Tags

In this post we’re going to look at the prefix ‘endur-‘ in Icelandic, which generally corresponds to ‘re-‘ in English. One phrase you might hear a lot as a student is:

Hlustaðu og endurtaktu. – Listen and repeat.

endur/taka v (acc) – repeat
present past
ég endurtek endurtók
þú endurtekur endurtókst
það endurtekur endurtók
við endurtökum endurtókum
þið endurtakið endurtókuð
þau endurtaka endurtóku

endur·tekning f (-ar, -ar) – repetition
Hún endurtók spurninguna. She repeated the question.

Another easy one to recognize is

endur·nýj/a v (acc) – renew
present past
ég endurnýja endurnýjaði
þú endurnýjar endurnýjaðir
það endurnýjar endurnýjaði
við endurnýjum endurnýjuðum
þið endurnýið endurnýjuðuð
þau endurnýja endurnýjuðu

endur·nýjun f ( -ar) – renewal
Hann endurnýjaði samninginn sinn. – He renewed his contract.

This one might not be as obvious at first:

endur·spegl/a v – reflect
present past
ég endurspegla endurspeglaði
þú endurspeglar endurspeglaðir
það endurspeglar endurspeglaði
við endurspeglum endurspegluðum
þið endurspeglið endurspegluðuð
þau endurspegla endurspegluðu

The key of course is knowing the word
speg/ill m (-ils, -lar) – mirror
The verb að spegla itself can also be used as to reflect or to mirror. And there’s
spegil·mynd f (-ar, -ir) – reflection

There are many other examples of the use of this prefix, these are just a few to get you started. So when you see endur, you can usually assume there’s an idea of repetition involved in the meaning of the word.

Unless you’re talking about ducks 🙂

önd (f) – duck
singular plural
nom önd endur
acc önd endur
dat önd öndum
gen andar anda