Breakdown of Mitt uppáhalds áhugamál er að læra íslensku.
Questions & Answers about Mitt uppáhalds áhugamál er að læra íslensku.
Here’s a simple breakdown:
- Mitt – my (neuter, nominative, singular)
- uppáhalds – favourite (literally “of favourite”; an attributive form of the noun uppáhald)
- áhugamál – hobby, pastime (literally “interest‑matter”, a neuter noun)
- er – is (3rd person singular of að vera – to be)
- að læra – to learn (að is the infinitive marker, like English to)
- íslensku – Icelandic (the language; accusative singular of íslenska)
Very literal structure:
Mitt uppáhalds áhugamál er að læra íslensku.
= My favourite hobby is to learn Icelandic.
The possessive pronoun has to agree with the gender, number and case of the noun it modifies.
- áhugamál (hobby) is:
- neuter
- singular
- nominative (it’s the subject of the sentence)
The nominative singular forms of “my” are:
- masculine: minn
- feminine: mín
- neuter: mitt
Since áhugamál is neuter, you must use mitt:
- Mitt áhugamál – my hobby
- (Compare: minn bíll – my car (masc.), mín bók – my book (fem.))
Icelandic often builds long words by compounding.
- áhugi – interest
- mál – matter, affair, topic, sometimes “thing”
So áhugamál is literally “interest‑matter”, and it means:
- áhugamál = a hobby / pastime (something you’re interested in doing)
Grammar points:
- It’s a neuter noun.
- The singular and plural forms look the same in the bare form:
- singular indefinite: áhugamál
- plural indefinite: áhugamál
- You see the number more clearly with articles:
- áhugamálið – the hobby (singular)
- áhugamálin – the hobbies (plural)
Uppáhalds comes from the neuter noun uppáhald – favourite (thing).
- On its own:
- uppáhald – favourite (e.g. my favourite when context is clear)
- In front of another noun, it usually appears as uppáhalds, with -s:
- uppáhalds lag – favourite song
- uppáhalds bíómynd – favourite movie
- uppáhalds áhugamál – favourite hobby
Historically, the -s is a genitive ending (“of favourite”), but in modern use you can mostly treat uppáhalds as an indeclinable attributive form meaning “favourite”:
- It doesn’t change with gender or case of the noun:
- mitt uppáhalds lag – my favourite song (neuter)
- mín uppáhalds bók – my favourite book (feminine)
- minn uppáhalds matur – my favourite food (masculine)
You don’t say uppáhalda or uppáhald áhugamál here; the natural form is uppáhalds áhugamál.
Íslenska is the noun “Icelandic (language)”. It is a feminine noun and it declines.
The relevant singular forms are:
- nominative: íslenska
- accusative: íslensku
- dative: íslensku
- genitive: íslensku
The verb að læra (to learn) takes its object in the accusative case.
So, when you “learn Icelandic”, íslenska must be in the accusative:
- að læra íslensku – to learn Icelandic
That’s why the sentence ends with íslensku, not íslenska.
Using íslenska there would normally be considered a grammatical mistake.
In er að læra, there are two parts:
- er – is (the main, finite verb)
- að læra – to learn (the infinitive phrase functioning like a noun: “learning”)
In Icelandic, að before a verb is the infinitive marker, like to in English:
- að læra – to learn
- að borða – to eat
- að lesa – to read
So:
- Mitt uppáhalds áhugamál er að læra íslensku.
= My favourite hobby is to learn Icelandic / is learning Icelandic.
You could think of að læra íslensku as playing the same role that an -ing form would in English (“learning Icelandic”).
No, that would change the meaning.
- læra íslensku – learn Icelandic (the language itself is what you’re learning)
- læra á íslensku – learn something in Icelandic (Icelandic is the medium, not the subject)
Examples:
- Ég er að læra íslensku. – I’m learning Icelandic.
- Ég er að læra stærðfræði á íslensku. – I’m learning math in Icelandic.
In your sentence, the hobby is learning the language itself, so you need læra íslensku.
Yes, you can move the possessive after the noun:
- Mitt uppáhalds áhugamál – my favourite hobby
- Uppáhalds áhugamál mitt – my favourite hobby
Both are grammatically correct. The difference is mainly in style and emphasis:
- [possessive] + noun (Mitt uppáhalds áhugamál)
– More neutral, common in straightforward statements. - noun + [possessive] (Uppáhalds áhugamál mitt)
– Can sound a bit more emphatic or contrastive, like my favourite hobby (as opposed to someone else’s), or slightly more colloquial in some contexts.
For a basic, neutral sentence, keeping mitt at the beginning is perfectly natural.
Læra is in the infinitive form because it follows að, the infinitive marker.
- Infinitive: læra – (to) learn
- Present tense forms:
- ég læri – I learn
- þú lærir – you learn
- hann/hún/það lærir – he/she/it learns
In this sentence, there is only one finite verb: er (is).
The phrase að læra íslensku is not a second full clause; it’s an infinitive phrase acting like a noun (“to learn Icelandic / learning Icelandic”). So you must keep læra in the infinitive.
Very rough “English‑style” approximation (not exact IPA, just a guide):
- Mitt – like MIT with a short, hard t (often a bit like “mihht”)
- uppáhalds – roughly oop-ow-halts
- upp: like oop
- á: like ow in cow
- final ds often sounds close to ts
- áhugamál – roughly OW-hu-ga-maul
- á: like ow
- huga: hoo-ga (short vowels)
- ál: like owl but shorter
- er – like air but shorter
- að – roughly a-th with a soft th; often quite short and weak
- læra – roughly LYE-ra (like “lie-ra”)
- æ: like English eye
- íslensku – roughly EES-len-sku
- í: like ee in see
- sk a bit sharp, like sk in ski
- final u more like a short oo than English u
Spoken naturally, the whole sentence flows together and some vowels shorten, but this gives you a workable starting point.