Reflexive Verbs and Inherent Reflexives

A great many everyday Icelandic verbs travel with a reflexive pronoun — sig, sér, or sín in the third person — and getting this right separates fluent Icelandic from textbook Icelandic. Some of these verbs are truly reflexive: the action genuinely loops back onto the subject, and the reflexive is a real object you could swap for something else (hann þvær sér "he washes himself," but also hann þvær bílinn "he washes the car"). Others are inherently reflexive: the reflexive is obligatory and meaningless on its own — the verb simply doesn't exist without it. You cannot *flýta anything; you can only flýta sér "hurry (oneself)." A third, subtler use is the benefactive dative reflexive, which marks an action as done for one's own benefit — ég fékk mér kaffi "I had myself a coffee" — a nuance English usually drops.

This page sorts those three uses and pins down two things English never makes you think about: whether a given verb takes the reflexive in the dative (sér) or the accusative (sig), and the fact that sig/sér/sín is third person only — for first and second person you use the ordinary pronoun (mig/mér, þig/þér, okkur). (The forms of the reflexive pronoun are catalogued on the reflexive pronoun page, and the separate -st middle voice — þvost, klæðast — has its own pages; here we deal with the verb + free reflexive pronoun.)

True reflexives: the action really loops back

A true reflexive is a transitive verb whose object happens to be the subject itself. The diagnostic is simple: you could replace the reflexive with a different object and the sentence still works. Hún klæðir sig "she dresses herself" — and you could say hún klæðir barnið "she dresses the child." The reflexive here is a genuine, swappable object; it just points back at the subject.

For most of these, the reflexive is accusative (sig), because the verb's ordinary object is accusative: klæða einhvern → klæða sig, meiða einhvern → meiða sig. But the washing verb þvo governs the dative for the body-washing sense: hann þvær sér "he washes (himself)," hún þvær sér um hendurnar "she washes her hands" — while þvo bílinn (wash the car) is accusative. The case follows the verb's lexical government, exactly as with any object.

Inherent reflexives: the reflexive is welded on

Here is the class English has no model for. An inherently reflexive verb always carries the reflexive, and the reflexive has no independent meaning — you can't drop it, and you can't swap it for another object. Flýta sér means "hurry"; there is no *flýta on its own with that sense, and no *flýta einhvern. The reflexive is just part of the verb's fixed shape, like the self in English "perjure oneself" (which never appears without it).

The high-frequency members of this class are worth memorising as units, with their case:

Notice that the case is not predictable from the meaning — flýta sér and skemmta sér take the dative, hreyfa sig takes the accusative, and there's no semantic reason you could deduce in advance. You have to learn the case as part of the verb, just as you learn a noun's gender. This is the honest difficulty here: there's no shortcut, only the habit of storing flýta with sér and hreyfa with sig.

The reflexive is THIRD PERSON ONLY

This is the single most consequential rule on the page, and the one English most actively sabotages. The pronoun sig / sér / sín exists only in the third person — for hann, hún, það, þeir, þær, þau. For the first and second persons, you use the ordinary personal pronoun in the right case:

So "we hurry" is flýtum okkur, not *flýtum sig. English has a single self-word that just changes its first syllable (myself, yourself, himself) and stays in the family, so learners assume sig is a generic "-self." It is not: it is specifically a third-person anaphor. In the first and second person it is simply wrong, and the fix is to use mér/mig, þér/þig, okkur, ykkur — the same pronouns you'd use anywhere else, in the case the verb demands.

The benefactive dative reflexive: 'for one's own benefit'

Now the nuance that makes Icelandic feel rich. With certain verbs — especially fá "get/have" and kaupa "buy" — adding a dative reflexive marks the action as done for one's own benefit / for oneself. Ég fékk mér kaffi is literally "I got myself coffee," but the idiomatic force is "I had a coffee" — the mér signals that the coffee is for me, a small treat or helping I'm taking. English routinely drops this ("I had a coffee," "I bought a jacket"); Icelandic foregrounds it.

The flagship is fá sér + noun, the standard way to say you have something to eat or drink — order it, take a helping, treat yourself:

The same benefactive dative shows up with kaupa sér "buy oneself," baka sér "bake oneself," útvega sér "get hold of (for oneself)" — anywhere the point is that the subject is the beneficiary:

The benefactive mér/sér is optional in a way the inherent-reflexive one is not — ég keypti síma "I bought a phone" is fine too — but adding it warms the sentence: it says for myself, this is mine, I'm the one who gains. Leaving it out where Icelandic expects it (notably fá sér for food and drink) is the difference between sounding fluent and sounding flat. Fáðu þér! on its own — "help yourself! / dig in!" — is one of the most common things you'll hear at an Icelandic table.

Common Mistakes

You can't drop the reflexive of an inherently reflexive verb. Flýta has no meaning without sér/mér — it's part of the verb.

Sig/sér is third-person. For við use okkur, for ég use mér/mig, for þú use þér/þig.

Skemmta sér takes the dative reflexive, so "I" is mér, not mig. The case is lexical to the verb.

Hreyfa sig is one of the accusative-reflexive verbs. Don't assume the dative; check the verb.

For having food or drink, the idiom is fá sér with the benefactive dative. Plain fá + noun ("get/receive") misses the "have a coffee" sense and sounds bare.

Key Takeaways

• True reflexives (klæða sig, meiða sig, þvo sér) have a real, swappable object that loops back onto the subject — the reflexive could be replaced by another noun.
• Inherently reflexive verbs (flýta sér, skemmta sér, ná sér, hreyfa sig, haga sér) require the reflexive, which carries no meaning alone — learn them as units.
• The case is lexical and unpredictable: flýta/skemmta/ná sér (dative) but hreyfa sig (accusative). Store it with the verb.
• sig / sér / sín is third person only. First/second person uses the ordinary pronoun: ég flýti mér, þú flýtir *þér*, *við flýtum okkur
  • — "we hurry" =
  flýtum okkur, never *flýtum sig.
• The benefactive dative reflexive (fá sér, kaupa sér) marks an action as for one's own benefit — ég fékk mér kaffi "I had myself a coffee." Use fá sér for having food and drink; fáðu þér! = "help yourself!"