Reykjavík Grapevine - mar. 2020, Síða 32

32The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 03— 2020
Learnin! Icelandic
Throu!h Literature
‘Árstí#ir’ sets the standard for learnin! Icelandic
Words: Sam O’Donnell Photo: Art Bicnick
For many languages, there are
standards of literature that help
ease the intrepid polyglot into
the new dialect. When I studied
French in college, the standard
was ‘Les Jeux Sont Faits,’ Sartre’s
staple of existentialist French Lit-
erature. It accomplished the task of
being easy to read and understand
while simultaneously growing my
French vocabulary. While more re-
cently studying Icelandic, however,
I ran into some difficulty finding a
book to read that would similarly
augment my vocabulary, while not
being too difficult to understand.
That was until I found ‘Árstí!ir’ by
Karítas Hrundar Pálsdóttir.
Karítas is a scholar of lan-
guages. She studied languages
extensively in secondary school,
and earned a Bachelor’s degree in
Icelandic from the University of
Iceland, where she also minored
in Japanese. In June last year, she
achieved her Master’s in creative
writing. ‘Árstí!ir’ was based on her
Master’s project, but the idea came
to her long before she began her
graduate studies.
Making it happen
“I got the idea when I was studying
Japanese for one year in Tokyo as
part of my Bachelor’s degree,” she
says. Easy reading material had
been a cornerstone in her quest
to learn new languages, and she
wanted to bring more variety to
people learning Icelandic as a sec-
ond language.
After what seemed like an eter-
nity spent researching and con-
sulting other scholars, ‘Árstí!ir’
was finally ready. The book is en-
tirely in Icelandic, so anyone in the
world can pick it up and learn from
it. Everything about the book,
from the friendly yellow binding to
the basic language on every page,
seems to urge the reader to explore
for themselves.
That is exactly what I did when
I picked it up. The text is split up
into more than one hundred pieces
of flash fiction that illustrate a mo-
ment in time. The stories are also
categorised by seasons, which is
what “árstí!ir” means.
Perfect for teaching
and learning Icelandic
While navigating the book, I no-
ticed that each story has a number
of symbols printed above their re-
spective titles. Instinctively turn-
ing to the back of the book for an
explanation, I discovered that the
symbols represent the level of dif-
ficulty of each story. One symbol is
the easiest, while five is the hard-
est.
While ‘Árstí!ir’ is designed
to facilitate learning Icelandic,
it doesn’t baby the reader. Some
stories are simply more difficult
than others, and they are often in
close proximity with another story
that was easy to read. Karítas ex-
plains that that was intentional.
“You should be able to read what-
ever you like. If something more
difficult than your ability level in-
terests you, then you’re gonna try
harder, right?”
But it’s also literature
In the future, Karítas hopes to
make a workbook to accompany
‘Árstí!ir’. As she was writing the
stories, she had always hoped that
they could be used as teaching ma-
terials. “But I really wanted to have
this book just as literature,” she
says. “So my hope is that I’ll have
time to write a separate book on
how to use the book in learning
settings.”
It is Karítas’ hope that ‘Árstí!ir’
will not only be used in a direct
learning and teaching environ-
ment, but also that people will en-
joy reading it. “Part of the learning
process of any language is to try to
enjoy the language and also just
read for pleasure and enjoy it,” she
says.
Indeed, there is a lot to enjoy
about the book. Many of the sto-
ries showcase diversity. There
are a number of characters of dif-
ferent ages, genders, sexualities,
and nationalities. For example, in
the Winter section, there is one
story that has a main character
who is non-binary and prefers to
use the gender-neutral pronoun,
hán. At the same time, ‘Árstí!ir’
gives insight into Icelandic val-
ues, traditions, and everyday life,
with stories about such traditions
as "orrablót, dancing around the
Christmas tree, allowing babies
to sleep outside in strollers, and
going to ‘réttir’ to see the sheep
roundup. There is even a recipe for
plokkfiskur, President Gu!ni Th.'s
favourite.
Parting advice:
Have fun!
Karítas’ advice to anyone who
wants to learn Icelandic is simple:
be patient and have fun. “There's
this myth that it’s either easy or
difficult to learn a language, that
one language is more difficult
than others,” she says. “And maybe
to some extent, that’s true, but it’s
always hard learning a language.
You have to put in the effort, and
it takes a lot of time. So my advice
is to be patient and have fun with
it. You get a key to the society with
the language, whatever language
it is.”
Books
Open every day from 11.30 - 23.00
The kitchen is open to 22.00 every day
EVERY DAY 11:30 -14:00
Get 2delicious burgers& fries for only 2.390 ISK
Happy Hour15:00-19:00
Uppsalir is located on the ground floor
at Hótel Reykjavík Centrum, A!alstræti 16