Annotated Dialogue: Ordering at a Café

Ordering a coffee in Iceland is friendly, fast — and it quietly exposes a beginner to one of Icelandic's most famous oddities: a verb whose subject is in the accusative. When you say "I'd like a coffee," the natural Icelandic is Mig langar í kaffi — literally "Me longs for coffee," with mig ("me") where English expects "I." Below is a realistic café exchange, glossed line by line, then unpacked: the accusative-subject langa, the plan-making ætla að, the cosy fá sér, and prices in krónur.

The dialogue

A customer (Gestur) orders at a Reykjavík café from the barista (Afgreiðslukona, "the woman serving").

Everything here is A1 — but three patterns reward a closer look: Mig langar í …, ætla að fá (mér) …, and tvö þúsund krónur.

Mig langar í … — the verb whose subject is "me"

The headline feature. To say "I'd like / I fancy," Icelandic uses langa ("to long for / want"), and langa is an accusative-subject verb: the person doing the wanting appears in the accusative, not the nominative. So:

• Mig (acc. "me") langar (the verb) í kaffi (acc. "for coffee") = "I'd like a coffee."

There is no ég ("I") anywhere — the wanter is mig ("me"). The verb langar sits in a fixed 3rd-person shape and does not change to match the person; only the pronoun in front changes (mig = I, þig = you, hana = her). This whole class of verbs — feelings and bodily states like langa, vanta, finnast — works this way, and the café is a gentle, high-frequency place to first meet it. (Full treatment: verbs/accusative-subject-verbs.)

Note the second piece: the thing you want comes with í ("in/into") + accusative — í kaffi, í köku. So the literal shape is "Me longs into coffee." Treat langa í + accusative as one fixed frame.

Ég ætla að fá (mér) … — the plan-making order

The other natural way to order is Ég ætla að fá … ("I'll have …", literally "I intend to get …"). Here ætla means "to intend / be going to," and it's followed by að + infinitive — the Icelandic equivalent of English "to do" after "going to." So ég ætla að fá = "I'm going to get / I'll have." This one is a normal nominative-subject verb (it's plain ég), a nice contrast with langa.

fá sér — getting something for yourself

Listen to the dialogue again: the customer says ég ætla að fá mér köku — not just fá köku, but fá mér köku. That little mér ("for myself") is the benefactive reflexive: fá sér means "to get/have something for oneself," and it's the idiomatic way to talk about treating yourself to food and drink. The reflexive matches the subject:

• ég fæ mér — I have (for myself)
• þú færð þér — you have (for yourself)
• hann fær sér — he has (for himself)

So fá sér kaffi is "to have a coffee" in the cosy, treat-yourself sense. English just says "have a coffee"; Icelandic adds the "for myself" pronoun, and leaving it out sounds oddly bare. (More reflexives: verbs/reflexive-verbs.)

Prices: tvö þúsund krónur — the feminine money word

When the bill comes, króna ("krona") is the unit — and it is feminine (kvk). Its plural is krónur. That femininity matters because numbers agree with their noun in Icelandic, and the low numerals have separate masculine, feminine, and neuter forms. With krónur you need the feminine forms:

• ein króna — one krona (f. ein)
• tvær krónur — two krónur (f. tvær, not masc. tveir)
• þrjár krónur — three krónur (f. þrjár)
• fjórar krónur — four krónur (f. fjórar)

In the dialogue the total is tvö þúsund krónur. Here tvö is neuter because it agrees with þúsund ("thousand"), which is neuter — þúsund is the noun being counted at that point, so the "two" attaches to þúsund, not directly to krónur. (This is a subtle point; for everyday small prices you'll mostly need the feminine tvær/þrjár/fjórar krónur pattern.) The phrase Það gera … krónur is the standard "that comes to … krónur." (Money and counting: numbers/money-and-measures.)

Paying and thanking: með korti, takk fyrir

To pay by card is borga með korti — með ("with") + the dative of kort ("card"), giving korti. And the politeness layer: takk is "thanks," takk fyrir is "thank you (for it)," and the all-purpose gjörðu svo vel is what staff say when handing something over ("here you go / you're welcome"). After a meal you may hear Verði þér að góðu! ("Enjoy! / May it do you good").

Vocabulary and forms

Things English speakers get wrong here

Key Takeaways

• Mig langar í … is the everyday "I'd like …" — and its subject is accusative (mig, þig), with the verb frozen as langar. Never say ég langa.
• Ég ætla að fá … ("I'll have …") is the plan-making order: ætla að + infinitive, with a normal nominative subject.
• For food and drink use the benefactive fá sér: fá mér/þér/sér — "have (for oneself)."
• króna is feminine; counting krónur needs feminine numerals (tvær, þrjár, fjórar krónur).
• Pay með korti (með + dative); thank with takk / takk fyrir.