Learn Icelandic, from A1 to B1.
Papey is a calm Icelandic course for ten minutes a day. Fifty-four units take you from your first words to B1: about 1,750 words and 3,700 sentences, each with audio in four synthetic Icelandic voices. Words come back right before you would forget them, the grammar comes with real explanations, and you read real sentences from Tatoeba. It all works offline, with no ads and no account. Lundi the puffin keeps you company.
Coming soon to the App Store
Free, with optional tips. Explanations in English or Dutch.
- 54units, A1 to B1
- 1,750words, roughly
- 3,700sentences, roughly
- 15,500audio clips in the app
What is inside
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A clear path
Each unit has five short lessons, a story and a test. There is always one obvious next step.
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Reviews at the right moment
Spaced repetition (FSRS) schedules every word and sentence for the moment you are about to forget it.
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Grammar that explains itself
Tap any word for its meaning, its case and the full inflection table. Use the wrong form and Papey tells you which form you used and which one was needed.
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Listening and speaking
Every sentence has audio in four synthetic voices. Pronunciation modules train the sounds, and speaking exercises let you record yourself and compare.
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Real Icelandic
A story in every unit, and real sentences from Tatoeba that you can almost read.
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Yours, offline
Everything is inside the app. No account, no ads, no tracking. Your progress stays on your phone.
The voices are computer-generated, so some sounds differ from a native speaker. More on that, and on other limits, on the support page.
Built on open Icelandic data
Thank you to everyone who made these sources. None of them endorses or sponsors Papey.
- Inflection
- BÍN-kjarninn (the DMII Core) of BÍN, Beygingarlýsing íslensks nútímamáls, owned by Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum (The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, bin.arnastofnun.is), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. The paradigms are included unmodified. Download the data file: paradigms.json (CC BY-SA 4.0).
- Sentences
- Tatoeba, licensed CC BY 2.0 FR. The app names the author of every sentence.
- Voices
- Piper voices trained on the Talrómur corpus (Reykjavik University and SÍM), licensed CC BY 4.0.
- Word frequency
- Frequency lists for Icelandic 23.06, University of Iceland, via CLARIN-IS, licensed CC BY 4.0.
- Pronunciation
- Icelandic Pronunciation Dictionary for Language Technology, Grammatek ehf., licensed CC BY 4.0.
- Fonts
- Bricolage Grotesque, Figtree and Literata, under the SIL Open Font License 1.1.
The full list of credits and licence texts is in the app, under Me, Sources and licences.