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p1 * Basics 1 * Prepositions 3
| * Basics 2 * Passive
| * Common Phrases * Numbers
| * Food * Feelings and Traits
| * Plurals p5 * Verbs: Past 1
| * Eclipsis * Characteristics
p2 * Lenition * Verbs: Past 2
* Possessives * Verbal Noun
* Verbs: Present 1 * Ireland 2
* Colors * Pronouns Reflexive
* Questions p6 * Directions
* Prepositions 1 * Sport
p3 * Ireland 1 * Verbs: Future 1
* Dates and Time * Imperative
* Family * Verbs: Imperfect
* Verbs: Present 2 * Verbs: Conditional
* Prepositions 2
* Genitive Case
p4 * Negatives
* Comparison
updated 2018-10-25
FĂĄilte | Welcome!
Welcome to Duolingo's Irish course! In this course you will learn the
official standard (an CaighdeĂĄn OifigiĂșil) of Irish. But note, this is
a written, and not a spoken standard. Irish is spoken in three main
dialects, corresponding to three Irish provinces of Munster (south),
Ulster (north), and Connacht (west). The audio in this course was
recorded by a native speaker of the Connacht dialect.
So what makes Irish different? What might challenge you as you try to
learn? Well, tonnes of things! To be honest, even the basics of Irish
are very different from what you're probably used to.
The best advice we can give is that with Irish, learning things off by
heart and trying to base your learning on grammar will only get you so
far. It's a very irregular language, and most rules that try to
generalise come with many exceptions.
Just take it as slowly as you need to, and nothing should challenge you
very much. There is a really good article about some of the more
fascinating peculiarities here:
https://multikulti.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/10-reasons-why-irish-is-an-
absolutely-awesome-language/
We'll also address a couple below. So let's get started then!
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Intro
The Irish alphabet is short and sweet:
a b c d e f g h i l m n o p r s t u
The vowels can take an added accent, the fada (pronounced 'foddah'):
ĂĄ Ă© Ă Ăł Ăș
The fada lengthens and alters the sound on the vowel.
The rest of the English alphabet, j k q v w x y z, especially v, is
gradually being naturalised into Irish due to the many loanwords we
take in.
Learn how to type accented letters here:
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/4278237
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Word Order
Most English sentences use the "Subject-Verb-Object" word order. For
example, in the sentence He eats food, he is the subject, eats is the
verb, and food is the object.
In Irish, a slightly different word order is used: "V-S-O". Here is the
same sentence in Irish: Itheann sé bia. The verb in this sentence is
itheann (a form of the verb to eat), the subject is sé (he), and the
object is bia (food).
In summary: Irish sentences start with their verbs!
* Ithim bia | I eat food
* Itheann an fear bia | The man eats food
* Ălann sĂ bainne | She drinks milk
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To be, or not to be...
Irish makes it interesting when you want to say what something "is",
because you need to choose the right version of the verb "to be"! There
are two versions. called bĂ and an chopail.
* BĂ is Irish for to be, and is one of only eleven irregular verbs in
the whole language. That's handy!
bĂ to be tĂĄ mĂ©/tĂĄim I am tĂĄ tĂș you (sing.) are tĂĄ sĂ© he/it is tĂĄ sĂ she/it is tĂĄ muid/tĂĄimid we are tĂĄ sibh you (pl.) are tĂĄ siad they are
Notes: tå + mé (I) = tåim, tå + muid (we) = tåimid. These contractions
are called the synthetic form.
* An chopail (the copula) is a defective verb with its own funky
grammar. It doesn't even follow the normal word order rules! The
word you are talking about goes in the middle.
copail copula is ... mĂ© I am is ... tĂș you (sing.) are is ... Ă© he/it is is ... Ă she/it is is ... sinn/muid we are is ... sibh you (pl.) are is ... iad they are
The copula is for when you're introducing something or someone, like
"Is bean Ă" (She is a woman) or "Is Ășll Ă©" (It is an apple). BĂ is for
when you're describing something or someone, like "TĂĄ sĂ ard" (She is
tall) or "Tå sé blasta" (It is tasty). You'll learn the basics of both
here, and later you'll learn some more about each of them!
updated 2018-10-25
BuntĂșs 2 | Basics 2
You're still here. That's wonderful! We'll start with a strange but
important little rule:
"Caol le caol agus leathan le leathan."
This is the golden rule of Irish spelling and it is important for all
sorts of things all the time. It's actually quite a consistent and
well-observed rule across Irish, which is very rare. You should get
very used to it, to the point that a word which doesn't follow the rule
will stand out to you.
The phrase literally means "slender with slender and broad with broad",
and it refers to vowels in a word.
Slender vs broad is a way to group the vowels in two distinct groups:
leathan / broad caol / slender a e o i u
The rule says that the vowels on either side of any consonant should
match: they should both be slender, or both be broad. It's actually an
important rule, because certain consonants, especially s and t will
change their sound appreciably depending on whether they are slender or
broad.
To see if the stem of a verb is broad or slender, look at the last
vowel in that stem.
For example, take the verbs dĂșn and bris. The last vowel in dĂșn is
broad, so you would use broad endings when conjugating this verb.
Similarly you would use slender endings when conjugating bris.
__________________________________________________________________
A bit about Verbs
We do have two present tenses in Irish, which function just like in
English. Let's start with the present habitual. This describes what one
does on a regular basis, not what one is doing right now. Verbs in
Irish are split into three main groups: the first conjugation, the
second conjugation and the irregular verbs.
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1. The first conjugation
Basically, these verbs have only one syllable. In the present tense the
ending is, generally, added directly onto the stem. Examples are dĂșn
("close"), Ăłl ("drink"), bris ("break")
Examples:
* dĂșnaim I close
* dĂșnann sĂ© he closes
* brisim I break
* briseann sé he breaks
* Ăłlaimid we drink
Notice how sometimes it takes two words, and sometimes just one. In
present tense verbs, mé and muid are often not used; they can be
incorporated into their verb to make the 'synthetic form'.
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2. The second conjugation
These verbs have more than one syllable. To conjugate and use them
correctly takes a bit more intuition, but you'll be grand!
The words come in two halves for you to identify. They will have a root
and a stem. To conjugate them, you will remove the stem and replace it
with an appropriate ending. There aren't too many endings to learn.
Examples of 2nd-conjugation verbs are bailigh, ceannaigh, oscail, and
inis. Watch how their stems are removed/altered to take the ending:
* bailĂonn tĂș you collect
* ceannaĂmid we buy
* insĂm I tell
* osclaĂonn sibh you open
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3. Irregular verbs
Oh no, a different beast altogether... No hassle, there are only 11 of
these! Some of them appear quite regular most of the time, but all of
them have at least one tense in which they don't obey the standard
rules, so it is necessary to memorise these 11 verbs in all their forms
and tenses! Just to warn you, they are:
* abair say
* beir bear/carry/bring
* bĂ be
* clois hear
* déan do/make
* feic see
* faigh get
* ith eat
* tabhair give
* tar come
* téigh go
But seriously, they're not that bad.
__________________________________________________________________
See you in the next skill!
updated 2018-10-25
Welcome to Phrases!
Hello!
The formal way to greet someone is by saying Dia duit. Literally this
means God to you. Here is something to note:
* Dia duit is used when greeting one person.
* Dia daoibh is used when greeting more than one person.
The proper response is Dia is Muire duit, which literally means God and
Mary to you.
* Dia is Muire duit is used when replying to one person.
* Dia is Muire daoibh is used when replying to more than one person.
Note on the Sociology of Ireland: These forms are old, formal, and in
sharp decline. There is a complicated relationship between Ireland and
the Catholic church in recent history, and many younger speakers
consciously avoid the nearly-obsolete religious constructions of yore.
We don't officially teach you this here, because we decided to stick
with The Standard so we have to teach you "dia duit" and so on. Just be
aware you're more likely to hear somebody greet you with a typical
English greeting like "hiya", or even by avoiding a "hello" and just
asking how you are â Conas atĂĄ tĂș? â
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To have
We don't say "have" in Irish, that's way too simple and direct. Instead
the verb bĂ (be) is used together with the preposition ag (at).
To express that you have something, you say that it is "at you" -
implying that it is close by you, in your possession. If you want to
say Paul has a book, think of this as meaning A book is at Paul, or
There is a book at Paul . The Irish for this is TĂĄ leabhar ag PĂłl.
When you want to write at followed by a pronoun, the two words join
together to make a "prepositional pronoun". For example, ag and mé
combine to form agam (at me). Here is ag in all its forms:
English Irish at ag at me agam at you (singular) agat at him aige at her aici at us againn at you (plural) agaibh at them acu
Examples of bĂ + ag:
* TĂĄ orĂĄiste agam I have an orange
* TĂĄ plĂĄta acu They have a plate
* TĂĄ cailĂn ag PĂłl Paul has a girl/girlfriend
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To speak or to have?
When talking about languages in Irish there are distinct ways to
translate the two meanings of the English "speak".
1) "I speak Irish" would translate as "LabhraĂm Gaeilge" if "speak" was
referring to the act of speaking the language ("I speak Irish every
day")
2) "I speak Irish" would translate as "TĂĄ Gaeilge agam" (literally "I
have Irish") if "speak" was referring to the ability to speak, or the
knowledge of, the language.
So when you say "I (can) speak [language]", in Irish you literally say
"I have [language]"
See you in the next skill!
updated 2020-06-23
Bain sult as do bhéile!
Letâs dig into the food skill! In this (very important) skill, you will
learn all about how to talk about food.
ââ
Language Feature
An saghas...
Saghas means âsortâ, âtypeâ or âkindâ.
As you might guess, to say âsort ofâ, âtype ofâ or âkind ofâ, we need
to use the genitive case (the âofâ form) to say what kind of food weâre
talking about.
ââ
Language Feature
Iâm at the eating of the food
In Irish, this would be TĂĄim ag ithe an bhia. Now, Iâm sure youâre
wondering hang on, isnât bia masculine? Why is there lenition??. Donât
fret weâre here to explain!
updated 2018-10-25
Definite and Indefinite Articles
Let's review Irish articles so you know how to apply your existing
knowledge to plurals.
Indefinite Articles
There are no indefinite articles in Irish. Where in English you would
say a or an before a noun, in Irish you just say the noun itself. For
example, buachaill can mean either boy or a boy.
When it comes to plurals, the Irish system is similar to that in
English. BuachaillĂ means boys, so no definite article is used in
either language.
Definite Articles
There are two forms of the definite article in Irish.
An is used for singular nouns and is translated as the in English. For
example, an buachaill means the boy*.â
Na is used for plural nouns and is also translated as the in English.
For example, na buachaillĂ means the boys.â
Note
There are two things you should note!
* An vs. An: The Irish an (definite article, singluar) should never
be confused with the English an (indefinite article, before vowels,
sometimes the letter h). Be careful with these two!
* An = The, Na = The, but An â Na: The two Irish definite articles an
and na both mean the in English, but remember that they have
different uses in Irish.
â: In the nominative case. The way these articles are used change a bit
in the other cases, but we will deal with these later when we come to
them.
updated 2018-10-25
Welcome to Eclipsis!
It's time to learn a very peculiarly Celtic feature; initial mutation!
UrĂș (eclipsis) is where one or two letters are added before a word in
certain situations. This changes the spelling and pronunciation of the
word, but not the meaning. Only some initial letters can be eclipsed:
b, c, d, f, g, p, and t. Words that begin with other letters do not
undergo eclipsis at all.
Here are the extra letters that are added before the word:
Initial letter Example Eclipsis Example b baile m mbaile c cailĂn g gcailĂn d doras n ndoras f fuinneog bh bhfuinneog g geata n ngeata p poll b bpoll t teach d dteach
Different dialects of Irish have different rules about when eclipsis
should be used. It would be extremely confusing to list them all here!
It is more important to pick a single system and to stick with it for
consistency - so in this course, we will teach the system traditionally
used in Standard Irish.
Eclipsis is used in the following situations:
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1. Possessive Adjectives
Eclipsis occurs where a word comes after ĂĄr our, bhur your (plural),
and a their.
Examples:
* ĂĄr gcailĂn our girl
* a mbuachaill their boy
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2. Numbers
Eclipsis occurs after the numbers seven to 10.
Examples:
* seacht gcapall seven horses
* naoi dteach nine houses
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3. Preposition + Definite Article
Eclipsis occurs after certain prepositions where they are joined by the
singular definite article an:
Preposition + singular definite article English translation ag an at the ar an on the faoin (faoi + an) under/about the leis an with the Ăłn (Ăł + an) from the roimh an before the thar an over the trĂd an through the um an about/around the
Other prepositions used with an (for example, idir an between the) do
not cause eclipsis.
Examples:
* ar an mbord on the table
* thar an bhfuinneog over the window
An exception to this rule is that the word should not be eclipsed if it
begins with d or t.
Examples:
* ag an doras at the door
* roimh an teach before the house
If the word begins with s and is feminine, a t is placed in front of it
â except for nouns beginning with sc, sf, sm, sp, st or sv.
Example:
* leis an tseanbhean with the old woman
If the word begins with s and is masculine, no change occurs.
Example:
* leis an salann with the salt
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4. Other Words
Eclipsis is also added after the words i in, dĂĄ if, mura if/unless.
Example:
* i mbosca in a box
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Words starting with a vowel
Words that start with a vowel do not technically undergo eclipsis, but
they do get the letter n- added to them wherever other words would be
eclipsed â unless they come after a word that finishes with the letter
n.
Examples:
* Ășll apple
* ĂĄr n-Ășll our apple
* seacht n-Ășll seven apples
* ar an Ășll on the apple
A dash is placed between the letter n and the vowel â unless that vowel
is a capital letter.
Examples:
* UachtarĂĄn President
* ĂĄr nUachtarĂĄn our President
Some words that start with a vowel are normally preceded by t- when
they follow the word an the. For these words, after preposition +
definite article combinations the t- is left out.
Examples:
* an t-ollmhargadh the supermarket
* ag an ollmhargadh at the supermarket
That might be a lot of information to process, but it should make sense
once you see it in action. Good luck and see you in the next skill :D