hætta ("to stop, to quit") is one of the most useful verbs in everyday Icelandic — it is how you say you stopped smoking, quit your job, cancelled the trip, or gave something up. It is a weak Class-2 verb (the -ði/-i preterite type, distinct from the -aði class of tala), and it carries a feature English has no real equivalent for: in the sense "give up / quit something," its object goes in the dative, not the accusative. This page also covers the two indispensable constructions hætta að + infinitive ("stop doing something") and hætta við ("cancel, call off").
Conjugation
Class: weak, Class 2 (the -ti preterite, with no linking vowel before the dental). Auxiliary: vera — ég er hættur "I have stopped / I have quit." This is a verb of change of state, and like most such verbs it takes vera rather than hafa in the perfect.
| Principal parts | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | að hætta |
| 3sg present | hættir |
| 3sg past | hætti |
| Supine | hætt |
| Person | Present (nútíð) | Past (þátíð) |
|---|---|---|
| ég | hætti | hætti |
| þú | hættir | hættir |
| hann / hún / það | hættir | hætti |
| við | hættum | hættum |
| þið | hættið | hættuð |
| þeir / þær / þau | hætta | hættu |
| Person | Present subjunctive | Past subjunctive |
|---|---|---|
| ég | hætti | hætti |
| þú | hættir | hættir |
| hann / hún / það | hætti | hætti |
| við | hættum | hættum |
| þið | hættið | hættuð |
| þeir / þær / þau | hætti | hættu |
| Non-finite & imperative | |
|---|---|
| Imperative (þú) | hættu! |
| Imperative (þið) | hættið! |
| Supine | hætt |
| Past participle (m/f/n) | hættur / hætt / hætt |
| Middle voice (miðmynd) | hættast — rare; mostly impersonal e-m hættir til að… "one tends to…" |
Note the present 1sg: hætti, not "hæt"
A reliable beginner slip is to assume the "I" form is the bare stem. It is not: the present first-person singular is hætti (with the -i that all Class-2 verbs carry in the present singular). The same -i sits in the 3sg past, so ég hætti alone is ambiguous between "I stop" and "I/he stopped" until context or an adverb (núna "now," í gær "yesterday") disambiguates.
Ég hætti að reykja fyrir tveimur árum.
I stopped smoking two years ago.
Hættu! Þú meiðir mig.
Stop it! You're hurting me.
Rútan hættir að ganga klukkan ellefu.
The bus stops running at eleven.
hætta að + infinitive — "stop doing something"
The single most common pattern: hætta að + the infinitive of whatever activity ends. This is the direct counterpart of English "stop -ing," but Icelandic uses an infinitive (að reykja "to smoke"), not a gerund.
Geturðu hætt að tala í símann og hjálpað mér?
Can you stop talking on the phone and help me?
Hún hætti að vinna þegar barnið fæddist.
She quit working when the baby was born.
hætta + dative — "quit / give up something"
When the thing you quit is a noun rather than an activity, hætta governs the dative: hætta vinnunni "quit the job," hætta náminu "drop out of one's studies." English uses a plain object here ("quit the job"), so the dative is pure transfer interference waiting to happen.
Hann hætti vinnunni og flutti út á land.
He quit his job and moved to the countryside.
Margir hætta náminu á fyrsta ári.
Many drop out of their studies in the first year.
hætta við — "cancel, call off, change one's mind"
hætta við (+ accusative, or við að + infinitive) means to abandon a plan — to cancel something you intended to do. This is different from hætta alone (which stops an ongoing activity): hætta við drops a future intention.
Við hættum við ferðina út af veðrinu.
We cancelled the trip because of the weather.
Ég ætlaði að fara en hætti svo við.
I was going to go but then changed my mind.
The perfect: vera, not hafa
Because hætta describes entering a new state, its perfect uses vera + the past participle, which agrees with the subject in gender and number: ég er hættur (a man), ég er hætt (a woman). Using hafa here is a classic English-speaker error.
Ertu alveg hætt að borða kjöt?
Have you completely stopped eating meat?
Common Mistakes
❌ Ég hæt að reykja.
Incorrect — the present 1sg is hætti, not the bare stem hæt
✅ Ég hætti að reykja.
I'm quitting smoking.
❌ Hann hætti vinnuna í gær.
Incorrect — 'quit something' takes the dative (vinnunni), not the accusative
✅ Hann hætti vinnunni í gær.
He quit his job yesterday.
❌ Ég hef hætt að reykja.
Incorrect — hætta is a change-of-state verb and uses vera, not hafa, in the perfect
✅ Ég er hætt að reykja.
I have stopped smoking.
❌ Við höttum að vinna klukkan fimm.
Incorrect — the æ-stem never u-umlauts; the 'we' form is hættum
✅ Við hættum að vinna klukkan fimm.
We stop working at five o'clock.
Key Takeaways
- hætta / hættir / hætti / hætt — weak Class-2 (-ti preterite); the perfect takes vera: ég er hættur/hætt.
- The æ-stem means no u-umlaut ever: hættum, hættuð, never "höttum."
- Present 1sg is hætti (not "hæt"); it looks identical to the past 1/3sg.
- hætta að
- infinitive = "stop doing"; hætta
- dative = "quit (a noun)"; hætta við = "cancel / change one's mind."
- infinitive = "stop doing"; hætta
- The dative object in hætta einhverju is the detail competitors usually omit — it is the one thing to drill.
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- byrja (to begin / start)A2 — Full conjugation of the weak Class-1 verb byrja (byrja / byrjaði / byrjuðu / byrjað), the y-stem with no u-umlaut, the idioms byrja á 'start with', byrja að + infinitive, and the contrast with fara að and formal hefja.
- Preaspiration: hp, ht, hk and pp, tt, kkA2 — Icelandic's signature sound: a puff of breath that comes BEFORE the stops written pp, tt, kk (and clusters like pn, tn, kn) — so epli is [ˈɛhplɪ] and nótt is [nouht]. The h falls before the stop, the mirror image of English aspiration, and it is one of the rarest features in the world's languages.