Icelandic verb conjugation follows clear, predictable patterns once you understand the basic rules.

Every verb changes its ending based on who’s doing the action and when it happens.

You only need to learn a few main groups to conjugate the vast majority of verbs correctly.

This guide will walk you through the process of conjugating Icelandic verbs step-by-step.

The infinitive form of Icelandic verbs

All Icelandic verbs start in the infinitive form.

This is the base dictionary form of the verb.

Almost every infinitive verb in Icelandic ends in the letter -a.

For example, að tala means “to speak”.

The word að is the infinitive marker, just like the word “to” in English.

To conjugate a verb, you usually drop this final -a to find the verb stem.

Step 1: conjugating group 1 verbs (-ar)

Most verbs in Icelandic are weak verbs, which are divided into three simple groups.

Group 1 is the largest and most regular verb group in the Icelandic language.

Let’s use the verb að tala (to speak) as our example.

First, drop the final -a to get the stem tal-.

Then, add the appropriate present tense endings for the person speaking.

Notice how the singular forms for “you” and “he/she/it” end in -ar.

Here’s how you might use this in a conversation.

Step 2: conjugating group 2 verbs (-ir)

Group 2 verbs are also incredibly common.

Let’s look at the verb að læra (to learn).

The stem for this verb is lær-.

The plural endings are identical to Group 1, but the singular endings use -i or -ir.

Step 3: conjugating group 3 verbs (-ur)

Group 3 verbs behave slightly differently in the singular form.

We’ll use að velja (to choose) as our example.

In the singular forms for “you” and “he/she/it”, the endings use -ur.

Notice that the “ég” form simply uses the bare stem vel without any extra letters.

The u-shift rule in plural verbs

Icelandic has a very common spelling rule called the u-shift (or u-hljóðvarp).

Whenever an a in the verb stem is followed by an ending containing a u, the a changes to an ö.

You can see this happening in the “við” (we) form of Group 1 verbs.

Instead of saying við talum, the u-shift forces the word to become við tölum.

This rule applies to all verbs across the Icelandic language.

Strong verbs in Icelandic

Strong verbs don’t use standard endings to form their past tense.

Instead, they change the vowel in their core stem, much like the English word “sing” becomes “sang”.

In the present tense, many strong verbs look just like Group 3 weak verbs.

Let’s look at the strong verb að fara (to go).

Notice how the u-shift rule turns fara into förum in the “we” form.

The most important irregular verbs

Some verbs don’t follow any of the standard group rules at all.

You simply have to memorize these irregular verbs by heart.

The two most important irregular verbs you’ll ever learn are að vera (to be) and að hafa (to have).

Here’s the present tense conjugation for að vera (to be).

Here’s the present tense conjugation for að hafa (to have).

You’ll use these two verbs constantly in daily conversation in Iceland.