How to Learn the Irish language (Gaeilge)

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I’m happy to see that you’re interested in the Irish language!

Irish is the first official language of Ireland. Many people think it’s English with an Irish spin, but not at all!

The Irish language is also known as Gaeilge, and it’s a completely different language to English. I am here to tell you more about how it works and how you can learn it.

Here’s an overview of what we’ll talk about:

I wrote this post for Seachtain na Gaeilge (“Irish Language Week”). It’s the week celebrating the Irish language and culture leading up to St. Patrick’s Day.

So, are you ready to learn more about the Irish language?

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A note from the Fluent in 3 Months team before we get started: You can chat away with a native speaker for at least 15 minutes with the “Fluent in 3 Months” method. All it takes is 90 days. Tap this link to find out more.

What Is Gaeilge?

Gaeilge, Irish, or “Irish Gaelic” is the national and first official language of Ireland, as well as one of the official languages of the European Union.

Most people in Ireland speak English. In Gaeltacht communities, Irish has official support and is used in daily life, although how widely it is spoken varies from one area to another.

When we say Irish, the language, we don't mean our accent in English. That’s Hiberno-English. No, we mean a language on a completely different branch of the European language family tree!

Irish belongs to the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family. English is Germanic, while French and Spanish are Romance languages, so Irish vocabulary and grammar can feel unfamiliar at first.

Níl sé deacair ar chor ar bith – “It Is Not Difficult at All”

While Irish is quite different, there are some things that make it pretty straightforward to learn.

Modern Irish is usually taught with 11 irregular verbs. That’s a much more manageable list than many learners expect.

There’s no indefinite article, so Tá leabhar agam literally means ‘A book is at me’. Irish does have masculine and feminine nouns. The singular article is an, but the noun’s gender and grammatical context affect the mutation that follows it.

You may also come across Cló Gaelach, the traditional Gaelic script. Roman type has been standard for decades, but the older letterforms still appear on signs, monuments and decorative designs.

Irish spelling has its own consistent logic, but it doesn’t map neatly onto English spelling. Broad and slender consonants, dialect differences and initial mutations all affect what you hear.

• mb: the B is eclipsed and you hear M
• gc: the C is eclipsed and you hear G
• dt: the T is eclipsed and you hear D
• fh: usually silent
• th: often /h/, although it can be silent in some positions and dialects

Some consonants change sound depending on if they are before i/e or a/o/u. This happens in Spanish/French/Italian and other languages too, but it’s slightly different in Irish.

For example S before i or e makes an sh sound. This is why the well-known name Seán is pronounced (and spelled, in America) as Shawn.

The vowel combination ao often sounds roughly like a long ‘ee’, as in Aoife (‘EE-fa’), but its exact sound can vary by word and dialect.

The subtle difference between how some consonants are pronounced takes some practice, but you can indeed learn it 🙂 This is important for saying Irish people's names correctly. Even when you’re just speaking English.

Some official titles stay in Irish. Ireland’s head of government is the Taoiseach, pronounced /ˈt̪ˠiːʃəx/, roughly ‘TEE-shukh’. The final sound is like the ch in loch.

Irish doesn’t use one general pair of words equivalent to ‘yes’ and ‘no’. You normally answer with the positive or negative form of the verb in the question. For example: Ar ith tú do lón? (‘Did you eat your lunch?’), D’ith (‘Yes’, literally ‘ate’) or Níor ith (‘No’, literally ‘didn’t eat’). With bí, you’ll hear tá and níl; with the copula, is ea and ní hea.

Cad atá tú ag caint faoi? – “What Are You Talking About?”

There are a few tricky aspects of the language that deserve a mention.

In most languages, you change the end of words in certain situations.

Examples:

• to show plural: car → cars
• to change a verb’s tense: I eat → he eats

Other times, it’s the middle of the words that changes: man/men, mouse/mice.

In Irish, we very merrily change the beginning of words. This is something common in other Celtic languages and it adds to a nice flow between words.

For those of you who don't know, my name is actually Brendan (Benny is my nickname). In Irish, this is originally written Breandán. When followed by verbs and such, it stays the same:

Tá Breandán ag ithe – “Brendan is eating.”

However, thanks to the magic of initial mutations, we can change the start of words in many situations!

So if you want to get my attention, don’t shout Breandán! Use the vocative: A Bhreandáin! It’s roughly ‘uh VRAN-dawn’, with dialect differences and a slender sound at the end.

(For the linguists out there who want to know the exact term to describe this change, it is the vocative case.)

Here’s another example: Mo (“my”) and madra (“dog”) become mo mhadra together. Since mh=w, this is pronounced mo wadra.

This strange use of spelling and the other examples mentioned above may seem off putting. But believe it or not, it's actually quite helpful! Let me explain.

We keep the letter of the original base word in a modified version of the word.

Example: crann (“tree”) becomes i gcrann (“in a tree”). The ‘c' is silent, but essential for recognising the original word when the modified one is written.

This is way better than if the language was perfectly phonetic. Even if you knew the word crann it would be much more confusing for you to see grann in a dictionary or text.

Welsh is related to Irish through the Celtic language family, and it also uses initial mutations. Its spelling conventions are different, though, so a simple claim that one language is ‘more phonetic’ than the other isn’t very helpful.

The vocabulary of the language is of course quite different. It's one of the few languages I've seen that has its own word for things like the Internet (Idirlíon). Even words you would hope would be slightly similar go way off: “vegetarian” is feoilséantóir (literally means, “meat shunner”).

But despite the huge differences, Irish words are formed logically using prefixes, suffixes and combinations of roots.

A lot of Irish words do this, so after you have some basic vocabulary it isn't that bad. You can recognise more complicated words and very quickly build up your base of vocabulary.

For example, réalta means ‘star’ and eolaíocht means ‘science’, so réalteolaíocht is literally ‘star science’: astronomy.

But sometimes we just separate the words in an easy way. “Exit” is simply bealach amach (“way out”).

Irish also has prepositional pronouns: a preposition changes form depending on the person. The idea is a little like Spanish conmigo and contigo, but Irish uses the pattern much more systematically. For example, ag (‘at’) gives agam, agat, aige, aici, againn, agaibh and acu.

Mutations can put a lower-case letter before the capital letter of a proper noun. Donegal is Dún na nGall, for example: the lower-case n marks eclipsis while the original G stays capitalised.

These things do take some getting used to, but it really isn't that bad 🙂

Resources to Learn Irish

If you feel ready to get started on Gaeilge yourself, I’ve got a couple of resources to help you. Maybe you can use them to work towards having a 15-minute conversation in Gaeilge after 90 days!

I’ve listed the best ones here, but here are some more!

Even if you aren't in Ireland, the possibilities of listening to and practising Irish are endless! An idea that I've already mentioned before is to use meetup.com to see if there are other interested Irish learners in your city.

If you’re more of a solo learner, you can turn to books. Whether in Ireland or abroad, there are usually some books in major libraries on learning Irish.

If you can’t access them near you, you might need to look for them online. One of my favourites for beginners is the multimedia Turas Teanga course (you can get it on Amazon). It is from Irish language RTE newsreader Sharon Ní Bheoláin. She teaches the language while going around the country showing it used by natives.

Teach Yourself is also a great book about Irish for complete beginners (Amazon).

The more adventurous of you can even read Harry Potter in Irish! (Amazon).

For short bursts of Irish, I share them on Instagram at @irishpolyglot.

You can also change the language of your computer and software to be entirely in Irish! Chrome, Firefox, Open Office, Ubuntu and many more interfaces are available as Gaeilge.

There are also lots of websites to help you practice your Irish. Here are some of my favourites:

• Teanglann – Search Irish dictionaries and check grammar and pronunciation.
• Abair.ie – Listen to speech synthesis in the three major dialect groups: Ulster, Connacht and Munster.
• RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta – Listen to Irish-language radio and use the ‘Éist Beo’ button for the live stream.
• TG4 – Watch Irish-language television, including Ros na Rún.

Tá an teanga i ngach áit! – “The Language Is Everywhere!”

In my experience, Irish speakers are delighted when learners use a cúpla focal. You don’t need perfect grammar to start a friendly exchange.

Whenever I hear a cúpla focal (“a couple of words”) from someone, I always encourage them to keep going!

My Irish is far from perfect. My accent is definitely not as lovely as so many others that you would hear. But I enjoy the language!

I learnt with Oideas Gael in Donegal, which continues to run courses for different levels.

You can also watch my week in the Gaeltacht at Gleann Cholm Cille.

If you’re curious about the Irish language, I hope this post gives you a little hint into how to learn and use it!

Go n-éirí an bóthar libh!