Hello and Goodbye
Perhaps the most important thing to learn in any language is how to say hello and goodbye.
As in any language, there are many ways to say hello and goodbye in Icelandic. However, not all of these methods are used all the time. Instead, they depend on the time of day, degree of formality, and, in Icelandic, the gender(s) of the person(s) addressed.
Time Sensitive Greetings
Icelandic uses different greetings at different times of the day. Saying góðan daginn perhaps the most famous Icelandic expression of all time, at midnight would be as weird as saying good day to somebody at midnight.
Just like English, many of these greetings are created by blending a time of day with an adjective (a word used to describe a noun). Later in the course, you will learn a little more about why these words take the forms that they do. For now, it would be best to just memorize the greetings below in their entirety.
Below are the most common time-sensitive greetings. The options given are all extremely common and can be used interchangeably with one another.
| greetings | Day | Night |
|---|---|---|
| Option 1 | góðan daginn | góða kvöldið |
| Option 2 | góðan dag | gott kvöld |
| Option 3 | daginn | kvöldið |
Conversation 1
Person 1: Góðan daginn! - (Good day!)
Person 2: Daginn. - (Good day.)
Conversation 2
Person 1: Gott kvöld. - (Good evening.)
Person 2: Kvöldið. - (Good evening.)
Note 1: While saying "good day" or "good evening" to somebody in English can be a little stilted and overly formal, this is not the case in Icelandic. Saying "góðan daginn" and its equivalents is very typical and normal sounding.
Note 2: Icelandic does not have a comfortable translation for "good morning," such as is common in English. For this purpose, "góðan daginn" is used.
Formality Sensitive Greetings
Icelandic greetings can also depend on the level of formality. This happens in English as well. For instance, if you are talking with a superior at work or an older person in general, it would be common and respectful to use a more formal greeting than one you would use with your friends. You wouldn't, usually, say wazzup to your great-grandma or a company representative in a business meeting. Instead, you may choose to say something more formal, such as hello.
In Icelandic, a very formal and polite greeting is komdu sæll og blessaður.
This phrase is very, very polite. Literally, it means come healthy and blessed. It is often shortened in greetings to komdu sæll, sæll og blessaður, or most commonly simply sæll or blessaður. The general rule is that the longer the phrase, the more polite and formal it is.
If you’re speaking to an older person for the first time, using the entire phrase would be more appropriate. If you are talking with a coworker, just sæll or blessaður is probably more appropriate. Using the whole phrase with a young person or a friend would be seen as strange and is sometimes done for comedic effect.
Breaking it down, the phrase komdu sæll og blessaður makes use of two adjectives: sæll and blessaður. Getting a little ahead of ourselves, these adjectives must match the gender identity and number of the party or parties being addressed. As a result, you must use the forms of the adjectives that match who you are greeting. This holds for shortened forms as well. Below, see the forms that are approprite to use for each potential audience. Notice how both adjectives change depending on who is addressed.
| Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | sæll og blessaður | sæl og blessuð | sælt og blessað |
| Plural | sælir og blessaðir | sælar og blessaðar | sæl og blessuð |
Conversation 1:
A woman: Komdu sæll og blessaður. - (Hello.)
A man: Sæl. - (Hello.)
Conversation 2:
A boy: Komdu sæl og blessuð. - (Hello.)
His grandmother: Komdu sæll. - (Hello.)
Two other informal greetings are important to know.
Hæ is much less formal and is used fairly often among younger people. Halló is also used, but it is most common when answering a phone.
*Note: "Komdu sæll og blessaður" is a common phrase and is not nearly as stilted, weird, or bizarre as saying "come happy and blessed" would be in English.
Saying Goodbye
There are not nearly as many ways to say goodbye as there are to say hello.
The two most common ways are to say bless or bæ, both meaning bye. They are often said twice in a row, just like saying bye-bye in English.
Example: Bless bless! - (Bye!)
You may also say (við) heyrumst or (við) sjáumst, meaning we’ll hear from each other again and we’ll see each other again. As you may imagine, (við) sjáumst implies that you and your conversation partner just saw each other and, as such, it's not very appropriate for a phone conversation.
Example 1: Bæ, við heyrumst. - (Bye, we’ll hear each other again.)
Example 2: Heyrumst! - (We'll hear from each other again.)
The phrase góða nótt, meaning good Night, is used to say goodbye to someone, but only when one of the two parties to the conversation is going to bed or otherwise leaving the area. This is the same as in English.
Conversation:
Person 1: Góða nótt. - (Goodnight.)
Person 2: Góða nótt! Bæ. - (Goodnight, bye.)
In the above example, one of the parties must have been going to bed or leaving the area.
Now I Know:
- the most common greetings in Icelandic
- what greetings are used depending on the time of day
- what greetings are used depending on formality
- how greetings change depending on person and pluality
- the most common ways to say goodbye