This appendix gives one card per high-frequency verb. Each card is a complete, verified paradigm — every tense, mood, and non-finite form — so you can look up "what is the past tense of drekka?" and get an answer you can trust. But the cards are built around a deeper idea that makes them far more useful than a wall of tables: an Icelandic verb is fully determined by a handful of principal parts. Learn those few forms and you can generate the entire paradigm yourself. This page is the key to reading every card that follows.
The four principal parts
The header of every card lists the verb's principal parts — the small set of forms from which all the others are mechanically derived. For a strong verb there are four:
| Slot | Example (taka, "to take") | What it anchors |
|---|---|---|
| Infinitive | taka | the "we/they" plural present and the infinitive/dictionary form |
| Preterite 1sg | tók | the whole past singular (tók, tókst, tók) |
| Preterite 3pl | tóku | the whole past plural (tókum, tókuð, tóku) |
| Supine | tekið | the perfect tenses (ég hef tekið "I have taken") |
So the citation for a strong verb is taka – tók – tóku – tekið. Read left to right, that is: take / I took / they took / taken. Notice that the vowel changes three times — a → ó → ó → e — and that no single one of those forms predicts the others. That is exactly why all four are listed: the vowel jumps are the heart of a strong verb, and you cannot reconstruct them from the infinitive alone.
taka – tók – tóku – tekið
to take – I took – they took – taken (a strong verb, four principal parts)
A weak verb is tamer. Its past tense is built with a dental ending (-aði, -di, -ti, or -ddi) and there is no vowel jump, so the past singular and past plural share one stem. Weak verbs are therefore cited with three parts: infinitive, preterite, supine.
| Slot | Example (kalla, "to call") |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | kalla |
| Preterite (1sg = 3sg) | kallaði |
| Supine | kallað |
kalla – kallaði – kallað
to call – called – called (a weak verb, three principal parts)
Why the infinitive alone is a trap
English speakers are used to a language where the infinitive does predict almost everything: from walk you get walks, walked, walked with no surprises. Icelandic strong verbs break that expectation completely. From the infinitive taka you might guess the past is "takaði" (regular-weak) — but the real past is tók, and a learner who trusts the infinitive will be wrong on every strong verb in the language. There is no reliable shortcut around this. The principal parts exist precisely because the infinitive under-determines a strong verb, and the cards give them to you so you never have to guess.
❌ Ég takaði bókina.
Incorrect — invented by treating taka as if it were a regular weak verb.
✅ Ég tók bókina.
I took the book. (The past stem is tók — you must know the principal parts.)
What each table on a card shows
Every card lays its forms out the same way, so once you can read one card you can read all of them.
- Principal parts — the citation header described above. Start here.
- Present / Past indicative — the two everyday tenses, all six persons (ég, þú, hann/hún/það, við, þið, þeir/þær/þau). This is the table you will use most.
- Present / Past subjunctive — the moods for wishes, indirect speech, conditions, and reported statements. You can ignore these at A2 and come back to them; they are listed so the card stays complete.
- Imperative — the command form, usually with the pronoun fused on (talaðu "speak!", komdu "come!").
- Supine and past participle — the supine is the indeclinable form used after hafa in the perfect (ég hef talað); the past participle is the adjective-like form that agrees in gender and number (talaður / töluð / talað) and is used in the passive and the vera-perfect.
- Middle voice (-st) — where it exists, the reflexive/middle form (komast "manage to get," gefast upp "give up"). Many of these have idiomatic meanings of their own, so they are noted separately.
The supine is what powers the perfect
Of all the non-finite forms, the supine is the one beginners most often overlook, so it earns its own slot in the citation. The supine is fixed — it never changes for gender or number — and it is the form you put after hafa to make a perfect tense: ég hef lesið "I have read," þau hafa drukkið "they have drunk." Knowing the supine is the difference between saying "I read" and "I have read," so every card lists it explicitly.
Ég hef lesið þessa bók tvisvar.
I have read this book twice. (perfect = hafa + supine lesið)
Reading the verb-class label
Each card states the verb's class, and that label is a pointer back to the main Verbs section, where the conjugation machinery lives. The cards do not re-teach how a class works — they show you the finished paradigm and tell you which engine produced it:
- Weak, Class 1/2/3/4 → the rule-driven -aði / -di / -ti / -ddi past. See the weak-verb pages.
- Strong, Class 1–7 → one of the seven ablaut series, where the vowel jumps. See the strong-verb pages.
So if a card says "strong, class 5" and you want to know why the vowel goes e → a → á → e (as in lesa – las – lásu – lesið), follow the class label to the relevant Verbs page. The card is the reference; the Verbs page is the explanation.
A note on the umlauts in the principal parts
The principal parts also carry every accent and umlaut that the rest of the paradigm will inherit, so copying them down precisely matters. Two reflexes show up again and again:
- u-umlaut (a → ö): whenever an ending begins with -u-, a short stem a surfaces as ö. This is automatic and language-wide, so you will see it in the "we" present and the past plural of a-stem verbs: tala → tölum, past plural t*öluðum. Crucially, it only touches a short *a — a stem with i, e, u, o, y or a long/accented vowel never umlauts (so skrifa stays *skrifu*m, never "skröfum").
- i-umlaut (a → æ, o → æ, …): this is baked into certain principal parts already, most visibly in the past subjunctive of strong verbs (taka → t*æki*, *koma → kæ*mi).
Because these vowel changes are already present in the principal parts, writing them down correctly — with the right ö, á, æ, ð, þ — is not decoration. A missing accent is a different word.
Við tölum og skrifum íslensku.
We speak and write Icelandic. (u-umlaut hits the a-stem tölum, but the i-stem skrifum stays put.)
Common Mistakes
❌ Memorising only the infinitive 'taka' and guessing the rest.
Incorrect approach — the infinitive doesn't predict a strong verb's past or supine.
✅ Memorising 'taka – tók – tóku – tekið' as a unit.
Correct approach — the four principal parts generate the whole paradigm.
❌ Ég hef tók bókina.
Incorrect — the perfect needs the supine, not the past tense, after hafa.
✅ Ég hef tekið bókina.
I have taken the book. (hafa + supine)
❌ Treating the past 3pl 'tóku' and the supine 'tekið' as interchangeable.
Incorrect — they sit in different principal-part slots and do different jobs.
✅ Þau tóku bókina; ég hef tekið hana.
They took the book; I have taken it. (3pl preterite vs. supine)
❌ Expecting every card's tables before reading the principal parts.
Incorrect strategy — the tables are reference; the principal parts are what you learn.
✅ Read the four-part header first, then use the tables only to look things up.
Correct strategy — the header is the verb's DNA.
Key Takeaways
- Each card is anchored by principal parts: four for strong verbs (infinitive – pret. 1sg – pret. 3pl – supine, e.g. taka – tók – tóku – tekið), three for weak verbs (infinitive – pret. – supine, e.g. kalla – kallaði – kallað).
- The infinitive alone cannot predict a strong verb — that is the whole reason the principal parts exist. Learn the parts, not just the dictionary form.
- The supine (the 4th/last part) powers the perfect tenses with hafa: ég hef lesið.
- The class label points back to the Verbs pages, which explain the conjugation rules; the card just shows the finished forms.
- The principal parts carry the umlauts and accents that the rest of the paradigm inherits — copy them down exactly, ö and æ and all.
Now practice Icelandic
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Start learning Icelandic→Related Topics
- The Icelandic Verb System: OverviewA1 — A map of the Icelandic verb before any conjugation — weak vs strong verbs, person/number endings, two simple tenses, the living subjunctive, the middle voice in -st, and periphrastic perfect and future.
- Strong Verbs and Ablaut: OverviewA2 — The strong verb system: verbs that build the past by changing their stem vowel (ablaut) instead of adding an ending, with FOUR principal parts — infinitive, preterite singular, preterite plural, supine — and the crucial split where the past singular and past plural can carry different vowels (fann vs fundu).
- Weak Verbs: The Four ClassesA2 — The weak verb system — verbs that build their past tense with a dental suffix (-aði, -di, -ði, -ti) instead of a vowel change — split into four classes by their thematic vowel and present pattern, including the Class-4 j-verbs that hide a strong-looking e→a shift inside a weak conjugation.