líka (to like / be pleasing to)

líka means "to like" — but it works like English "to please," flipped inside out. The person who does the liking appears in the dative (mér, þér, honum…), and the thing that is liked is the grammatical subject in the nominative. Most importantly, the verb agrees with the liked thing, not with the liker: mér líkar maturinn (singular thing) but mér líka bækurnar (plural thing). Literally, mér líkar maturinn is "to-me pleases the-food." This dative-subject pattern is one of the defining features of Icelandic, and líka is the verb that makes it click.

The dative-subject paradigm

As with all impersonal verbs, líka does not conjugate for the person of the liker. What you vary is the dative experiencer in front, and the verb agrees in number with the nominative liked thing after it:

The experiencer pronoun (mér … þér … honum …) is always dative; it never makes the verb change. The verb changes only with the number of the liked thing: one thing → líkar, several things → líka.

Why dative? Liking as something done to you

The dative is Icelandic's case for the one who receives an effect or experiences a state. With líka, the liked thing is doing the pleasing and you are on the receiving end of it — so you're dative, just as you'd be the dative recipient in "give to me." This is exactly the old English construction "it likes me" (= "it pleases me"), which survives only in archaic phrases like "if you like." Icelandic kept that logic alive and central.

Agreement with the liked thing — the part learners miss

This is the trap competitors gloss over: the verb agrees with the nominative liked thing, so a plural thing pulls the verb into the plural even though the meaning still centres on a single person.

líka við + accusative — liking a person

When what you like is a person, modern Icelandic strongly prefers líka við + accusative: mér líkar vel við hann "I like him." Using bare líka with a person can sound flat or odd; líka við is the idiomatic choice. The little word vel ("well") is extremely common in this frame — líka vel við is the warm, natural "really like."

líka vs finnst — the more common everyday "like"

A frank usage note: in casual speech, Icelanders very often express "like" not with líka at all but with mér finnst … + adjective — literally "to me [it] seems [good/fun]." Mér finnst hann skemmtilegur ("I find him fun / I like him"), mér finnst maturinn góður ("I like the food"). líka is fully correct and common, especially for "how do you like X?" (hvernig líkar þér…?), but if you want to sound maximally native about liking something, the mér finnst … góður/skemmtilegur construction is your friend.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• líka is impersonal: the liker is dative (mér, þér, honum…) and the liked thing is nominative.
• The verb agrees with the liked thing, not the liker: líkar (one thing) vs líka (several things); past líkaði vs líkuðu (u-umlaut).
• Liking a person → líka (vel) við + accusative: mér líkar vel við hann.
• Don't swap the cases: mér líkar (dative) vs mig langar (accusative) — the two quirky verbs use opposite cases.
• For the most natural casual "like," consider mér finnst … góður/skemmtilegur instead.
• Auxiliary is hafa: mér hefur alltaf líkað vel við hana.