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Questions & Answers about Ég les bækur um há fjöll.
How do you form the plural of bók, and why is it bækur here?
The noun bók (“book”) is a strong feminine noun. Its regular plural nominative (and accusative) ending is -ur, but the stem vowel also changes (umlaut) from ó to æ, giving bækur (“books”). In our sentence bækur is simply the plural form.
What case is bækur in this sentence?
bækur is in the accusative plural, because it’s the direct object of the verb les (“read”). For strong feminine nouns like bók, the accusative plural looks exactly like the nominative plural, so bækur covers both.
What does the preposition um mean here, and which case does it govern?
Here um means “about” (as in “on the topic of”). It always takes the accusative, so the phrase after it—há fjöll—is also in the accusative plural.
Why is the adjective há used instead of hár or hátt?
Icelandic adjectives agree with their noun in gender, number, and case. The dictionary form hár is masculine singular. For neuter plural (which fjöll is) the strong adjective form is há, not hár or hátt.
What case is há fjöll in, and why does it look like the nominative?
Because um takes the accusative, fjöll is accusative plural. Neuter nouns have identical forms in nominative and accusative, so há fjöll looks just like the nominative even though it’s accusative here.
How would you say “the high mountains” (definite) instead of just “high mountains”?
Icelandic puts the definite article on the noun as a suffix and weakens the adjective. Neuter plural definite is -in on the noun and háu on the adjective, giving háu fjöllin = “the high mountains.”
Can you drop the subject pronoun Ég in this sentence?
Technically yes—verbs in Icelandic are marked for person and number, so Les bækur um há fjöll still means “I read books about high mountains.” In practice, though, Icelanders seldom drop ég in writing and most speech unless it’s very colloquial.
Where is the stress in Ég les bækur um há fjöll?
Icelandic has fixed stress on the first syllable of each word. So you stress ÉG, LES, BÆ-kur, UM, HÁ, FJÖLL.
How do you pronounce fjöll?
- fj = [fj], a lightly palatalized “f” + “y” sound
- ö = [œ], similar to the vowel in English “sir” (without the ‘r’)
- ll = a long voiceless alveolar lateral fricative [l̥ː], like a soft, sustained “tl”
Put together, fjöll ≈ [fjœl̥ː].
Could um ever mean “around” in a physical sense, and how do you tell it’s “about” here?
Yes, um can also mean “around” (e.g. um hús = “around a house”). With verbs of reading, talking, or thinking—like lesa (“to read”)—um almost always means “about” (the subject matter). Context and collocation tell you which meaning to use.