Learn to read Irish
A short, active path into reading Irish: sound out eight real words before the alphabet, learn to undo séimhiú and urú on sight, put the verb at the front of the sentence, and read a story whose pronunciation and English begin hidden.
Read eight real words from a small sound guide
- The two tables below carry every sound the eight words need, and nothing else yet.
- A consonant plus h is one softened sound: ch is the rasp in “loch”, never the ch of “church”.
- s and t change completely beside e or i: s becomes “sh”, t becomes “tch”.
- These eight words come back all the way to the two closing stories.
No alphabet yet. Everything the next eight words need is in these two tables. Work through a word left to right, say it, then reveal. Each hint supplies the one thing the tables do not.
Only the consonant sounds these words need
| Letter | Sound to try |
|---|---|
| b | b — but a slender b carries a “y” into the vowel |
| c | always k, never s. There is no soft c in Irish at all |
| d | d beside a, o, u — closer to the j in jam beside e, i |
| g | always the hard g of got, never the g of gem |
| n | n; a double nn is still one n |
| r | a tapped r, nearer to Spanish than to English |
| s | s as in sun beside a, o, u — but sh as in ship beside e, i |
| t | t as in top beside a, o, u — but “tch” as in church beside e, i |
| ch | never “ch” as in church. Beside a, o, u it is the rasp in “loch”; beside e, i it is a strong h |
| -e | at the end of a word, a weak “uh” |
A consonant with an h after it is one softened sound, never two. Nine such pairs exist; ch is the one these words need. For the rasp: start to say k, then stop just short of closing and let the breath rasp through. You will soon meet gh and dh — the same rasp with the voice switched on, a gargle rather than a hiss.
And the vowel groups these words need
| Group | Sound |
|---|---|
| ea | usually a as in cat, with the e a label only — but after a slender b it can pull a “y” in with it |
| ui | i as in sit; the u is a label |
| io | i as in sit — but u before nn; either way the o is a label |
| oí | ee — where a fada appears inside a vowel group, that is the vowel you say |
Eight words for the two stories
Use the tables and the hint. Try the word aloud, then reveal and say the whole thing.
- madra
Broad the whole way through, and the final a is “uh”.
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madraMOD-ruh“dog” - bean
The e is a label. Four letters, three sounds.
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beanban“woman” - beag
A slender b carries a “y” into the vowel.
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beagbyohg“small” - teach
The e labels the t, so the t is “tch”; then the rasp.
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teachtchakh“house” - uisce
The u is a label for the s. The c is k, and the final e is “uh”.
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uisceISH-kuh“water” - oíche
oí is “ee”. Here the ch is a light breath rather than the rasp.
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oícheEE-huh“night” - sionnach
The i makes the s slender. Then io before nn, then the rasp.
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sionnachSHUN-ukh“fox” - crann
c is always k, and nn is a single n.
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crannkran“tree”