Learn Hardcore Icelandic: Við veljum íþrótt sem okkur finnst skemmtileg.

Icelandic uses okkur (“to us”) and the verb finnst, which literally means “seems (to someone)”, whereas English uses “we find” or “we think … is fun”.
The relative pronoun sem works like English “that/which”, and its position is similar to English.
Icelandic case endings and agreement (on okkur and skemmtileg) carry extra grammatical information that English expresses mostly by word order and separate words.

Why is it okkur and not við in the part sem okkur finnst skemmtileg?

Við and okkur are different case forms of “we”:

við – nominative (we, as the grammatical subject)
okkur – accusative/dative (us, as object or indirect object)

The verb að finnast (“to seem / to be found [by someone]”) always takes the experiencer (the person who has the opinion/feeling) in the dative case.

Pattern:

Einhverjum finnst eitthvað [lýsingarorð].
→ To someone (DAT) something (NOM) seems [adjective].

Examples:

Mér finnst þetta gott. – I think this is good / This seems good to me.
Okkur finnst íþróttin skemmtileg. – We think the sport is fun / The sport seems fun to us.

So in your sentence, okkur is in the dative, because it is the experiencer of finnst. Using við here (við finnst…) would be grammatically wrong.

Why is the verb finnst used, and not something like finnum?

Icelandic has two related verbs:

að finna – to find (physically find, sense, perceive):
- við finnum – we find / we feel / we smell (1st person plural)
að finnast – to be found / to seem / to feel (to someone):
- (okkur) finnst – seems (to us) (3rd person singular)
- (okkur) finnast – seem (to us) (3rd person plural)

In your sentence, we’re not saying we find something in the active sense, but something seems/fels fun to us. That meaning uses að finnast, not að finna.

Structure:

okkur finnst [íþrótt] skemmtileg
→ to us [the sport] seems fun
→ “we think the sport is fun / we find the sport fun”

So finnst is:

3rd person singular present of að finnast,
agreeing with a singular subject (íþrótt),
while okkur is the dative experiencer.

Við finnum íþrótt skemmtilega would either be ungrammatical or mean something quite different/unusual.

What exactly is sem doing here?

Sem is a relative pronoun (or relative conjunction) in Icelandic. It works roughly like English “that” or “which” in relative clauses.

Sentence:

Við veljum íþrótt sem okkur finnst skemmtileg.

Breakdown:

Main clause: Við veljum íþrótt – We choose a sport
Relative clause: sem okkur finnst skemmtileg – that (to us) seems fun

So sem:

Refers back to íþrótt (the sport),
Introduces the relative clause describing which sport it is.

You could think of it as:

We choose a sport which we find fun.

In this kind of clause, sem is almost always the right word for “that/which/who” referring back to a noun.

What is the grammatical role of íþrótt in the sentence?

Íþrótt plays two roles, one in each clause:

Main clause:
- Við veljum íþrótt
- Here, íþrótt is the direct object of veljum (“we choose [what?] → a sport”).
- Case: accusative singular feminine (form: íþrótt – nominative and accusative look the same for this word).
Relative clause:
- sem okkur finnst skemmtileg
- Sem refers back to íþrótt, and in this clause, the sport is what seems fun.
- So logically and grammatically, íþrótt is the subject of finnst in the relative clause.
- Case there: nominative (subject of the verb).

You can’t see the case change in the noun itself (because íþrótt looks the same in nominative and accusative singular), but you can see the nominative in the form of the adjective skemmtileg, which agrees with it.

Why is the adjective skemmtileg in that exact form, and not skemmtilegur or skemmtilegt?

Skemmtilegur is an adjective meaning fun / entertaining / enjoyable. It declines for:

gender (masculine, feminine, neuter)
number (singular, plural)
case (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive)

Basic nominative singular forms:

Masculine: skemmtilegur
Feminine: skemmtileg
Neuter: skemmtilegt

In the relative clause:

The thing that “is fun” is íþrótt.
Íþrótt is a feminine noun.
In sem okkur finnst skemmtileg, íþrótt is the subject of finnst, so it is in the nominative.
The adjective must match íþrótt in gender, number, and case, so it must be:
→ feminine, singular, nominative → skemmtileg.

Compare:

skemmtileg íþrótt – a fun sport (fem. nom. sg.)
við veljum skemmtilega íþrótt – we choose a fun sport (fem. acc. sg.: skemmtilega)
íþróttin er skemmtileg – the sport is fun (fem. nom. sg.: skemmtileg)

Your sentence’s relative clause is structurally like the last one:

(sú) íþrótt sem okkur finnst skemmtileg
→ (the) sport that (to us) seems fun

Could I say Við veljum íþrótt sem okkur finnst vera skemmtileg, and does it change the meaning?

Yes, you can say:

Við veljum íþrótt sem okkur finnst vera skemmtileg.

This adds vera (“to be”) and is grammatically correct. The meaning is essentially the same:

sem okkur finnst skemmtileg
sem okkur finnst vera skemmtileg

Both mean:

that we find fun
that seems fun to us

The version without vera is more common and a bit more natural in everyday speech. Adding vera can sound slightly more explicit or formal, but in most contexts there is no real semantic difference.

Can I leave out okkur and just say … sem finnst skemmtileg?

No, you should not leave out okkur here.

The verb að finnast needs an experiencer (the person to whom something seems some way), expressed in the dative case:

Mér finnst… – I think / It seems to me…
Þér finnst… – You think / It seems to you…
Okkur finnst… – We think / It seems to us…
Henni finnst… – She thinks / It seems to her…

If you just write … sem finnst skemmtileg, you are missing that experiencer, and the sentence feels incomplete or wrong.

You can change who the experiencer is:

sem mér finnst skemmtileg – that I find fun
sem þeim finnst skemmtileg – that they find fun

…but you need something in dative before finnst.

How would the sentence change if I want to say “We choose sports that we find fun” (plural “sports”)?

We need to make three changes: plural noun, plural verb, and plural adjective.

Start from:

Við veljum íþrótt sem okkur finnst skemmtileg.
→ We choose a sport that we find fun.

Make “sport” plural:

íþróttir – sports (nominative/accusative plural feminine)

Now the subject of the relative clause is plural, so finnst must become finnast (3rd person plural of að finnast), and the adjective must be plural feminine nominative: skemmtilegar.

Result:

Við veljum íþróttir sem okkur finnast skemmtilegar.
→ We choose sports that we find fun.

Changes:

íþrótt → íþróttir (noun plural)
finnst → finnast (verb agrees with plural subject)
skemmtileg → skemmtilegar (adjective plural feminine nominative)

Could I just say Við veljum skemmtilega íþrótt instead of using the relative clause?

Yes, you can say:

Við veljum skemmtilega íþrótt.

This is:

Við – we
veljum – choose
skemmtilega – fun (feminine accusative singular, because it directly modifies the object)
íþrótt – sport

Meaning:

We choose a fun sport.

Difference in nuance:

Við veljum skemmtilega íþrótt.
→ Simply describes the sport as fun (an inherent quality).
Við veljum íþrótt sem okkur finnst skemmtileg.
→ More explicitly says it is fun in our opinion (the “to us” part is clear). It focuses on our feeling/judgment about the sport.

In everyday use, both can often convey nearly the same idea, but the relative-clause version makes the subjective opinion structure (with okkur finnst) explicit.

What is the difference between okkur finnst and við finnum in meaning?

okkur finnst …
- Uses the verb að finnast.
- Means “we think / we feel / it seems to us that …”
- Structure: [dative experiencer] + finnst/finnast + [subject + adjective]
- Example:
  - Okkur finnst íþróttin skemmtileg.
    → We think the sport is fun / The sport seems fun to us.
við finnum …
- Uses the verb að finna.
- Usually means “we find / we detect / we feel (physically, emotionally)”.
- Structure: [nominative subject] + finnum + [object]
- Examples:
  - Við finnum boltann. – We find the ball.
  - Við finnum kuldann. – We feel the cold.

If you said something like við finnum íþrótt skemmtilega, it would either be grammatically off or sound like a strange attempt to say “we physically find a fun sport” (and the forms would still be wrong). For opinions like “we find it fun”, Icelandic uses okkur finnst, not við finnum.

How is this sentence roughly pronounced?

Very approximate, English‑friendly pronunciation (NOT strict IPA):

Við – like vith (with a soft th as in this, but shorter vowel: “vihth”)
veljum – like VEL-yoom (short e as in get, then lyoom)
íþrótt – like EE-throht
- í = long ee
- þ = unvoiced “th” as in thing
- ó = like oa in boat
- final tt: a strong, slightly aspirated t
sem – like sem (like sem in “semiconductor”)
okkur – roughly OCK-ur
- first syllable a bit like ock (with a back k, close to Scottish loch)
finnst – like finnst (almost exactly “fihnst”)
skemmtileg – about SKEMT-i-leg
- skemmt cluster like skemt
- i like i in bit
- final leg like English leg

Spoken smoothly, something like:

Vihth VEL-yoom EE-throht sem OCK-ur finst SKEMT-i-leg.

How is veljum formed from the verb “to choose”?

The infinitive is:

að velja – to choose

Present tense forms:

ég vel – I choose
þú velur – you choose (singular)
hann/hún/það velur – he/she/it chooses
við veljum – we choose
þið veljið – you choose (plural)
þeir/þær/þau velja – they choose

So veljum is:

1st person plural present tense of að velja.

The -jum ending is the regular 1st person plural ending in many present‑tense Icelandic verbs, and the lj cluster here is typical of verbs like velja, selja (to sell), etc.