dansa ("to dance") is a cheerful, fully regular weak Class-1 verb — and, like baka, a great one for cementing u-umlaut, because its stem vowel is a real a. So "we dance" is dönsum and the past plural is dönsuðum / dönsuðuð / dönsuðu, with a shifting to ö before every -u- ending. Beyond the conjugation, dansa shows off two things worth knowing early: the preposition idiom dansa við ("dance with," + accusative) and one of the most characteristic constructions in the language, the impersonal passive það var dansað fram á nótt ("there was dancing until late") — a way of reporting an activity with no subject at all.
Conjugation
Class: weak, Class 1 (the -aði preterite). Auxiliary: hafa — ég hef dansað "I have danced."
| Principal parts | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | að dansa |
| 3sg present | dansar |
| 3sg past | dansaði |
| Supine | dansað |
| Person | Present (nútíð) | Past (þátíð) |
|---|---|---|
| ég | dansa | dansaði |
| þú | dansar | dansaðir |
| hann / hún / það | dansar | dansaði |
| við | dönsum | dönsuðum |
| þið | dansið | dönsuðuð |
| þeir / þær / þau | dansa | dönsuðu |
| Person | Present subjunctive | Past subjunctive |
|---|---|---|
| ég | dansi | dansaði |
| þú | dansir | dansaðir |
| hann / hún / það | dansi | dansaði |
| við | dönsum | dönsuðum |
| þið | dansið | dönsuðuð |
| þeir / þær / þau | dansi | dönsuðu |
| Non-finite & imperative | |
|---|---|
| Imperative (þú) | dansaðu |
| Imperative (þið) | dansið! |
| Supine | dansað |
| Past participle (m/f/n) | dansaður / dönsuð / dansað |
| Middle voice (miðmynd) | dansast — rare; chiefly in the idiom below |
Everyday dancing
Hún dansar eins og enginn sé að horfa.
She dances like nobody's watching.
Við dönsum alltaf í eldhúsinu þegar þetta lag kemur.
We always dance in the kitchen when this song comes on.
Krakkarnir dönsuðu allan daginn í brúðkaupinu.
The kids danced all day at the wedding.
dansa við — "dance with" (+ accusative)
Your dance partner goes after dansa við in the accusative. English "dance with you" tempts learners toward a dative-feeling preposition, but við governs the accusative here, just as it does in tala við.
Viltu dansa við mig?
Do you want to dance with me?
Hann dansaði við ömmu sína í heila nótt.
He danced with his grandmother all night long.
The impersonal passive: það var dansað
Here is the construction worth learning dansa for. Icelandic loves to report an activity without naming anyone who did it, using a subjectless passive: a placeholder það (or nothing, if the sentence starts elsewhere) plus vera + the neuter supine dansað. There is no doer and no object — just "there was dancing." This is exactly how you describe a party, a celebration, or a tradition.
Það var dansað og sungið fram á nótt.
There was dancing and singing until the early hours.
Í gær var dansað í öllum sölum hússins.
Yesterday there was dancing in every hall of the building.
Because the supine dansað is fixed in the neuter and never agrees with anyone, this is grammatically simpler than the agreeing passive of a transitive verb — you do not have to track gender. English has no neat equivalent; "there was dancing" is the closest, but Icelandic builds it straight out of the verb.
Common Mistakes
❌ Við dansum þangað til klúbburinn lokar.
Incorrect — dansa is an a-stem, so -um triggers u-umlaut: dönsum
✅ Við dönsum þangað til klúbburinn lokar.
We dance until the club closes.
❌ Krakkarnir dansuðu allan daginn.
Incorrect — the past plural ending begins with -u-, so a → ö: dönsuðu
✅ Krakkarnir dönsuðu allan daginn.
The kids danced all day.
❌ Viltu dansa við mér?
Incorrect — dansa við takes the accusative (mig), not the dative
✅ Viltu dansa við mig?
Do you want to dance with me?
❌ Það var dansaður fram á nótt.
Incorrect — the impersonal passive uses the fixed neuter supine dansað, which never agrees
✅ Það var dansað fram á nótt.
There was dancing until late.
Key Takeaways
- dansa / dansar / dansaði / dansað — a fully regular weak Class-1 verb; past tense -aði.
- It is an a-stem, so u-umlaut fires: present við dönsum; past *dönsuðum / dönsuðu; fem. participle *dönsuð.
- dansa við
- accusative = "dance with" — við takes the accusative, never the dative.
- The impersonal passive það var dansað ("there was dancing") uses the fixed neuter supine; no subject, no agreement.
- Auxiliary is hafa: ég hef dansað.
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- The Weak Preterite: -aði, -di, -ði, -tiA2 — How to choose and form the weak past tense — Class-1 -a verbs take -aði (tala → talaði, plural töluðum), Class-2 verbs take the short dental -di/-ði/-ti picked by the preceding sound (reyndi, dæmdi, keypti) — with the full tala paradigm and the 'when in doubt, -aði' default for unknown verbs.
- U-Umlaut as a Sound Alternation (a → ö)A2 — When a u appears (or once appeared) in the next syllable, a stem 'a' is rounded to 'ö' — barn → börn, dagur → dögum, kalla → köllum. This is the living u-umlaut (u-hljóðvarp), an automatic, predictable rounding that explains why so many Icelandic paradigms 'change their vowel'.