Annotated Dialogue: Making Plans (B1)

Open any real Icelandic conversation and you find three things knotted together that textbooks usually teach apart: people report what someone else said (and the verb quietly shifts into the subjunctive), they give opinions with verbs that demand odd cases, and they soften every suggestion with little particles. None of this is decoration — it is the intermediate workload. Below is an original conversation between two friends, Embla and Kári, sorting out a Saturday evening. They negotiate, disagree mildly, and pass on what a third friend (Hanna) said. Read it once as a conversation, then we unpack the grammar that makes it sound native.

(This page is about how these structures work together in live speech. For the underlying theory of the reported-speech subjunctive, see verbs/subjunctive-reported-speech; we link out rather than re-derive it here.)

The dialogue

Embla and Kári are texting, then call, about Saturday.

It sounds completely ordinary — and that is the point. Almost every line uses one of the four structures below. Let us take them in turn.

Reported speech: hún sagði að hún yrði sein

When you pass on what someone said, the embedded verb shifts into the past subjunctive. This is the single feature that most separates fluent intermediate Icelandic from textbook Icelandic, because English does almost none of it. Look at Kári's line:

Hún sagði að hún yrði sein.

Hanna's actual words were present-tense and matter-of-fact: Ég verð sein ("I'll be late"). When Kári reports them, three things happen at once. The reporting verb is past (sagði, "said"), so the reported verb backshifts; and because it now sits inside að after a verb of saying, it goes into the subjunctive, not the indicative. Verð ("will be," present indicative) becomes yrði (past subjunctive of verða). English backshifts the tense ("she said she would be late") but never reaches for a subjunctive — Icelandic does both.

Notice the consistency: every clause after sagði að takes the subjunctive — yrði, kæmist, væri, myndum. The mood is not optional and not about doubt; it is the automatic signal that you are relaying someone else's words rather than asserting a fact yourself. (Full treatment, including when the present subjunctive is kept instead: verbs/subjunctive-reported-speech.)

Opinions: mér finnst (dative) vs ég held (nominative)

Both finnast and halda translate loosely as "think," but they are grammatically opposite, and choosing wrong is one of the most audible mistakes English speakers make.

finnast ("to find / have the impression") is an experiencer-dative verb. The person who holds the impression is not the subject in the nominative — they sit in the dative, and the thing judged is the grammatical subject the verb agrees with. So "I find it weird" is mér finnst það skrýtið — literally "to-me finds it weird." There is no ég in sight.

halda ("to think, believe, reckon") is an ordinary nominative verb: ég held að … ("I think that …"), with a normal ég subject and usually a að-clause after it.

The division of labour is precise. Use finnast for a subjective impression or taste — how something strikes you, whether you like it. Use halda for a belief or guess about how things stand. "I find the film boring" (impression) is mér finnst myndin leiðinleg; "I think she already left" (guess) is ég held að hún sé farin.

A subtle bonus in that last example: when the experiencer is a name, it too goes dative — Kári → Kára. And note that halda itself triggers a subjunctive in its að-clause (sé, not er), because a belief is presented as not-yet-established fact. (More on this family of verbs: verbs/finnast-and-experiencer; the dative-subject pattern in general: verbs/dative-subject-verbs.)

Softening suggestions: eigum við ekki að …? and viltu …?

Icelanders rarely bark a bare suggestion. Two modal frames do the softening, and both appear in the dialogue.

Eigum við ekki að …? is the workhorse "shall we / why don't we …?" It is the modal eiga ("ought to") in the við form, plus a tucked-in negative ekki that, counter-intuitively, makes the suggestion warmer and more inviting, not negative — exactly like English "Shouldn't we just …?" / "Why don't we …?" The literal "ought we not to …?" is a polite nudge, not a real question expecting "no."

Viltu …? ("do you want to …? / will you …?") is vilja + the clitic þú, an easy, friendly offer or request. It is softer and more personal than a flat imperative.

(These suggestion-and-offer frames in full: pragmatics/requests-and-offers.)

The particles: bara, sko, nú

The words that make the dialogue sound spoken rather than written are the little particles. They carry tone, not content, and leaving them out is what makes a grammatically perfect sentence still sound like a robot.

• bara — "just." It downplays and makes a suggestion casual and low-stakes: eigum við ekki *bara að hittast seinna? ("why don't we *just meet later?"). It signals "no big deal."
• sko — a softening, explaining "you know / you see," usually mid- or end-sentence, easing the listener toward your point: hún væri þreytt, sko ("she was tired, you know").
• nú — as a standalone Nú? it is "oh? / is that so?", registering mild surprise or inviting more. (The same word elsewhere means "now," but as a reaction particle it means "oh really?")

The insight: the real intermediate workload is weaving these together

Step back and look at one line: Hún sagði líka að hún væri með próf á mánudaginn, sko, svo hún væri þreytt. In a single breath it carries a reported-speech subjunctive (væri … væri), a conversational particle (sko), and a causal svo — and the previous turn dropped in an experiencer-dative opinion (mér finnst það skrýtið). That interleaving is the actual skill of intermediate Icelandic. Not any one structure in isolation — they are each learnable in an afternoon — but the fluent braiding of reported subjunctives, opinion verbs with their quirky cases, and tone-bearing particles, all at conversational speed. Master that braid and you stop sounding like a textbook and start sounding like someone gossiping over dinner.

Common Mistakes

The most common English-speaker error: leaving the reported verb in the indicative. Sagði að … verður / er / kemur should be … yrði / væri / kæmi.

Don't use halda for an impression or taste. Halda is for beliefs/guesses (ég held að hún sé farin); how something strikes you is finnast (mér finnst …).

With finnast, the person judging is in the dative (mér, þér, honum, Kára), never the nominative ég.

Dropping the softening ekki and the particle bara leaves a correct but cold suggestion. The natural nudge keeps them.

This last one is a register nudge rather than a hard error: omitting particles isn't ungrammatical, but in casual conversation it reads as oddly flat.

Key Takeaways

• After a past verb of saying + að, the reported verb takes the past subjunctive: yrði, væri, kæmi, kæmist, myndum. English backshifts tense only; Icelandic backshifts tense and switches mood.
• finnast = subjective impression, experiencer in the dative (mér finnst það skrýtið); halda = belief/guess, normal nominative subject (ég held að … sé). Choosing wrong is highly audible.
• Soften suggestions with eigum við ekki (bara) að …? ("why don't we just …?") and viltu …? ("do you want to …?") — the ekki invites, it doesn't negate.
• Particles bara (downplaying "just"), sko (softening "you know"), and nú? (surprised "oh?") carry tone; without them, correct Icelandic still sounds robotic.
• The real intermediate skill is braiding all of these together at speed — that braid, not any single rule, is what makes conversation sound native.