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Questions & Answers about Bíddu hér þangað til ég kem.
What grammatical form is “Bíddu,” and who is it addressed to?
“Bíddu” is the 2nd person singular imperative of the verb bíða (to wait). You use it to tell one person to wait. To address more than one person, use the plural imperative Bíðið: “Bíðið hér þangað til ég kem.” A short, slightly brusquer variant to one person is simply Bíð!
Why is it spelled “Bíddu” with a double d? Where did the ð go?
Historically it comes from the phrase bíð þú (“wait, you”). In fast, natural speech the sequence ð + þ merges and surfaces as dd, giving bíddu. The same sandhi shows up in other imperatives:
- kom þú → komdu (come!)
- far þú → farðu (go!)
- seg þú → segðu (say!)
Why is the verb in the subordinate clause present tense (“ég kem”) if it refers to the future?
In Icelandic, time clauses introduced by words like þangað til/þar til (“until”), þegar (“when”), á meðan (“while”), etc., normally use the simple present to talk about the future. So þangað til ég kem means “until I come/will come.” Using a future auxiliary (like “mun”) there sounds odd: “þangað til ég mun koma” is not idiomatic.
Could I say “þar til” instead of “þangað til”? And can I add “að”?
- Both þangað til and þar til are widely used and mean “until.” In everyday speech you’ll hear both; style guides often prefer þar til in purely temporal senses, but the difference is small in practice.
- Adding að is optional: þangað til (að) ég kem / þar til (að) ég kem. Many speakers omit að in short, frequent phrases like this, and your sentence is perfectly natural without it.
What’s the word order inside the “þangað til” clause? Can I say “þangað til kem ég”?
Use normal SVO order in the clause: þangað til ég kem. The inverted order þangað til kem ég is not standard here (inversion is for questions and certain stylistic/emphatic effects, not ordinary subordinate clauses).
How do I pronounce the tricky bits (þ, ð, é, í, and “hér”)?
- þ: voiceless “th,” like “thing.”
- ð: voiced “th,” like “this.”
- é: like “yeh” (a palatalized e); in ég it’s roughly “yeh” with a soft final sound.
- í: long “ee.”
- hér: the h is a soft, breathy sound before a front vowel; roughly “hyair.” A rough whole-sentence guide: “BEE-ddu hyair THOWNG-ath til yehg kyem.” (Icelandic sounds vary regionally; this is just an approximation.)
Is “Bíddu” also used as a discourse filler like “wait/hold on a sec”?
Yes. Bíddu… often starts a sentence when you need a moment or are about to challenge something: Bíddu, hvað meinarðu? (“Wait, what do you mean?”). In your sentence it’s a straightforward imperative (“Wait [here]…”), not just a filler.
How can I make the command sound more polite?
- Add a polite adverb: Vinsamlegast bíddu hér þangað til ég kem.
- Turn it into a question/request: Geturðu/Gætirðu beðið hér þangað til ég kem?
- Add a softener: Bíddu aðeins hér þangað til ég kem (“just wait here a moment until I come”).
What’s the difference between “hér,” “hérna,” and “þarna”?
- hér: “here” (neutral; fine in speech and writing).
- hérna: “right here/over here” (colloquial, slightly more deictic).
- þarna: “there” (visible/nearby to one of us).
Your sentence needs hér (“Wait here”). If you want extra emphasis on exact location in casual speech, hérna works too.
If I want to say “Wait for me here,” how do I do that with “bíða”?
The verb bíða can take:
- A genitive object: Bíddu mín hér (“Wait for me here”) — a bit formal/literary nowadays.
- Or the preposition eftir
- dative: Bíddu hér eftir mér — very common in modern speech. Your original sentence avoids this by using a time clause: “Wait here until I come.”
Why “kem” and not “koma/kemur”? What are the key forms I should know?
- koma = infinitive (“to come”).
- ég kem = 1st person singular present (“I come/am coming”).
- þú kemur = 2nd person singular.
- hann/hún kemur = 3rd person singular.
- Imperative to one person: Komdu!
In your clause the subject is “ég,” so kem is the right form: þangað til ég kem.
Do I need a comma before “þangað til”?
Modern Icelandic punctuation usually does not put a comma before short, tightly integrated time clauses. So Bíddu hér þangað til ég kem is punctuated just like that—no comma needed.