Time and frequency
Time
Adverbs of time in Icelandic are often phrases, like í dag or á morgun. You might be tempted to break these phrases down into their individual components. Whilst this is sometimes helpful, there is often not much logic to which prepositions and which cases are used in adverbial time phrases.
That said, there are some rules set out below for how to use the prepositions í, á and fyrir in time expressions including numbers.
Basic phrases of time
These are best learnt as fixed phrases:
| ← ← | ← | ↓ | → | → → | |
| Day | í fyrradag | í gær | í dag | á morgun | ekki á morgun heldur hinn |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week | í þarsíðustu viku | í síðustu viku | í þessari viku | í næstu viku | í þarnæstu viku |
| Month | í þarsíðasta mánuði | í síðasta mánuði | í þessum mánuði | í næsta mánuði | í þarnæsta mánuði |
| Year | í hittiðfyrra | í fyrra | í ár | á næsta ári | á þarnæsta ári |
As you can see, depending on the exact phrase and unit of time, we have a mixture of á and í. There are also different cases, for example í dag has the accusative, but í þessari viku has the dative. There’s no rhyme or reason here! 🫠
There’s also a corresponding set of phrases to talk about time of day, which is even less predictable:
| ← | ↓ | → | |
| Morning | í gærmorgun | í morgun | í fyrramálið |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evening | í gærkvöldi | í kvöld | annað kvöld |
Days of the week
Icelandic has its own names for days of the week, which were christianised a few centuries ago by some priests who did not care for the old pagan names. Expressions containing days of the week are often formed with á:
| á mánudaginn |
| á þriðjudaginn |
| á miðvikudaginn |
| á fimmtudaginn |
| á föstudaginn |
| á laugardaginn |
| á sunnudaginn |
All of these expressions can refer to the day just gone or the next one coming, depending on the context:
Ég fór til læknis á þriðjudaginn.
Næsta sendingin kemur á miðvikudaginn.
You may also come across these phrases without the definite article, e.g. á fimmtudag, but this does not change the meaning.
The Icelandic week starts on Monday, even though in the names of the days Tuesday is the “third” day and Thursday is the “fifth” day.
See below for an explanation of how to use the days of the week in frequency expressions.
Months
Icelandic uses the international names for months, which follow the preposition í:
| í janúar | í júlí |
| í febrúar | í ágúst |
| í mars | í september |
| í apríl | í október |
| í maí | í nóvember |
| í júní | í desember |
Dates and years
When talking about dates and years in Icelandic, no preposition is used. For dates, it’s enough to say the date in the accusative case (singular weak masculine form), with the optional pronoun þann, meaning “the”:
Ég fæddist fimmta maí nítján hundruð níutíu og eitt.
Þann tuttugasta og annan mars verður haldið upp á afmæli forsetans.
For years, you can either just say the plain number (in the neuter) or add árið beforehand:
Við hittumst árið 2017.
The prepositions á and í are never used with years.
Prepositional time phrases
There are 3 main prepositions that are used to form time phrases in Icelandic:
- í, used to talk about 🕒 durations (how long),
- á, used to talk about a 👇 specific point in time,
- fyrir, used to talk about 🗓️ how long ago something happened.
í
When used in time phrases of duration, í takes the accusative:
Hún talaði í fimm mínútur um börnin sín.
Ég er búinn að bíða í klukkutíma eftir þér!
Við förum til Spánar í tíu daga.
Reynir vann í bankanum í fimm ár.
If you know how prepositions of time work in English, it’s easy to mix up í and fyrir in Icelandic. Remember, í is equivalent to “for” and is used to talk about durations. Fyrir never means “for” in time expressions, it always means “ago”.
á
When used to talk about something happening at a specific point in time, á takes the dative:
Ég hitti hann á fimmtudegi.
Á þeim tíma bjuggu flestir uppi í sveit.
To be clear, á fimmtudegi in the example above means “on a Thursday”, as opposed to á fimmtudaginn which means “on Thursday” (i.e. “last Thursday” or “next Thursday”).
Note that in the fixed time phrases set out in the first section on this page, such as á morgun, you may find the accusative case with á.
fyrir
When used to talk about how long ago something happened, fyrir takes the dative:
Georg flutti suður fyrir tíu árum.
Ég henti gömlu skónum mínum fyrir löngu síðan.
It’s sometimes accompanied by síðan after the noun in this meaning, although this is optional.
Frequency
There are 5 basic adverbs of time and frequency in Icelandic, shown here in order from “always” to “never”:
 | alltaf |
| oft | |
| stundum | |
| sjaldan | |
| aldrei |
All of these short words are placed in the same place as ekki in the sentence. These are just the basic frequency words, there are many more specific ones.
Frequency phrases with numbers
Frequency phrases that contain numbers in Icelandic are formed with the neuter noun sinn in the dative case. Like in English and some other languages, the words for “twice” and “thrice” are irregular:
| einu sinni |
| tvisvar |
| þrisvar |
| fjórum sinnum |
| fimm sinnum … |
Days of the week
When you want to talk about doing something on the same day every week, use á followed by the dative plural:
| á mánudögum |
| á þriðjudögum |
| á miðvikudögum |
| á fimmtudögum |
| á föstudögum |
| á laugardögum |
| á sunnudögum |
To talk about doing something on the weekends, use the fixed phrase um helgar.