nema (to take / to study)

nema is two words wearing one spelling. As a strong Class-4 verb it means "to take" and, in modern Icelandic, above all "to study" (a subject at university); as a conjunction it means "unless / except." This card is about the verb, but you cannot really use it safely until you can tell the two apart, so we tackle the split head-on. The verb runs on the familiar Class-4 series e – a – á that you already know from bera and stela: present nem, preterite singular nam, preterite plural námu, supine numið. The same short-a-singular / long-á-plural split that catches everyone in bera (bar / báru) reappears here as nam / námu. Beyond the bare paradigm, nema lives in three high-value patterns — the academic nema lögfræði ("study law"), the everyday idiom nema staðar ("come to a stop"), and the historical nema land ("settle / claim land"), the verb at the heart of the word landnám ("the Settlement").

Conjugation

Class: strong, Class 4 (the e – a – á – o series; here the supine vowel surfaces as u: numið). Auxiliary: hafa — ég hef numið "I have studied / taken." Object case: accusative (nema lögfræði, nema land).

The Class-4 series, shared with bera and stela

Read the four principal parts as a four-beat chant: nem – nam – námu – numið. Present e, past singular short a, past plural long á, supine u. (Class 4's "default" supine vowel is o, as in borið; after the nasal m, nema surfaces with u — numið, numinn — but it is the same class.) Lay it next to its sisters and the family resemblance is exact:

The trap is always the past, where English has one form and Icelandic splits it by vowel length: short a in the singular nam, long á in the plural námu. Get bera right and nema costs you nothing extra.

The everyday meaning: 'study' (a subject)

In modern Icelandic the live, productive sense of nema is academic study — to read a subject, especially at university. It takes the subject in the accusative: nema lögfræði ("study law"), nema sagnfræði ("study history"), nema við háskóla ("study at a university"). It is a notch more formal than the everyday verb læra ("learn, study"), and the two are not interchangeable: læra covers learning a skill, doing homework, getting the hang of anything, while nema points specifically at a course of study or a discipline. You lærir to ride a bike; you nemur law. The agent noun nemandi ("student/pupil") and námsmaður, plus the noun nám ("studies"), all come straight off this verb.

Fixed idioms: nema staðar and nema land

Two idioms are worth memorising whole, because the verb in them is invisible to the meaning if you only know "study."

nema staðar ("come to a stop, halt"). Literally "take [a] place/standstill," with staðar in the genitive (an old genitive of staður "place"). This is the standard, slightly formal way to say a vehicle or person stops — common on road signs, in news, and in narration. Note: nema staðar is intransitive ("come to a stop"); to stop something else you use stöðva.

nema land ("settle, claim land"). This is the verb of the Settlement of Iceland: the first settlers námu land, and the period is landnám ("the Land-taking, the Settlement"), the settler landnámsmaður. It survives in historical, geographical, and slightly elevated registers.

The verb nema vs the conjunction nema

Here is the thing no beginner card tells you: nema is also a conjunction meaning "unless / except," and it is completely unrelated to conjugation. It never inflects. It introduces an exception or a condition of exclusion, much like English except (that) or unless:

• Allir komu nema Jón. — "Everyone came except Jón."
• Ég fer ekki nema þú komir með. — "I won't go unless you come along." (Note the subjunctive komir after this nema.)

How do you tell them apart in a real sentence? The verb nema always sits in a verb slot and carries person/tense inflection or stands as a bare infinitive after að ("að nema"); the conjunction nema is uninflected and links clauses or singles out an exception. If the word is doing the work a verb does — agreeing with a subject, taking an accusative object, sitting after að — it is the verb. If it is gluing two clauses or marking an exception and could be swapped for fyrir utan ("except for") or ef … ekki ("if … not"), it is the conjunction.

Common Mistakes

nema is strong; there is no *nemaði. The singular past is nam, the plural námum / námu.

Short a in the singular (nam), long á in the plural (námum, námuð, námu) — the same Class-4 split as bar / báru.

The conjunction nema ("unless") never inflects. Don't accidentally conjugate it into nemur by reflex.

The supine is numið (and the participle numinn / numin / numið), not a weak *nemt.

The idiom is locked: nema staðar with genitive staðar. Learn it as one unit.

Key Takeaways

• nema is strong Class 4: principal parts nem – nam – námu – numið, series e – a – á – (u); auxiliary hafa (ég hef numið).
• Drill the past split: singular short a (ég nam), plural long á (við námum, þeir námu) — identical to bera (bar/báru) and stela (stal/stálu).
• The live modern sense is academic study (nema lögfræði), a touch more formal than læra; the agent noun is nemandi ("student").
• Memorise the idioms whole: nema staðar ("come to a stop," genitive staðar) and nema land ("settle/claim land," the verb behind landnám).
• Keep the verb nema apart from the conjunction nema ("unless/except"), which never inflects — they are two unrelated words sharing a spelling.