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Well, today is my birthday…what shall we talk about? 🙂

Til hamingju með afmælið! – Happy Birthday! (Recall that the consonant combination -fm- is often pronounced like -mm-.)

A birthday is an excellent opportunity to discuss how to express your age in Icelandic:

Hvað ert þu gamall/gömul? – How old are you?

Just for reference, let’s review the numbers 1-100:

Numbers 1 – 100
1 einn 11 ellefu 30 þrjátíu
2 tveir 12 tólf 40 fjörutíu
3 þrír 13 þrettán 50 fimmtíu
4 fjórir 14 fjórtán 60 sextíu
5 fimm 15 fimmtán 70 sjötíu
6 sex 16 sextán 80 áttatíu
7 sjö 17 sautján 90 níutíu
8 átta 18 átján 100 hundrað
9 níu 19 nítján
10 tíu 20 tuttugu

This is also a great time to learn about the magic of the numbers 1 through 4, and how they decline, unlike other numbers. We’ll only look at the singular forms of einn (yes, there are actually plural forms of “one” :)):

einn – one
masculine feminine neuter
nom einn ein eitt
acc einn eina eitt
dat einum einni einu
gen eins einnar eins
tveir – two
masculine feminine neuter
nom tveir tvær tvö
acc tvo tvær tvö
dat tveimur tveimur tveimur
gen tveggja tveggja tveggja
þrír – three
masculine feminine neuter
nom þrír þrjár þrjú
acc þrjá þrjár þrjú
dat þremur þremur þremur
gen þriggja þriggja þriggja
fjórir – four
masculine feminine neuter
nom fjórir fjórar fjögur
acc fjóra fjórar fjögur
dat fjórum fjórum fjórum
gen fjögurra fjögurra fjögurra

For now we’re only interested in the genitive forms of the numbers, since they are used in expressing age. So if I were to say:

Ég er 43 ára gamall – I am 43 years old.

It would be written out as:
Ég er fjörutíu og þriggja ára gamall.

For ages that end in 1, you would use the genitive singular form of ár – árs:
Hún er tuttugu og eins árs – She is twenty one.

Otherwise ára is called for:
Hann er fimmtíu og tveggja ára. – He is fifty two.
Hún er þrjátíu og fjögurra ára. – She is thirty four.

For all other numbers, you simply use their only form:
Hann er sextíu og sex ára. – He is sixty six.
Strákurinn er níu ára. – The boy is nine.
Stelpan er fimmtán ára. – The girl is fifteen.

This is a really easy way to get started with learning numbers; just keep making up sentences with different ages, and throw in the genitive forms of 1-4 at random. You’ll be rattling them off in no time 🙂