Visiting Iceland? Do you need to learn Icelandic?

Iceland is a very popular country for tourists.   One question sometimes on tourists minds is should I learn some Icelandic. 

Let's start the answer by providing some background on Iceland.  Unless you count Greenland, which is part of Denmark, Iceland is generally the fastest country to get to from North America.   As such, Iceland is the first country and Icelandic is the first language included in my book Now I Know My European Language Colors.

The population of Iceland is quite low consisting of 362,000 residents as of 2019.   Iceland has a number of Polish immigrants who often perform service functions.   University is free for Icelanders and goes into the mid-20's.   Thus, most Icelanders are very well educated and tend to work "professional" jobs, although they sometimes have to go abroad to get these jobs.   

Because Iceland is small and well educated, from my experiences the vast majority of the residents speak English and actually speak it quite well.   Icelanders are also constantly surrounded by English speaking tourists from the United Kingdom and the United States who visit the country at a rate of approximately 20x the population of Iceland.    Like many other countries Iceland relies on English for interactions with many other countries.    You might be surprised to hear from my experiences you will likely hear more Polish in Iceland than Icelandic.   

I'm not sure if it was just because it was obvious that I am not Icelandic, but even the people from Iceland greeted me in English and not Icelandic.   They seemed amused that I knew a few words of Icelandic.    

How hard is speaking Icelandic?   I'm not an expert at Icelandic, but it is not too difficult to learn a few words.   If you speak German, Dutch, or in particular a Scandinavian language learning some Icelandic will be even easier.  That being said these languages are no close enough to Icelandic for someone who speaks one of them to likely be able to understand someone who is speaking Icelandic.

What about finding someone to practice Icelandic with outside of Iceland?  That is probably going to be a challenge because the number of Icelandic speakers is relatively small.   The country with the most Icelandic speakers is believed to be Denmark.   The third most Icelandic speakers are believed to be in the United States.  However, the number of Icelandic speakers in the United States is only about 5000.

So you don't need to learn Icelandic.   But it is always fun and it never hurts to learn a few words of a language anyways.    

If you want to learn the colors and a few other things in Icelandic check out my book Now I Know My European Language Colors.  For some trivia on Iceland check out Kaufman World Geography: A to L.  Both books are free for those with Kindle Unlimited.  We also have a blog post on vegan food in Iceland.