17. júní: writing and saying dates, the nominative-versus-accusative rule, years and the dates Icelanders keep.
I can write and say a date, give my birthday and name a year (Ég á afmæli þriðja mars).
Look at these examples. Can you spot the grammar pattern?
Í dag er sautjándi júní og allir eru með blöðru.
Today is the seventeenth of June and everybody has a balloon.
Ég á afmæli þriðja mars.
My birthday is on the third of March.
Lýðveldið var stofnað á Þingvöllum árið nítján hundruð fjörutíu og fjögur.
The republic was founded at Þingvellir in 1944.
Fundurinn er annan desember, ekki þriðja.
The meeting is on the second of December, not the third.
Pay attention to the highlighted parts. What do they have in common?
Written Icelandic puts the day first, with a full stop after the number: 17. júní 2024. Months and weekdays are written with a small letter.
| janúar | maí | september |
| febrúar | júní | október |
| mars | júlí | nóvember |
| apríl | ágúst | desember |
With annar the difference is loud, because annar declines strongly: Í dag er annar desember but Ég kem annan desember.
Years are read as plain numbers, usually after árið: árið nítján hundruð fjörutíu og fjögur (1944), árið tvö þúsund og tuttugu og fjögur (2024).
Apply this grammar in A2 course exercises
Practice ExercisesUsing the nominative for when something happens: *Ég kem sautjándi júní instead of sautjánda júní. - Capitalising month and weekday names. - Forgetting the full stop after the day number in writing. - Treating annar as weak: *Ég kem annað desember instead of annan desember.
Í dag er sautjándi júní og allir eru með blöðru.
Today is the seventeenth of June and everybody has a balloon.
Nominative because the sentence states what the date is. Gas balloons and a brass band are what the national day actually looks like.
Ég á afmæli þriðja mars.
My birthday is on the third of March.
Accusative of time: þriðja, not þriðji. Note also eiga afmæli, literally to own a birthday.
Lýðveldið var stofnað á Þingvöllum árið nítján hundruð fjörutíu og fjögur.
The republic was founded at Þingvellir in 1944.
árið + the year read as a plain number, and no preposition where Russian needs one.
Fundurinn er annan desember, ekki þriðja.
The meeting is on the second of December, not the third.
annan is the strong masculine accusative; þriðja is the weak one. Note the verb is er here too, but the case is accusative: the meeting is not the date - the date says when it takes place.
Á Þorláksmessu, tuttugasta og þriðja desember, borðum við skötu.
On Þorláksmessa, the twenty-third of December, we eat skate.
A compound ordinal in the accusative of time. Fermented skate on 23 December is a smell every Icelandic family knows.
Practice in course
Apply this grammar in A2 course exercises
The national inflection database; the inflection tables on this page are checked cell by cell against its entries.
Rule 22.2 requires the full stop after an ordinal figure (17. júní); rule 1.2.5.2 c lists month and weekday names among the common nouns written with a small letter.