In English, the person who experiences something is the subject: I like it, I manage it, I'm bored, I'm getting better. Icelandic frequently puts that experiencer in the dative instead — mér "to me", honum "to him" — and leaves the subject slot to be filled (or not) by the thing experienced. So "I like the food" comes out as mér líkar maturinn, literally "to-me pleases the-food." This page surveys the high-frequency dative-subject verbs and drills the one rule English speakers get wrong every time: the verb does not agree with mér; it agrees with the nominative theme, which can drag the verb into the plural even though the experiencer is one person. (Accusative-subject verbs like mig langar and the agentless weather verbs are covered on their own pages.)
The dative experiencer
The experiencer pronoun is always in the dative, whatever the verb. Memorise this little set, because it is the front end of every sentence on this page:
| English | Nominative | Dative (experiencer) |
|---|---|---|
| I / me | ég | mér |
| you (sg.) | þú | þér |
| he / him | hann | honum |
| she / her | hún | henni |
| we / us | við | okkur |
| you (pl.) | þið | ykkur |
| they / them | þeir/þær/þau | þeim |
The core rule: the verb agrees with the nominative theme
This is the single most important point on the page, and the one almost every textbook underplays. The thing being experienced — the food, the books, the films — is in the nominative, and the verb agrees with it in number. The dative experiencer is grammatically inert: it never changes the verb. So one thing pulls a singular verb; several things pull a plural verb, even though "mér" stays singular.
Honum líkar maturinn.
He likes the food. (one thing → singular líkar; theme 'maturinn' is nominative)
Honum líka eplin.
He likes the apples. (several things → plural líka; theme 'eplin' is nominative plural)
Mér finnst þessi mynd frábær.
I think this film is great. (singular theme → finnst)
Mér finnast þessar bækur frábærar.
I think these books are great. (plural theme → finnast, plural adjective frábærar)
Read those pairs side by side: the only thing that changed the verb (líkar → líka, finnst → finnast) is the number of the thing, not the number of the person. The experiencer is honum and mér throughout. If you instinctively make the verb track the speaker — the English reflex — you will produce mér líka when you mean mér líkar, or worse, freeze the verb as singular and miss the plural agreement entirely.
finnast — 'think / find / seem'
finnast (the middle voice of finna "find") is the everyday opinion verb: mér finnst = "I think / it seems to me / I find." Present finnst (sg. theme) / finnast (pl. theme); past fannst / fundust.
Mér finnst gaman að læra íslensku.
I enjoy learning Icelandic. (lit. it seems fun to me to learn Icelandic)
Hvernig finnst þér nýja kaffihúsið?
What do you think of the new café? (how seems to-you...)
Þeim fundust tónleikarnir of langir.
They thought the concert was too long. (past, plural theme → plural verb fundust)
(A note on that last one: tónleikar "concert" is grammatically plural in Icelandic, so the theme is plural and pulls the plural verb fundust — not the singular fannst. The plural theme always wins, even when English hears one 'concert'.)
líka — 'like'
líka "to like / be pleasing" works exactly like English archaic "it likes me." Present líkar / líka; past líkaði / líkuðu (note the u-umlaut a → u in the plural past). For liking a person, modern usage prefers líka (vel) við + accusative: mér líkar vel við hana "I like her."
Mér líkar vel við nýju vinnufélagana.
I really like my new colleagues. (líka vel við + accusative, for people)
Henni líkuðu ekki athugasemdirnar.
She didn't like the comments. (plural theme → past líkuðu)
takast — 'manage / succeed'
takast "to manage, to succeed, to pull off" (the middle of taka) takes a dative experiencer plus an að-infinitive of what you managed to do. Present tekst; past tókst; supine tekist (mér hefur tekist "I have managed"). It is the natural way to say you pulled something off — there was a challenge and you met it.
Mér tókst loksins að klára ritgerðina fyrir frest.
I finally managed to finish the essay before the deadline. (past tókst + að-infinitive)
Tekst þér að sofna ef það er hávaði?
Do you manage to fall asleep if there's noise? (present tekst)
Okkur hefur alltaf tekist að leysa þetta saman.
We've always managed to sort this out together. (perfect: hefur + supine tekist)
leiðast — 'be bored'; batna — 'get better'; detta í hug — 'occur to'
A cluster of common states use the same dative frame:
- leiðast "to be bored / find tedious": mér leiðist "I'm bored." Past leiddist. You can add the boring thing as a dative or a að-clause.
- batna "to get better, recover" (of a person's health or a situation): mér batnar "I'm getting better." Past batnaði.
- detta í hug "to occur to (someone), to come to mind": mér dettur í hug "it occurs to me." Literally "falls into the mind." Past datt.
Mér leiðist svo mikið í þessum fyrirlestri.
I'm so bored in this lecture. (leiðast — dative experiencer)
Honum er farið að batna eftir flensuna.
He's started to recover after the flu. (batna — dative subject)
Mér datt aldrei í hug að spyrja hann beint.
It never occurred to me to ask him directly. (detta í hug, past datt)
Feeling cold, warm, unwell: vera + dative + adjective
Bodily and emotional states are likewise dative. Mér er kalt is not "I am cold" (that would describe your temperature as an object); it is "to-me is cold" — the cold is happening to you. The adjective stays neuter singular (kalt, heitt, illt) because there is no nominative subject for it to agree with — it is the impersonal, default form.
Mér er kalt, getum við lokað glugganum?
I'm cold, can we close the window? (mér er kalt — dative experiencer, neuter adjective)
Henni var illt í maganum allan daginn.
She had a stomachache all day. (vera + dative + illt = feel unwell)
Er ykkur ekki of heitt þarna inni?
Aren't you (pl.) too hot in there? (ykkur — dative plural experiencer)
Why English speakers get this wrong
Two transfer errors dominate. First, English speakers nominativise the experiencer — ég líka, ég finnst, ég leiðist — because English makes "I" the subject of liking and boredom. Icelandic flatly refuses: the experiencer is dative. Second, even learners who get the dative right then agree the verb with that dative — mér líka þessar bækur drifting to a singular by gut feeling, or freezing every form as singular. The fix is to ignore the experiencer entirely when choosing the verb and look only at the nominative thing: one thing → singular, several things → plural.
Common Mistakes
❌ Ég líka þennan stað.
Incorrect — the experiencer must be dative: mér líkar, not nominative ég líka.
✅ Mér líkar þessi staður.
I like this place.
The liker is the dative recipient of the pleasing, not the nominative doer — so mér, never ég.
❌ Ég finnst þetta áhugavert.
Incorrect — finnast takes a dative subject: mér finnst, not ég finnst.
✅ Mér finnst þetta áhugavert.
I find this interesting.
Finnast is a dative-subject verb just like líka; the opinion-holder is mér.
❌ Mér líkar þessar bækur.
Incorrect — the theme 'bækur' is plural, so the verb must be plural: líka, not líkar.
✅ Mér líka þessar bækur.
I like these books.
The verb agrees with the nominative theme. A plural theme forces líka even though mér is singular — this is the rule's whole point.
❌ Mér tekst þér að klára þetta?
Garbled — only one experiencer per clause; for 'do you manage', use tekst þér.
✅ Tekst þér að klára þetta?
Do you manage to finish this?
With takast the dative experiencer is the only person reference; here it is þér "to you", and the verb stays 3sg tekst.
❌ Ég er kalt.
Incorrect — to feel cold, use the dative: mér er kalt. 'Ég er kaldur' means you ARE a cold person.
✅ Mér er kalt.
I'm cold (I feel cold).
Sensations of cold, heat, and pain take a dative experiencer and a neuter adjective: mér er kalt / heitt / illt.
Key Takeaways
- A large family of Icelandic verbs takes a dative experiencer: finnast (think), líka (like), takast (manage), leiðast (be bored), batna (recover), detta í hug (occur to), plus vera + kalt/heitt/illt (feel cold/hot/unwell).
- The experiencer is always dative: mér, þér, honum, henni, okkur, ykkur, þeim — never nominative ég.
- The verb agrees with the nominative theme, not the experiencer: singular theme → finnst / líkar / tekst; plural theme → finnast / líka / takast. Mér finnast þessar bækur (plural verb, singular mér).
- Predicate adjectives agree with the theme too; with the bodily-state phrases (mér er kalt) the adjective is the impersonal neuter kalt / heitt / illt.
- The English instinct to make the experiencer the subject is the root error — train yourself to start these sentences with mér / honum / þeim.
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Start learning Icelandic→Related Topics
- Quirky (Oblique) Subjects: OverviewA2 — Icelandic's flagship feature: a large class of verbs whose logical subject — the experiencer — stands in the accusative, dative, or genitive instead of the nominative, with the verb frozen in 3rd-person singular. mér finnst, mig langar, mér er kalt: why 'I' is so often mér or mig, not ég.
- finnast vs þykja vs halda: 'Think/Seem'B1 — The 'think/seem/find' cluster that English collapses into one word: finnast (dative subject, a subjective impression — mér finnst þetta gott), þykja (dative subject, more formal and evaluative — mér þykir vænt um þig), and halda (ordinary nominative subject, a belief or conjecture — ég held að…). The case of the subject is the giveaway: an impression takes mér; a belief takes ég.
- Impersonal and Weather VerbsB1 — Icelandic constructions with no nominative subject: weather verbs (það rignir 'it rains', það snjóar, það er kalt) that sit in the 3rd person with an optional dummy það, and the impersonal-experience pattern for feeling cold/hot/sick, which uses a DATIVE experiencer + vera + a NEUTER adjective (mér er kalt 'I'm cold', henni var illt 'she felt sick'). The crucial contrast: ég er kaldur ('I'm a cold/cold-bodied person') vs mér er kalt ('I feel cold').
- finnast (to think / seem — opinion verb)A2 — Full conjugation of finnast, the everyday opinion verb with a DATIVE subject (mér finnst þetta gott), its quirky-subject syntax, plural agreement with the nominative theme (mér finnast þau góð), the past fannst, and how it differs from halda and líka.
- líka (to like / be pleasing to)A2 — The impersonal dative-subject verb líka (mér líkar / mér líkaði): the experiencer is in the DATIVE while the liked thing is NOMINATIVE and the verb agrees with IT (mér líka bækurnar), plus líka við + accusative for people, and the contrast with finnast and with accusative-subject langa.