The Icelandic Now Project is my effort to make Icelandic more learnable.

The Beginning

I started the Icelandic Now Project shortly after I started learning Icelandic. My interest in the language came from my familial connection, but I never managed to learn more than a single word or two on my own.

Wanting to learn more, on my first trip to Iceland, I bought two language books from a bookstore in downtown Reykjavík. What I remember most about the interaction was the way the man, an Icelander, looked at me with a dismissive look that seemed to say, "Yeah, right. You're not going to learn anything." Admittedly, he was probably pretty right to think that.

I had heard that Icelandic was considered one of the hardest languages in the world for English natives to learn, but what I did not realize was just how difficult it can be. There is no abundance of cognates or simple grammar rules. The words are long and unwieldy, and the pronunciation is not a walk in the park either. But, as I learned, above all, there is no good place or way to learn it short of living in Iceland. I tried a few courses online, but they all proved to be incomplete, confusing, and unhelpful. I found some grammatical explanations online, but they were often of lower quality and, more often than not, completely unhelpful. Even the textbooks that I bought only contained what I considered barely relevant information. I would find myself asking questions like, "Why is this book teaching me the word for mechanic if I can't even say my name yet?" The man was right; I was not going to learn anything.

Instead of giving up, I dug in. I found some other generous learners and natives who were graciously willing to teach me what they knew, and eventually, I was able to ask enough questions and look through enough academic papers, old internet articles, bad textbooks, and other material that I became good enough to learn more on my own. When I reached a point that I was happy with, I looked back and asked myself, "Why was that so difficult?" While the language is not easy by any means, the biggest issue was inaccessibility; When I had a question, as every learner does, often, I had no place to look for my answer.

At this point in my learning, I had created a good number of rudimentary guides and explanations to teach myself. To save others from the struggle, I started to share them with the newer and less-experienced members of my group, who encouraged me to keep going.

Today

The project has taken several forms in the past, but today, it is mainly hosted through this website, IcelandicNow.com.

I am starting to move lots of my material and explanations to this platform as well as create new, unique material. Most of this website is completely free to access and will remain so for the foreseeable future, but I also have a course that can be purchased and am planning to have more for-purchase content in the future in order to keep the project funded. Recently, I have been trying to post articles on learning the language with some frequency and will continue to do so into the future.

The Future

There was, and still is, a serious lack of good Icelandic learning resources to learn from. I plan to grow the project into the foreseeable future by adding both more free and paid materials and features as time goes on. As of today, I plan to add PowerPoints, videos, and, eventually, entirely new courses.

Right now, my main focus is securing funding for website hosting. Despite a few sales, this project is currently a money-loser, and with my current funding situation, that means uncertainty for the website's future. Regardless of whether the website still exists at this link in the future, I will continue to push to keep the project alive in some form.

As of today, the project is a one-man operation. I do all the research, write the articles, and create all other materials myself. I always try to have others check over my work, but I only do so with short-term and project-specific volunteers. In the future, I would like to recruit some more semi-permanent aides, but this has not yet come to fruition. If this opportunity interests you, please get in contact using the information at the top of the page.

My goal is, as it always has been, to be the best place to learn Icelandic on the internet. This will never change.

-Tbrennan