flýta ("to hurry, to hasten") teaches a structural habit that English simply does not have: in Icelandic you hurry yourself. There is no intransitive "to hurry" you can use on its own — to say "hurry up," you must say flýta sér, literally "hasten to-oneself." The reflexive is not optional decoration; it is grammatically obligatory. Flýttu þér! ("Hurry up!") is the form every Icelander shouts at a dawdling child, and it is built from flýta + the dative reflexive þér. Drop the sér and you have an incomplete sentence — flýta on its own needs an object, and "hurry (intransitively)" is precisely the reading that demands the reflexive. This page gives the paradigm, drills the obligatory dative reflexive, and adds the second key pattern, flýta fyrir ("speed up, help along").
Conjugation
Class: weak, Class 2 (the -i present, -ti preterite). Auxiliary: hafa — ég hef flýtt mér "I have hurried." The stem flýt- carries the long ý throughout; the preterite doubles the t: flýtti. Keep the accent on ý in every form — flýti, flýtti, flýtt — it is never flyti or flytti.
| Principal parts | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | að flýta |
| 1sg present | flýti |
| 1sg past | flýtti |
| 3pl past | flýttu |
| Supine | flýtt |
| Person | Present (nútíð) | Past (þátíð) |
|---|---|---|
| ég | flýti | flýtti |
| þú | flýtir | flýttir |
| hann / hún / það | flýtir | flýtti |
| við | flýtum | flýttum |
| þið | flýtið | flýttuð |
| þeir / þær / þau | flýta | flýttu |
| Person | Present subjunctive | Past subjunctive |
|---|---|---|
| ég | flýti | flýtti |
| þú | flýtir | flýttir |
| hann / hún / það | flýti | flýtti |
| við | flýtum | flýttum |
| þið | flýtið | flýttuð |
| þeir / þær / þau | flýti | flýttu |
| Non-finite & imperative | |
|---|---|
| Imperative (þú) | flýttu (þér) — "hurry up!" |
| Imperative (þið) | flýtið (ykkur)! |
| Supine | flýtt |
| Past participle (m/f/n) | flýttur / flýtt / flýtt (e.g. flýtt ferð "a brought-forward trip") |
The obligatory reflexive: flýta sér
Here is the rule that defines the verb: to hurry, you must say flýta sér. The reflexive pronoun is in the dative (because flýta governs the dative), so it runs mér, þér, sér, okkur, ykkur, sér. You cannot use bare flýta to mean "hurry up" — \ég flýti* is not a sentence in that sense. The reflexive is what supplies the object the verb requires.
| Person | "hurry" (dative reflexive) |
|---|---|
| ég | ég flýti mér |
| þú | þú flýtir þér |
| hann / hún / það | hann flýtir sér |
| við | við flýtum okkur |
| þið | þið flýtið ykkur |
| þeir / þær / þau | þeir flýta sér |
Flýttu þér, strætó er að koma!
Hurry up, the bus is coming! (imperative flýttu + dative þér)
Við flýttum okkur eins og við gátum en misstum samt af lestinni.
We hurried as fast as we could but still missed the train. (past plural flýttum + okkur)
Hún flýtti sér út úr húsinu án þess að loka.
She rushed out of the house without locking up. (sér = third-person dative reflexive)
Negation: 'no rush'
The negated reflexive is everyday too: engin ástæða til að flýta sér ("no reason to hurry"), and the very common reassurance þú þarft ekki að flýta þér ("you don't need to rush"). The set phrase að flýta sér hægt ("to make haste slowly," to take it steadily) is a nice fixed idiom worth knowing.
Slakaðu á, það liggur ekkert á — þú þarft ekki að flýta þér.
Relax, there's no rush — you don't need to hurry.
flýta fyrir — 'speed up, help along'
The other main pattern is flýta fyrir + dative: to speed something up or make it happen sooner. Here the thing you accelerate is the object of fyrir, in the dative. Without the reflexive, flýta needs this kind of complement: you hasten for a process. There is also the bare transitive flýta + dative ("bring forward, move to an earlier time"), as in flýta fundinum ("move the meeting up").
Heitt te flýtir fyrir bata þegar maður er kvefaður.
Hot tea speeds up recovery when you've got a cold. (flýta fyrir + dative bata)
Þau ákváðu að flýta brúðkaupinu um mánuð.
They decided to move the wedding up by a month. (transitive flýta + dative brúðkaupinu)
Why must the reflexive be there?
flýta is causative in origin — "to make (something) fast," from fljótur ("fast, quick"). A causative verb needs something to make fast: a process (flýta fyrir bata), an event (flýta fundinum), or a person. When the person you make fast is yourself, you get flýta sér. English lets "hurry" be both causative ("hurry the children along") and plain intransitive ("hurry!"); Icelandic keeps only the causative core, so the intransitive meaning has to borrow the reflexive to supply the missing object. That is why sér is not optional — without it, the causative verb has nothing to act on.
Common Mistakes
❌ Flýttu!
Incomplete — flýta needs a reflexive object in the 'hurry' sense. Say flýttu þér.
✅ Flýttu þér!
Hurry up!
❌ Ég flýti mig.
Incorrect — flýta is dative, so the reflexive is mér, not the accusative mig.
✅ Ég flýti mér.
I'm hurrying.
❌ Við flýttum okkur fyrir matnum.
Incorrect — 'speed something up' is flýta fyrir, but 'hurry oneself' is flýta sér; don't merge the two into a single clause. Pick the pattern you mean.
✅ Við flýttum okkur að borða.
We hurried to eat.
❌ Hún flytti sér heim.
Incorrect — the verb is flýta with a long ý; the past is flýtti, not *flytti (that looks like flytja 'move').
✅ Hún flýtti sér heim.
She hurried home.
❌ Þú þarft ekki að flýta þig.
Incorrect — again the reflexive must be dative: þér, not the accusative þig.
✅ Þú þarft ekki að flýta þér.
You don't need to rush.
Key Takeaways
- flýti / flýtir / flýtti / flýtt — a weak Class-2 verb with a -ti preterite and a long ý throughout (note doubled tt in the past: flýtti).
- To mean "hurry," the reflexive is obligatory: flýta sér, with a dative reflexive — flýttu þér!, ég flýti mér, við flýtum okkur. Bare flýta cannot mean "hurry."
- flýta fyrir
- dative = "speed up, help along" (flýta fyrir bata); bare flýta
- dative = "bring (an event) forward" (flýta fundinum).
- dative = "speed up, help along" (flýta fyrir bata); bare flýta
- The reflexive is dative because flýta governs the dative — so it is mér/þér/sér, never mig/þig/sig.
- Auxiliary is hafa: ég hef flýtt mér.
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