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.
Start here
1 sectionStart here: what this path does
- Irish is written in the same Latin alphabet as English, left to right — only the sounds behind the letters are different.
- Every Irish word here carries a respelling: hyphens between syllables, CAPITALS on the syllable you lean on — madraMOD-ruh“dog”.
- Irish nearly always leans on the first syllable of a word.
- You will attempt a word before revealing its pronunciation or meaning. Stop after any checkpoint.
This is short preparation for reading a book, not a grammar course. It teaches three things: how to sound an Irish word out, how to undo the two changes Irish makes to the front of a word, and where the pieces of a sentence sit. Two grammar words cover everything: a verb is the doing word (ran, saw, is) and a noun is the naming word (dog, rain).
day
lá
law
The large word is the spelling. lawlaw is the pronunciation guide — a rough way of saying it in English spelling. The English is the meaning. At checkpoints, the last two stay hidden until you choose to reveal them.
How to use a checkpoint
Look at the Irish first and try to say it. Then reveal.
- lá
Two letters, and the stroke over the a is doing something.
Show answer +Hide answer −
lálaw“day”. Say “law”, as in “outlaw”.