No: Duolingo has no Icelandic course, from English or any other language. What to use instead, Icelandic at A1 and A2, and your first Icelandic words.
Author: QlangoPublished: 3 min read
No, Duolingo doesn't have Icelandic. There's no Icelandic course on Duolingo, either for English speakers or from any other language: we read Duolingo's full course catalogue on 1 November 2026, and Icelandic isn't in it.
A disclosure: we make Qlango, a language app that teaches Icelandic, so we have an interest here. The Duolingo fact above is plain fact, and you can check it yourself on Duolingo's course list.
Duolingo teaches Norwegian, Swedish and Danish, Icelandic's North Germanic cousins. They're fine languages to learn, but they shed most of their old grammar over the centuries and Icelandic didn't. A Norwegian course will help you recognise some Icelandic words on paper; it won't help you follow Icelanders talking. Icelandic's closest living relative is Faroese, which Duolingo doesn't teach either. Babbel and Busuu don't offer Icelandic (checked November 2026).
Qlango teaches Icelandic at A1 and A2, the first two levels of the CEFR scale. By the end of A2 you can introduce yourself, talk about your family, work and daily life in simple sentences, handle everyday exchanges and read short, simple texts. Those two levels are also where the core of Icelandic grammar gets laid down.
In a lesson you work through short Icelandic example sentences, shown with the translation in the language you learn from. You answer them in several ways, such as flashcards, picking one of two answers, matching pairs, putting scrambled words in order, writing what you hear and writing the translation yourself. Writing is where Icelandic endings get practised, because you have to type bókin or hesturinn, not just recognise it. An AI voice reads each example aloud, and you can slow it down for words like fjall. Every lesson comes back after one, two, four and eight days and then once more, and examples you needed a hint for come back in harder questions later.
You pick the language you learn from: English, or your own native language if you'd rather.
Icelandic kept what English lost in the Middle Ages: four cases, three genders, and endings on nouns, adjectives, pronouns and even the numbers one to four. The definite article goes on the end of the noun and shows its gender: hestur is a horse, hesturinn the horse; bók, bókin; hús, húsið. Learn every noun with that ending and you get its gender for free.
Two of its letters were once used to write English. Þ is the "th" in "thin", as in þú (you) and þakka (to thank). Ð is the "th" in "this" and never starts a word.
And Icelanders prefer building words to borrowing them. A computer is a tölva, made from tala (number) and völva (prophetess). A telephone is a sími, from an old word for thread. So "computer" won't save you the way it does in many languages; the upside is that new words are built from parts you'll meet again.
| Icelandic | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Hæ, halló | hi, hello |
| Góðan daginn | good day, used in the morning and daytime |
| Takk, takk fyrir | thanks, thank you |
| Já, nei | yes, no |
| Ég heiti … | my name is … |
| Bless | bye |
Add Hvað segirðu?, the everyday "how's it going?", and answer it with Allt gott, "all good". Our full guide to learning Icelandic covers the 32-letter alphabet, the sounds and a plan for your first month.
No. As of November 2026, Duolingo has no Icelandic course from English or from any other language.
It depends on your goal. If you want a structured start by CEFR level, with endings practised by writing and a fixed repetition schedule, Qlango teaches Icelandic at A1 and A2. Duolingo, Babbel and Busuu don't offer Icelandic (checked November 2026).
Qlango is free to download on iPhone and Android, and you can start your first Icelandic lesson without creating an account. It works in your browser too.
We can't tell you. Duolingo adds and removes courses over time, so check its catalogue if you're reading this much later.
Icelandic is one of many gaps. See every language Duolingo doesn't teach, or compare Qlango and Duolingo side by side. Your first Icelandic lesson takes about five minutes.
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