Að Vera

Now that you understand the idea behind inflection and understand how conjugation tables work, it is time to learn your first verb! The most important verb to know in any language is to be. In Icelandic, to be is að vera.

Regular and Irregular Verbs

Að vera and to be are irregular verbs. Most verbs are regular, meaning they follow a regular, expected pattern. For example, the verb to bake. To bake is a regular verb because it is conjugated exactly like you would expect an English verb to conjugate. Most notably, it adds -ed to form its past tense. Most other verbs do this, including to talk.

Example 1: To bake
Example 2: I bake.
Example 3: I baked.
Example 4: To talk
Example 5: I talk.
Example 6: I talked.

Irregular verbs do not follow a regular pattern like this. In English, to be and to eat are two examples of irregular verbs. These verbs are irregular because their past tense forms do not follow an expected pattern.

Example 1: To be
Example 1: I am.
Example 2: I was.
Example 3: To eat
Example 3: I eat.
Example 4: I ate.

To Be

Below, see the entire chart for to be. To be is a unique verb in English because it is completely irregular; none of its forms look anything like the infinitive! It is also unique because it has five unique forms when most verbs have only three. Also of note is how the present tense and the past tense forms do not share anything in common.

Pres. be	Sing.	Plur.
1st.	am	are
2nd.	are	are
3rd.	is	are

Past be	Sing.	Plur.
1st.	was	were
2nd.	were	were
3rd.	was	were

Tip: For some people, it's hard to wrap their brains around the fact that "am" and "were" are technically the same word. But fear not; this is completely normal and part of the learning process! It may be helpful to mentally walk through the "to be" chart in your head a couple of times.

Practice: Try making the equivalent of "he is" using "I" as the subject, and then move on to the other subjects, too.

Að Vera

Að vera is completely irrregular. In practice, this means that you have to remember its forms by heart. While this may seem intimidating, að vera is such a common verb that trying to avoid it would do more harm than good.

Pres. vera	Sing.	Plur.
1st.	er	erum
2nd.	ert	eruð
3rd.	er	eru

Past vera	Sing.	Plur.
1st.	var	vorum
2nd.	varst	voruð
3rd.	var	voru

Tip: Try to find patterns in the conjugation chart that make it easier to remember. For example, did you notice that every past tense form starts with a "v" and every present tense form starts with an "e"? There are many other smaller patterns like that that you can and should spend some time discovering on your own.

Tip: You don't need to memorize the entire chart right now, but it would be helpful to start doing so as soon as possible. If, after the first unit, you are still having considerable trouble, consider practicing filling out the tables a couple of times on Íslenzka.is. If you do, be sure to click the second "vera" option when you type the word in to the serach bar. It should have the label [verb]\ After clicking, press enter" on your keyboard.

Using the chart above, translate the following into Icelandic:

1. I am
2. You are
3. He is
4. We are
5. They are
6. I was
7. You were
8. He was

Now I Know:

• what regular and irregular verbs are
• how to conjugate að vera in the present and the past