keyra ("to drive") is the verb almost every Icelander actually uses for driving a car. It is a weak ja/i-verb — the class whose past tense ends in -ði/-ti rather than the -aði of tala — and it is wonderfully free of the u-umlaut headache, because its stem vowel is the diphthong ey, not a short a. The two things to master are its case frame (keyra governs the accusative: you drive a car, you drive a person somewhere) and its relationship to its more formal twin aka, which means the same thing but takes the dative and belongs to a higher register.
Conjugation
Class: weak, ja/i-verb (the -ði preterite). Auxiliary: hafa — ég hef keyrt "I have driven."
| Principal parts | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | að keyra |
| 3sg present | keyrir |
| 3sg past | keyrði |
| Supine | keyrt |
| Person | Present (nútíð) | Past (þátíð) |
|---|---|---|
| ég | keyri | keyrði |
| þú | keyrir | keyrðir |
| hann / hún / það | keyrir | keyrði |
| við | keyrum | keyrðum |
| þið | keyrið | keyrðuð |
| þeir / þær / þau | keyra | keyrðu |
| Person | Present subjunctive | Past subjunctive |
|---|---|---|
| ég | keyri | keyrði |
| þú | keyrir | keyrðir |
| hann / hún / það | keyri | keyrði |
| við | keyrum | keyrðum |
| þið | keyrið | keyrðuð |
| þeir / þær / þau | keyri | keyrðu |
| Non-finite & imperative | |
|---|---|
| Imperative (þú) | keyrðu! |
| Imperative (þið) | keyrið! |
| Supine | keyrt |
| Past participle (m/f/n) | keyrður / keyrð / keyrt |
keyra + accusative — drive a vehicle, or drive a person
keyra takes a direct object in the accusative, whether the object is the vehicle (keyra bíl "drive a car") or a passenger you're giving a lift (keyra einhvern "drive someone"). With a destination you simply add an adverb or prepositional phrase: keyra einhvern heim "drive someone home."
Ég keyri þig heim, það er ekkert mál.
I'll drive you home, it's no problem.
Hann keyrði okkur út á flugvöll í morgun.
He drove us out to the airport this morning.
Kanntu að keyra beinskiptan bíl?
Can you drive a stick-shift / manual car?
keyra á — "crash into" (+ accusative)
The preposition á + accusative turns keyra into "to drive into / hit" something — a very common (and unhappy) collocation on icy Icelandic roads.
Hún keyrði á ljósastaur í hálkunni.
She crashed into a lamppost on the ice.
Passaðu þig, þú ert næstum því búinn að keyra á gangandi vegfaranda!
Watch out, you almost hit a pedestrian!
keyra vs. aka — register
keyra is the everyday, colloquial word; aka is its more formal, written-register synonym — and it changes the grammar: aka takes the dative, not the accusative. So a driving-school manual or a news report writes aka bíl (dative), but in conversation people overwhelmingly say keyra bíl (accusative). The agent noun also splits this way: a driver is bílstjóri in speech but the verb of the road-sign register is aka.
Ökumönnum er bannað að aka of hratt um göngin.
(formal) Drivers are prohibited from driving too fast through the tunnel.
Eigum við bara að keyra í bæinn og fá okkur að borða?
(informal) Should we just drive into town and grab something to eat?
Common Mistakes
❌ Ég keyri með þig heim.
Incorrect — keyra takes a direct object, no 'með'; this sounds like 'I bring you along'
✅ Ég keyri þig heim.
I'll drive you home.
❌ Við keyröm norður um helgina.
Incorrect — keyra has the stem vowel ey, which never u-umlauts; it stays keyrum
✅ Við keyrum norður um helgina.
We're driving north this weekend.
❌ Hann keyraði of hratt.
Incorrect — keyra is a -ði verb, not an -aði verb; the past is keyrði
✅ Hann keyrði of hratt.
He drove too fast.
❌ Lögreglan sagði honum að aka bílinn varlega.
Incorrect — aka takes the dative, so it should be bílnum
✅ Lögreglan sagði honum að aka bílnum varlega.
The police told him to drive the car carefully.
Key Takeaways
- keyra / keyrir / keyrði / keyrt — a weak ja/i-verb; the past is -ði, not -aði (never "keyraði").
- No u-umlaut: the ey stem vowel is immune, so við keyrum keeps its vowel.
- keyra + accusative: keyra bíl, keyra einhvern heim. keyra á
- accusative = "crash into."
- The formal synonym aka means the same thing but takes the dative (aka bílnum) and belongs to written/official register.
- Auxiliary is hafa: ég hef keyrt.
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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.