leita ("to search, look for") is a regular weak Class-1 verb — leita, leitaði, leituðu, leitað — so the conjugation gives you almost no trouble (just the predictable u-umlaut a → ö in leituðu). The interest is entirely in its grammar around the verb, and it is unusually rich for such an everyday word. Three things set it apart and trip up English speakers: it takes its object through að + DATIVE, not a plain accusative; the reflexive leita sér governs the genitive; and when what you're searching for is non-specific — "a person who knows Icelandic," any such person — the relative clause that describes it goes into the subjunctive. Master those three and you've learned something about Icelandic that reaches well beyond this one verb.
Conjugation
Class: weak, Class 1 (the -aði preterite). Auxiliary: hafa — ég hef leitað "I have searched." The stem leit- is stable; the only vowel event is the u-umlaut (a → ö) in the plural preterite leituðu.
| Principal parts | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | að leita |
| 1sg present | leita |
| 1sg past | leitaði |
| Supine | leitað |
| Person | Present (nútíð) | Past (þátíð) |
|---|---|---|
| ég | leita | leitaði |
| þú | leitar | leitaðir |
| hann / hún / það | leitar | leitaði |
| við | leitum | leituðum |
| þið | leitið | leituðuð |
| þeir / þær / þau | leita | leituðu |
| Person | Present subjunctive | Past subjunctive |
|---|---|---|
| ég | leiti | leitaði |
| þú | leitir | leitaðir |
| hann / hún / það | leiti | leitaði |
| við | leitum | leituðum |
| þið | leitið | leituðuð |
| þeir / þær / þau | leiti | leituðu |
| Non-finite & imperative | |
|---|---|
| Imperative (þú) | leitaðu! |
| Imperative (þið) | leitið! |
| Supine | leitað |
| Past participle (m/f/n) | leitaður / leituð / leitað |
| Middle voice (miðmynd) | leitast við — "to endeavour / strive to" (+ að + infinitive) |
leita að + DATIVE — "look for something"
The everyday meaning, "look for / search for," is built with the preposition að and a dative object: leita að einhverju ("look for something," dative). This is the frame English speakers get wrong, because "look for the keys" feels like a plain object, but Icelandic routes it through að and into the dative: leita að lyklunum ("look for the keys," dative plural).
Ég er búinn að leita að lyklunum úti um allt — þeir eru hvergi.
I've looked for the keys absolutely everywhere — they're nowhere to be found. (leita að + dative lyklunum)
Lögreglan leitaði að týnda drengnum alla nóttina.
The police searched for the missing boy all night. (leita að + dative)
Að hverju ertu eiginlega að leita?
What on earth are you looking for? (note: að hverju — the question word is in the dative too)
Without að, a bare leita + accusative does exist but is higher and more literary — leita lands ("seek land"), leita skjóls ("seek shelter," actually genitive there). In ordinary modern speech, "look for X" is leita að + dative, full stop.
leita sér + GENITIVE — "seek (for oneself)"
A second, fixed frame: leita sér ("seek for oneself") takes a genitive object and means to go and get / seek out something for one's own benefit — help, treatment, information, work. The reflexive sér is the dative "for oneself," and the thing sought sits in the genitive: leita sér hjálpar ("seek help"), leita sér lækninga ("seek treatment"), leita sér upplýsinga ("seek information").
Hann ætti að leita sér hjálpar áður en þetta versnar.
He ought to seek help before this gets worse. (leita sér + genitive hjálpar)
Hún fór til útlanda til að leita sér lækninga.
She went abroad to seek treatment. (leita sér + genitive lækninga)
This genitive is a small relic that modern speech keeps alive precisely in these set collocations. You won't generate it freely, but you must recognise and reproduce leita sér hjálpar / lækninga / upplýsinga / vinnu as fixed units.
The non-specific object and the subjunctive
Here is the deep point, and the one competitors omit. When you search for something specific — a particular person you have in mind — any relative clause describing it stays in the indicative. But when you search for something non-specific — any person who fits a description, who may or may not even exist — the relative clause goes into the subjunctive, because the person is hypothetical, not yet identified. leita is a prime trigger for this, because searching is inherently about something not-yet-found.
Compare:
Ég er að leita að manni sem talar íslensku — hann heitir Gunnar.
I'm looking for a man who speaks Icelandic — his name is Gunnar. (SPECIFIC, known person → indicative talar)
Ég er að leita að manni sem kunni íslensku.
I'm looking for a man who knows Icelandic (any such man, if one exists). (NON-SPECIFIC → subjunctive kunni)
In the first, Gunnar exists and speaks Icelandic; the clause asserts a fact, so it is indicative (talar). In the second, there is no particular man yet — you'd hire whoever fits — so the clause is non-asserted, hypothetical, and Icelandic marks that with the subjunctive (kunni, from kunna). English makes no such distinction; both come out as "who knows / who speaks." This is the same logic that puts the subjunctive after einhver sem ("someone who") in wants and searches. (Full treatment: complex/subjunctive-vs-indicative-relative.)
Við leitum að íbúð sem sé ekki of dýr og sé nálægt miðbænum.
We're looking for a flat that isn't too expensive and is near the centre. (no specific flat in mind → subjunctive sé)
leitast við að — "endeavour, strive to"
The middle-voice leitast við (+ að + infinitive) is the formal "endeavour / strive / make an effort to" — common in official and written register.
Stofnunin leitast við að svara öllum fyrirspurnum innan viku.
The institution endeavours to answer all inquiries within a week. (leitast við að + infinitive; formal)
Common Mistakes
❌ Ég er að leita lyklana.
Incorrect — 'look for' is leita að + DATIVE, not a bare accusative: leita að lyklunum.
✅ Ég er að leita að lyklunum.
I'm looking for the keys.
❌ Ég leita að lyklana.
Incorrect — after leita að the object is DATIVE (lyklunum), not accusative (lyklana).
✅ Ég leita að lyklunum.
I'm looking for the keys.
❌ Hann þarf að leita sér hjálp.
Incorrect — leita sér governs the GENITIVE, so it's hjálpar, not the accusative hjálp.
✅ Hann þarf að leita sér hjálpar.
He needs to seek help.
❌ Ég leita að einhverjum sem getur byrjað strax.
Not wrong, but flat — if no specific person is meant, the natural Icelandic marks it as hypothetical with the subjunctive: sem geti byrjað.
✅ Ég leita að einhverjum sem geti byrjað strax.
I'm looking for someone (anyone) who can start right away.
Key Takeaways
- leita / leitar / leitaði / leitað — a regular weak Class-1 verb, with the expected u-umlaut in the plural preterite leituðu.
- The everyday frame is leita að + DATIVE ("look for"): leita að lyklunum, vinnu, svari. The bare accusative is literary.
- leita sér + GENITIVE = "seek for oneself": fixed collocations leita sér hjálpar / lækninga / upplýsinga.
- A non-specific object triggers the subjunctive in its relative clause: leita að manni sem *kunni íslensku (any such man) vs. sem *talar (a specific, known man).
- Middle leitast við að
- infinitive = "endeavour / strive to" (formal).
- Auxiliary is hafa: ég hef leitað.
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- Mood in Relative and Adverbial ClausesC1 — The subtle mood alternation inside relative and adverbial clauses, beyond the basic subjunctive triggers. A relative clause takes the subjunctive when its head is non-specific or hypothetical ('a man who knows Icelandic, any such man' → kunni) and the indicative when the referent is a specific, actual individual (kann). The same specificity logic reaches into temporal and purpose clauses. English marks this distinction only thinly, with 'any' versus 'the', so the mood must be built from scratch.
- Prepositional Idioms and Verb + PrepositionB2 — Fixed verb-plus-preposition and adjective-plus-preposition combinations where both the preposition AND its case are lexicalised and unpredictable from English: bíða eftir (dat.) 'wait for', hlakka til (gen.) 'look forward to', hugsa um (acc.) 'think about', vera hrifinn af (dat.) 'be fond of', taka þátt í (dat.) 'take part in', treysta á (acc.) 'rely on', vera ástfanginn af (dat.) 'be in love with'. The headline traps: 'wait for' = bíða EFTIR + dative, and 'look forward to' = hlakka TIL + genitive — pairings no English intuition predicts. Each must be learned as verb + preposition + case.
- 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.
- Dative-Only Prepositions: af, frá, hjá, úr, að, gagnvartB1 — The prepositions that always govern the dative no matter what — af ('off/of/by'), frá ('from'), hjá ('at someone's place / with / in someone's view'), úr ('out of'), að ('to/toward'), gagnvart and andspænis ('vis-à-vis') — with the crucial úr-vs-af-vs-frá contrasts and the chez-word hjá that English has no clean equivalent for.
- Using the Genitive: Possession and BeyondB1 — What the genitive case DOES and where it sits in the sentence — the neutral postposed possessor (bók kennarans 'the teacher's book'), the partitive, governance by prepositions like til, án and vegna, and the meaningful contrast between the default postposed order and the emphatic preposed possessor (mín bók).