stela ("to steal") is a strong Class-4 verb that conjugates exactly like bera and nema — the series e – a – á — but it carries one feature that English speakers get wrong every single time: stela governs the dative of the thing stolen. You do not steal something-accusative; you steal to/from something-dative. Stela peningum ("steal money") has peningum in the dative, not the accusative *peninga. This dative is not optional or stylistic; it is the verb's fixed case frame, and getting it wrong is one of the most audible learner errors. On top of that, the person robbed is introduced with frá + dative (stela frá einhverjum "steal from someone"). The paradigm itself is the easy part — stel – stal – stálu – stolið, with the short-a / long-á past split you already know — so the work on this card is really the case frame and the useful middle voice stelast.
Conjugation
Class: strong, Class 4 (the e – a – á – o series). Auxiliary: hafa — ég hef stolið "I have stolen." Object case: ⭐ dative for the stolen thing (stela peningum); the victim takes frá + dative (stela frá honum).
| Principal parts | |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | að stela |
| 1sg present | stel |
| 1sg past | stal |
| 3pl past | stálu |
| Supine | stolið |
| Person | Present (nútíð) | Past (þátíð) |
|---|---|---|
| ég | stel | stal |
| þú | stelur | stalst |
| hann / hún / það | stelur | stal |
| við | stelum | stálum |
| þið | stelið | stáluð |
| þeir / þær / þau | stela | stálu |
| Person | Present subjunctive | Past subjunctive |
|---|---|---|
| ég | steli | stæli |
| þú | stelir | stælir |
| hann / hún / það | steli | stæli |
| við | stelum | stælum |
| þið | stelið | stæluð |
| þeir / þær / þau | steli | stælu |
| Non-finite & imperative | |
|---|---|
| Imperative (þú) | stel / steldu |
| Imperative (þið) | stelið! |
| Supine | stolið |
| Past participle (m/f/n) | stolinn / stolin / stolið |
| Present participle | stelandi |
| Middle voice (miðmynd) | stelast — esp. stelast til að "do something on the sly / sneak off to" |
The Class-4 paradigm, shared with bera and nema
The conjugation is pure Class 4. Read it as a chant: stel – stal – stálu – stolið. Present e, past singular short a, past plural long á, supine o. It lines up with its sisters cell for cell:
| Verb | Present | Past sg. | Past pl. | Supine |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| bera (carry) | ber | bar | báru | borið |
| nema (take/study) | nem | nam | námu | numið |
| stela (steal) | stel | stal | stálu | stolið |
The past split — short a in stal, long á in stálu — is the same one you drilled on bera (bar / báru). The past participle stolinn / stolin / stolið is everyday vocabulary: stolinn bíll ("a stolen car"), stolið fé ("stolen money").
Einhver stal hjólinu mínu fyrir utan búðina.
Someone stole my bike outside the shop. Past singular stal (short a); hjólinu is DATIVE (the stolen thing).
Þjófarnir stálu málverkunum um miðja nótt.
The thieves stole the paintings in the middle of the night. Past plural stálu (long á); málverkunum dative.
Það hefur verið stolið miklu héðan í gegnum tíðina.
A lot has been stolen from here over the years. Supine stolið; the dative miklu ('much') survives even in the passive.
⭐ The case frame: dative of the stolen thing
This is the heart of the card. stela takes the dative of what is stolen. Where English and most learners reach for a direct (accusative) object, Icelandic uses the dative:
- stela peningum — steal money (dative peningum, not *peninga)
- stela bílnum — steal the car (dative bílnum, not *bílinn)
- stela veskinu — steal the wallet (dative veskinu)
Why dative? stela belongs to a class of Icelandic verbs whose object is dative rather than accusative — the same group as kasta ("throw"), henda ("throw away"), gleyma ("forget"), ræna ("rob"). There is no deep semantic rule you can predict from English; you simply learn that stela is a dative verb and store it that way. The clue to keep is the contrast with taka ("take," accusative): taka bílinn but stela bílnum.
To name the victim — the person robbed — use frá + dative: stela frá einhverjum ("steal from someone"). And there is a second pattern, stela einhverju frá einhverjum ("steal something[dat] from someone[dat]"), with both the thing and the person in the dative for different reasons (the thing because stela governs dative; the person because frá governs dative).
Hann stal veskinu úr vasa mínum á tónleikunum.
He stole the wallet from my pocket at the concert. veskinu DATIVE (stolen thing); the prepositional phrase úr vasa marks the source.
Þau stálu hugmyndinni frá litla sprotafyrirtækinu.
They stole the idea from the little start-up. hugmyndinni dative (the thing); frá + dative for the victim.
Ekki stela tímanum mínum með þessu kjaftæði.
Don't steal my time with this nonsense. Figurative stela + dative (tímanum); the dative frame holds for metaphorical 'stealing' too.
The middle voice: stelast (til að)
The -st middle stelast is genuinely useful and means roughly "to sneak / do something furtively." Its commonest shape is stelast til að + infinitive ("manage to do something on the sly, sneak off to do"), and stelast with a directional adverb ("sneak away / out"). It conjugates as stela + -st, carrying the same vowel series: present stelst, past singular staltst (often written/pronounced stalst), past plural stálust, supine stolist.
Krakkarnir stálust til að horfa á myndina eftir háttatíma.
The kids snuck a viewing of the film after bedtime. Middle stelast til að ('do on the sly'), past plural stálust.
Ég stalst út um bakdyrnar svo enginn tæki eftir mér.
I slipped out the back door so no one would notice. Middle stelast ('sneak'), past singular; note the furtive nuance.
Common Mistakes
❌ Einhver stal bílinn minn.
Wrong case — stela governs the DATIVE, so it must be bílnum, not the accusative bílinn.
✅ Einhver stal bílnum mínum.
Someone stole my car. (stela + dative: bílnum mínum)
This is the signature error. stela takes the dative of the stolen thing: stela bílnum, peningum, hjólinu — never the accusative.
❌ Ég stelaði símanum hennar.
Regularising a strong verb — there is no weak '-aði' past. The past singular is the strong stal.
✅ Ég stal símanum hennar.
I stole her phone. (strong past singular stal; dative símanum)
stela is strong: singular past stal, plural stálum / stálu, supine stolið. No *stelaði.
❌ Þeir stalu öllum peningunum.
Wrong plural vowel — the past plural lengthens to á: stálu, not the short-a 'stalu'.
✅ Þeir stálu öllum peningunum.
They stole all the money. (past plural stálu, long á; peningunum dative)
Short a in the singular (stal), long á in the plural (stálum, stáluð, stálu) — the Class-4 split.
❌ Hann stal mig veskið.
Two errors — the victim takes frá + dative, and the stolen thing is dative: stela veskinu frá mér.
✅ Hann stal veskinu frá mér.
He stole the wallet from me. (thing = dative veskinu; victim = frá + dative mér)
You cannot mark the victim with a bare accusative. Use frá + dative for the person and keep the dative on the thing.
❌ Ég hef stelt þessari hugmynd.
Wrong supine — the strong supine is stolið (o-grade), not a weak *stelt.
✅ Ég hef stolið þessari hugmynd.
I've stolen this idea. (supine stolið; the dative object þessari hugmynd persists)
Key Takeaways
- stela is strong Class 4: principal parts stel – stal – stálu – stolið, series e – a – á – o; auxiliary hafa.
- ⭐ stela governs the DATIVE of the thing stolen: stela peningum, bílnum, hjólinu — never accusative. Contrast taka bílinn (acc.) with stela bílnum (dat.).
- The victim is framed with frá + dative: stela frá einhverjum; both thing and person can sit in the dative at once.
- Drill the past split: singular short a (ég stal), plural long á (við stálum, þeir stálu), like bera (bar/báru) and nema (nam/námu).
- The middle stelast ("sneak"), especially stelast til að
- infinitive ("do something on the sly"), is everyday colloquial vocabulary. The participle stolinn gives stolinn bíll "a stolen car."
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Start learning Icelandic→Related Topics
- Strong Verb Classes 4-7B1 — The last four ablaut classes of Icelandic strong verbs: Class 4 (e–a–á–o: bera → bar, báru, borið; nema, stela), Class 5 (e–a–á–e: gefa → gaf, gáfu, gefið; lesa, sjá → sá, sáu, séð), Class 6 (a–ó–ó–a: fara → fór, fóru, farið; taka → tók, standa → stóð), and Class 7 (the reduplicating remnant with é-preterites: halda → hélt, héldu, haldið; láta → lét, falla → féll, ganga → gekk, fá → fékk) — where the most irregular-looking everyday verbs actually live.
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- bera (to carry / to bear)B1 — Full conjugation of the strong Class-4 verb bera (ber / bar / báru / borið), the model for the e–a–á–o series shared with nema and stela: present ber, preterite singular bar against plural báru, past subjunctive bæri, supine borið. Plus its key constructions — bera saman 'compare', bera ábyrgð á 'be responsible for', and the middle berast 'spread / be carried'.
- nema (to take / to study)B2 — Full conjugation of the strong Class-4 verb nema (nem / nam / námu / numið), built on the same e–a–á series as bera and stela. Covers the formal academic sense 'study' (nema lögfræði), the fixed idiom nema staðar 'come to a stop', nema land 'settle / claim land', the middle nemast, and — crucially — how to keep the verb nema apart from its homograph nema, the conjunction 'unless / except'.
- Verbs and the Case of Their ObjectsB1 — Icelandic verbs assign a fixed case to their object that you cannot predict from meaning: most take the accusative (sjá hann), a sizable cluster take the dative (hjálpa honum), a few take the genitive (sakna hennar), and ditransitives take dative-then-accusative (gefa honum bók) — why object case is lexical, and the high-frequency dative-governing verbs to memorise.
- 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.