ("she's loving"), við erum að halda ("we're thinking/holding the view") — all read as English forced into Icelandic.

❌ Ég er að vona að þetta gangi upp.

Translationese — a settled hope is a state; vera að over-marks it. The English progressive 'I'm hoping' bleeds in.

✅ Ég vona að þetta gangi upp.

I hope this works out. — simple present for the mental state.

❌ Hvað ertu að halda um þetta?

Translationese — halda ('to think/hold the view') is stative here; this calques 'What are you thinking about this?'

✅ Hvað finnst þér um þetta?

What do you think about this? — the idiomatic Icelandic frame uses finnast, not a progressive of halda.

The deeper logic: Icelandic vera að is aspectual and vivid, reserved for the dynamic and the momentary, whereas the English progressive has bleached into a near-default tense. When in doubt, an advanced writer reaches for the simple present and lets vera að mark only what is truly underway. (The full machinery and its real, idiomatic uses are on verbs/progressive-vera-ad.)

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Rule of thumb: if the English would be fine in the simple present ("I work here", not only "I'm working here"), Icelandic almost certainly wants the simple present too. Reserve vera að for action visibly unfolding — ég er að elda ("I'm cooking, right now"), not ég er að búa hér.

Leak 2: periphrastic comparison — meira/mest where -ari/-astur belongs

This is the most insidious leak because it is invisible to the speaker. English forms comparatives two ways — synthetic (bigger) and periphrastic (more beautiful) — and the periphrastic route has expanded over centuries. Icelandic, by contrast, strongly prefers the synthetic comparative and superlative (stærri / stærstur, fallegri / fallegastur) for the overwhelming majority of adjectives, including long ones where English would never say "beautifuller." Under English pressure, learners (and increasingly some native speech) reach for meira fallegt / mest fallegt ("more beautiful" / "most beautiful") — a periphrasis that careful Icelandic rejects in favour of the inflected fallegri / fallegast.

❌ Þessi mynd er meira falleg en hin.

Translationese — meira + adjective calques English 'more beautiful'. Icelandic inflects: fallegri.

✅ Þessi mynd er fallegri en hin.

This picture is more beautiful than the other. — synthetic comparative fallegri, the idiomatic form.

❌ Þetta er mest áhugaverða bókin.

Translationese — mest + adjective calques 'most interesting'. Use the superlative inflection áhugaverðasta.

✅ Þetta er áhugaverðasta bókin.

This is the most interesting book. — synthetic superlative áhugaverðasta.

Icelandic does keep meira / mest for a genuine purpose: when you compare two qualities of the same thing (metalinguistic comparison) or with certain non-gradable or participial adjectives. Hann er meira þreyttur en svangur ("he is more tired than hungry") is correct and not translationese, because you are weighing "tired" against "hungry," not grading tiredness on a scale. The error is using meira/mest as the default comparison, the way English does. (The boundary between synthetic and periphrastic is mapped on adjectives/comparative-syntax.)

✅ Hann er meira þreyttur en svangur.

He's more tired than hungry. — legitimate periphrastic 'meira': comparing two qualities, not grading one. Not translationese.

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Default to the inflected comparison: -ari/-ri and -astur/-astur. Use meira/mest only to compare two different qualities (meira rauður en bleikur, "more red than pink") — never as the everyday way to say "more X." The periphrastic creep is the hardest anglicism to self-diagnose because both versions are grammatical.

Leak 3: calqued prepositions

Prepositions are arbitrary, and they map terribly between languages — so they are where calques flourish. The learner reaches for the Icelandic preposition that translates the English one, rather than the one Icelandic idiom actually selects. The result is grammatical (a preposition, governing the right case) but wrong as collocation.

English pulls you to…	…but Icelandic idiom takes	Gloss
bíða fyrir ("wait for")	bíða eftir dat.	to wait for
hlusta til ("listen to")	hlusta á acc.	to listen to
hafa áhuga í from "interested in"	hafa áhuga á dat.	be interested in
fara til skólans daily	fara í skólann	go to school
hugsa um að for "think of"	hugsa sér / detta í hug	think of / imagine

❌ Ég er að bíða fyrir strætó.

Calqued preposition — 'wait FOR' becomes fyrir, but Icelandic waits 'after': bíða eftir. (Also note the unneeded progressive.)

✅ Ég bíð eftir strætó.

I'm waiting for the bus. — bíða eftir + dative is the fixed collocation; simple present, not the progressive.

❌ Hún hefur áhuga í tónlist.

Calqued preposition — 'interested IN' becomes í, but áhugi takes á: hafa áhuga á + dative.

✅ Hún hefur áhuga á tónlist.

She's interested in music. — hafa áhuga á + dative, the idiomatic government.

The cure is not a rule — there isn't one — but a habit: learn the verb with its preposition as a single unit, bíða eftir, hlusta á, hafa áhuga á, the way you learn a word with its gender. Never derive the Icelandic preposition from the English one.

Leak 4: the English 'have'-perfect crowding out búinn að

Icelandic has a hafa-perfect (ég hef gert það, "I have done it"), and it is fully correct. But in speech and informal register, the idiomatic way to say "I've finished doing / I've already done" something — to mark a completed, wrapped-up action — is overwhelmingly the búinn að resultative: ég er búin/n að gera það ("I'm done doing it / I've done it"). English speakers, hearing their own "have done," default to the hafa-perfect everywhere and so produce technically-correct but stiff, written-sounding speech, missing the construction natives actually use for completion.

❌ (spoken) Ég hef borðað.

Stiff / written-feeling in casual speech — the hafa-perfect is correct but bookish here. Spoken Icelandic marks completion with búinn að.

✅ (spoken) Ég er búin að borða.

I've eaten (I'm done eating). — the búinn að resultative, the idiomatic spoken way to say a thing is completed. (búin, feminine speaker)

✅ Ertu búinn að klára verkefnið?

Have you finished the assignment? — búinn að is the natural way to ask about a completed task; 'Hefur þú klárað…?' sounds formal.

Note that búinn is an adjective and agrees with the subject: búinn (m.), búin (f.), búið (n.), búin/búnir/búnar (pl.). The hafa-perfect is not wrong and is preferred in formal writing and for experiential/relevance perfects (ég hef aldrei komið hingað, "I've never been here") — but for plain "I've done / I'm finished" in conversation, búinn að is the native reflex. (The construction is detailed on verbs/bua-ad-resultative.)

Leak 5: English word order creeping in

Icelandic is a V2 language with much freer constituent order than English, governed by case rather than position. Two anglicisms recur. First, rigid Subject–Verb–Object even when fronting a time or place phrase, forgetting that a fronted adverbial throws the subject after the verb. Second, placing adverbs the English way ("I always drink coffee") instead of after the finite verb.

❌ Í gær ég fór í bíó.

Word-order calque — after a fronted adverbial (Í gær), the finite verb must come before the subject (V2). English SVO leaks in.

✅ Í gær fór ég í bíó.

Yesterday I went to the cinema. — V2: fronted Í gær → verb fór before subject ég.

❌ Ég alltaf drekk kaffi á morgnana.

Adverb-placement calque — 'I always drink' puts alltaf before the verb. Icelandic places it after the finite verb.

✅ Ég drekk alltaf kaffi á morgnana.

I always drink coffee in the mornings. — alltaf after the finite verb drekk.

Because Icelandic licenses scrambling that English forbids, the opposite error also marks translationese: refusing to front anything, producing relentlessly subject-initial prose where idiomatic Icelandic would topicalise an object or a complement for cohesion. Native writing is more willing to begin a sentence with a non-subject. (The full freedom and its limits: complex/scrambling-and-word-order-freedom.)

Other tell-tale calques

A scatter of smaller leaks that natives flag instantly:

Calqued idioms. Það gerir vit for "it makes sense" — Icelandic does not "make sense"; it says það er skynsamlegt or það meikar sens (the latter a jokey, marked slang loan). Taka pláss for "take place" is wrong; an event fer fram or á sér stað.
Light-verb calques. Taka ákvörðun ("take a decision") exists but taka sturtu ("take a shower") is an anglicism; idiomatic Icelandic fer í sturtu ("goes into a shower").
Over-explicit pronouns and possessives. English says "I washed my hands"; idiomatic Icelandic prefers ég þvoði mér um hendurnar (dative reflexive + definite, no possessive) over the calque ég þvoði hendurnar mínar.

❌ Ég ætla að taka sturtu og svo þvo hendurnar mínar.

Two calques — 'take a shower' (taka sturtu) and the possessive 'my hands' (hendurnar mínar).

✅ Ég ætla að fara í sturtu og svo þvo mér um hendurnar.

I'm going to take a shower and then wash my hands. — fara í sturtu; reflexive þvo mér um hendurnar with the definite article, no possessive.

❌ Fundurinn mun taka pláss á morgun.

Calqued idiom — 'take place' rendered literally. An event fer fram or á sér stað.

✅ Fundurinn fer fram á morgun.

The meeting takes place tomorrow. — fara fram, the idiomatic verb for an event happening.

English vs Icelandic: why this is the C1 wall

Every leak above shares one cause: English and Icelandic can be mapped word-for-word into grammatical sentences, and that very possibility is the trap. The English progressive maps onto vera að, "more" onto meira, "for/in/to" onto fyrir/í/til, "have done" onto hef gert — each mapping is available, each is grammatical, and each is wrong as idiom in most contexts. Lower-level errors break rules and get corrected; these errors satisfy the rules and pass silently, which is exactly why they fossilise. Reaching native-like Icelandic at C1 is therefore less about learning new rules than about un-learning the reflex to translate structure, and replacing it with stored Icelandic chunks: ég bý hér, fallegri, bíða eftir, búin að, í gær fór ég. The goal is prose that does not betray, in its bones, that an English sentence was thought first. (Adjusting between registers without leaking is the related skill on pragmatics/register-shifting and register/formal-vs-colloquial.)

Common Mistakes

❌ Ég er að búa hér og ég er að vinna sem kennari.

Over-progressive — both búa and vinna are states/habits here; vera að forces a 'right-now' reading. Pure English-progressive leak.

✅ Ég bý hér og vinn sem kennari.

I live here and work as a teacher. — simple present for state and habit; reserve vera að for action in progress.

The over-use of vera að is the loudest single tell of translationese. Default to the simple present; let vera að mark only what is genuinely unfolding now.

❌ Þetta er meira mikilvægt en hitt.

Periphrastic-comparison calque — mikilvægt grades synthetically (mikilvægara). meira here apes English 'more important'.

✅ Þetta er mikilvægara en hitt.

This is more important than that. — synthetic comparative mikilvægara.

Icelandic inflects its comparatives. Reach for meira/mest only when weighing two distinct qualities, never as the everyday "more/most."

❌ Ég hlakka fyrir helgina.

Calqued preposition — 'look forward to' becomes fyrir; Icelandic uses hlakka til + genitive.

✅ Ég hlakka til helgarinnar.

I'm looking forward to the weekend. — hlakka til + genitive, the fixed collocation.

Never derive an Icelandic preposition from its English counterpart. Store each verb with its own preposition as one unit.

❌ (casual) Hefur þú lokið við að borða nú þegar?

Stiff — correct but bookish for casual speech, where completion is búinn að.

✅ (casual) Ertu búin að borða?

Have you eaten already? — the spoken búinn að resultative; the hafa/ljúka phrasing sounds written.

For "I've done / I'm finished" in conversation, búinn að is the native reflex; the hafa-perfect, though correct, reads as formal.

❌ Á morgun ég ætla að hitta hana.

Word-order calque — after fronted Á morgun, V2 demands verb-before-subject. English SVO intrudes.

✅ Á morgun ætla ég að hitta hana.

Tomorrow I'm going to meet her. — V2 inversion after the fronted time phrase.

Key Takeaways

The advanced error is un-idiomatic, not ungrammatical — English-shaped Icelandic that natives call þýðingarkennt ("translation-ish"). Mastery at C1 is idiom, not new rules.
Don't over-use vera að. Most English progressives correspond to the Icelandic simple present; reserve vera að for action genuinely unfolding now.
Prefer synthetic comparison (fallegri / fallegastur) over periphrastic meira/mest, which is correct only for weighing two distinct qualities.
Don't calque prepositions — learn bíða eftir, hlusta á, hafa áhuga á, hlakka til as fixed units; never translate the English preposition.
For spoken "I've done / I'm finished," use the búinn að resultative; the hafa-perfect is correct but sounds written.
Respect V2 word order — a fronted adverbial throws the subject after the verb (Í gær fór ég…) — and place adverbs after the finite verb (ég drekk alltaf…).

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