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first time here and you did an excellent job of explaining the Icelandic pool culture and giving full details. Thank you.

My son's mother-in-law lives in Kópavogur, and we've used the sundlaug there, the one shown in your opening shot. It's wonderful and we are looking forward to using it more on our next visit.

this is awesome, thank you for making this video! I loved listening to you read even though I don't understand a word. Icelandic is such a beautiful language

Women's suits: one piece or two piece. Also, I have thus far avoided going to the swimming pools. Don't know why, but been a bit shy about it. Are the locals okay with us invading their personal relaxation spots? (Coming from a tourist town myself, I sometimes wish the tourists stayed out of our way and that the local hangout spots aren't highlighted....)

I missed the swimming pools but we did love Hvammsvik Spa!

I love all your videos. You are an amazing ambassador for your country.

So, Hera Björk made the video for her 2010 Eurovision song in Sundhöllin swimming pool, and when I visited Reykjavík, I really wanted to "recreate" the video, and the pool was just round the corner from my B&B... but I never got around to it and now I really regret it. NEXT TIME!

Good to see/hear you again, Ivar.

It must be an amazing experience to bathe in a pool of water warmed by the fires below

i would prefer a natural hot spring out in the wild. A pool is just a pool and they are everywhere. I am surprised you did not sing the little jingle about head, shoulders, knees, and toes or whatever it is they sing.

Thank you for the timely video! I'm visiting in less than a month and might give the pools a try, as I typically have a reaction to the amount of chlorine in North American pools.

Thanks Ívar, were' coming back for trips three and four this year. Looking forward to spending time in the pools at Kirkjubaejarklaustur and Höfn for sure.

Thank you for your . I know that maybe for you is a piece of cake, but for me means a lot todive in this langusge, icelandic sounds so .. hm.. interesting and quite relaxing .

What is that click sound look like? Is it more like kl or tl?

Fascination stuff, especially from the POV of a ‘sister’ or ‘first cousin’ continental Scandinavian language [Scaninavian for short, below]. Á was of course a long A which in Scandinavia became an å - the diagraph is from an a and an o. There is at least one Norwegian dialect wthere å is pronounced ao. The ð and Þ are the voiced and unvoiced "dental fricatives". Once they were in the English alphabet with the same sound qualities as in Icelandic/Norse. The ð disappeared first, and with the priniting press the Þ [which then covered both sounds] was first rendered as y; the was written ye but pronounced ðe, now th is used for both sounds. In modern Sandinavian languager they are now written as d and t. É wich started out as a long e, was palatalized into ye arouind 1,000 years ago. That is why ég is now written jeg/jag (with varyting stress on the g; the Swedish je-ja sound shift is from roughly bthe same period). In Western Norwegian dialects and nynorsk it is written and pronounced eg - with a long e sound. The Hv combination started out in Old Norse almost a gv - with the g as in Icelandic flag or ég. The languages that developed from Old East Norse, Danish and Swedish, soon dropped the hv in favour of a v sound [Danish retained the hv spelling; Swedish went for a straight v). In Norwegian the v sound took over in the Eastern and Southern dialects and is witten hv in bokmål; in the west and nynorsk the hv sound became kv [like kva = what] or in some dialects simply k [ka for kva, hva]. There are a few dialects in Norwegian where ll also has developed (independently) into a dl, as in fjell [icelandic fjall] being proonounced fjedl. The ú is sometimes written like an o but pronounced the same way. In other cases, at least in Norwegian, it can be pronounced like a long and/or stressed sharp u, like ur and lus [watch/clock and louse in English] - this is nototiously difficult for non-natives to say and/or differentiate from y and i. The loss of distinction between i and y is almost an exclusive Icelandic particular. The other Scandi languages have kept the distinction. (Although I know of one dialect in Norway that has also lost the i/y sound differnce). In the other Sandinavian languaged the æ is just a monophthong - sometimes withhen a, æ or ä - the sound quality vares, though. The icelandic sound would be written using two vowels, e.g. ai, aj. Ô iw of course the same as the Dano-Norwegian ø and the Swedisg ö.

This is extremely helpful !!!

I think this was the most complete video I have ever found on Icelandic alphabet. Takk Ívar!

takk takk

So beautiful! Now want to go back to Iceland. It’s hard to do all that work and then not make it to the summit. I hike in Colorado, USA and can relate. Next time!

Thank you. This was really helpful!

An exhilarating proxy hike, Ívar. Like so many would-be adventurers, on landing at Keflavík I've always tended to get the hell out of the capital area in order to savour the 'real' Iceland … but there it is, on your doorstep, in all its rawness. Always interesting for visitors from the northern Britain are the place names. 'Scarth' is widespread in the hilly parts of northern England, where I live, denoting just what skarð does: a pass between two hills/mountains/peaks. No hnjúkar hereabouts, though; they're fells or just tops - another couple of molecules of Viking DNA …

Alongside Dyjandi Waterfall, Haifoss is my equal favourite Waterfall that I have visited in Iceland 🇮🇸 With the view of the Valley plus another excellent Waterfall Granni next to it, it’s a wonderful area. It’s a shame you didn’t hike to the valley below as the view is even more spectacular. There are another couple of wonderful sights in the area which I’d highly recommend to people. Gjain is only a couple of kms further on, which is a beautiful oasis of small waterfalls, streams, rock formations etc. Also Hjalparfoss waterfall which would’ve been on your route back. Surprised you didn’t go there. Anyway great vlog 👍

Gorgeous. Favorite part = no people! Is it due to the weather? Doing hikes when I encounter no one or very few people truly enhances the experience! Glad you are safe despite your tumble and thanks for sharing! 😊

Hope the 'royal hindquarters' are doing better!

Thank you for reminding me that there is an Iceland beyond my thesis! Another hike to add to the list once I'm free. I don't think that you should hike Hengill though when you can do the Ultra race instead!

What a beautiful scenery man, epic scenery! Love this episode 👏👏

I get so excited when there is a new Ivar video... I will watch this later on my break. Yippeee!!!!

I applied for a work and travel programme for iceland and I hope I get placed somewhere! Eg elskar Island!

Great to see you again, especially in an area we haven't seen yet. I enjoyed this hike very well vicariously! Thanks for posting,

Isn't it quite dangerous hiking by yourself like that! What a feat! Thank you for documenting so well. Always a pleasure to experience such wonders vicariously from the safety of a warm couch. Truly! Thank you!! And again, thank you for the spectacular views.

It was good to see the hike in the winter so we can compare it to the hike in the summer.

Svenska är i många tillfällen förenklad isländska.

Rätt likt svenska.

I thought the HV thing varied according to where in the country you live.

Beautiful, crystal-clear modelling of sounds, Ívar. You may not be a teacher but you certainly could (have) be(en)! I ended up studying German at university purely because I liked the noises that came out of my teacher's mouth, so these things change the course of people's lives. A query about the letter L, though. No problems with the distinction between /l/ and /dl/ (or /tl/), but you use a third pronunciation which seems to apply to words ending in vowel + L. In your examples, él, tól, sól and vél all have what I'd describe as a voiceless or whispered /l/ sound. It occurs in English only where the letter L follows another voiceless consonant. So if we say a word such as 'please' in a desperately pleading way - 'plllllllease!' - we use the same fricative sound as you do in those words. When on the other hand you say hvalur, ilur, halur and æla, the sound is just a normal voiced /l/. So it looks as though it's the end position in the word that causes this, but it may not be. A test: f you say any of the last four without the grammatical ending, does the /l/ sound change?

Hmmm ... just catching up on missed videos and thought you were going to make a related but different point here, Ívar. I mean, society tells us that it's manly to stand up to pee in public toilets - otherwise urinals wouldn't exist at all. But at home we can acknowledge that standing up is just as unhygienic as flushing with the lid up, with fine spray (of almost pure urine!) unavoidable, even if our aim is good enough to avoid outright splashes. So, regardless of whether the lid is closed for flushing, seat down ought to be the norm because, well, both sexes ought to be going about the job from a sitting position.

This is fantastic! Thank you! Right before I went to Iceland for the first time last year, your videos about common phrases helped me prepare. This just continues the linguistic journey! I really enjoy how you describe the sounds and provide examples. Thank you for doing this and I look forward to more! 😊

takk takk

tak tak

You are very kind and generous. Thank you. My daughter in Icelandic and this helps me a lot. ❤

I was looking for a video I had watched years ago and happened upon this particular video as part of a playlist of great thoughts to ignite my thinking patterns for the day... ... when I was reminded of a similar thought that often pops up when people try to use DNA to label and categorize. I remember that DNA tests only even look at a very small fraction because I believe it is over 90% of each man's DNA that is exactly the same as nearly any other living thing. One is focusing on such a tiny happenstance to define entire families of people as "us or them. " This video hit the spot regarding why that upsets me every time I come across such a practice.

What about Saell as a greeting?

Takk fyrir. Kveðja frá Téklandi.

Before I visited Iceland, I decided to learn a little Icelandic, just to be polite, and I started with your videos and that is how I got hooked on your excellent videos. I felt confident about my pronunciation of basic sounds. The double LL is a female dog, however.

Looking forward to seeing this for myself in September! Also, the á isn't pronounced like á in this case?

Another question comes up. I assume you were taught British English, so you say Zett. But you speak in American English, so you say Z. Which is correct?

I'd love to see you post more educational Icelandic language videos. This was great.

2+ yrs ago my tongue twisted with ö. Haha

Do you have an alphabet song you teach the children?

Takk takk! As a French and English speaker learning German, it’s fascinating to hear both the similarities and differences with íslensku.