Where You Stand

At the present stage of your study, you know the basic forms of the verbs. You lack only the conditional, exemplified by "I would go", the habitual past, some of the imperative mood, which gives commands, and also the free form or impersonal, which will allow you to say such thoughts as "It is bought here" or "people buy it here". There are still many verbs that you need to bring your vocabulary up to the desired level, but you are well into the language now.

Noun plurals are a topic that must come soon. We will work slowly into this, with the objective of developing your ability to sense what a plural form should be from the singular form of the word.

Once we have given you a good vocabulary of verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, we will begin on idioms, which are speech forms whose meaning is not readily apparent from the individual words. All languages have these. An example: "Cuireann séisteach air" means "He interferes with him", not "He puts in on him". Many of these idioms, or cora cainte (KOH-ruh KEYENT-e), make use of prepositions, such as "ag", "ar", "le", and others that you will soon learn. You know a number of idioms already, as you will discover.

Irish Lesson 56

PRONUNCIATION

The letter group "ai" in an accented syllable can have the sound (a) as in English "at" or (ah) as in English "Ah-hah". "Ai" at the beginning of a word often has the (a) sound, as in:

ait (at), strange; aingeal (ANG-uhl), angel; aibí(A-bee), ripe.

A few words, such as "aige" (eg-E), at him, and "air" (er), on him, are exceptions. "Aimsir" (EYEM-sheer), weather, is another exception in parts of Ireland. In other parts it is pronounced (AM-sheer).

When an accented "ai" follows the consonant b, c, f, g, m, p, it often takes an (ah) sound. You have learned this in these words:

baile (BAHL-e), home; cailín (kah-LEEN), girl; faire (FAH-re), watching; gairid (GAH-rid), short; maith (mah), good; paidir (PAHD-ir), prayer.

When accented "ai" follows d, l, n, r, s, t, it often takes the (a) sound. Examples are:

daingean (DANG-uhn), fortress

laisteas (LASH-tuhs); laisteas de, south of

naipcín (nap-KEEN), napkin

raidis (RA-dish), radish

saileach (SAL-uhk*), willow

taispeáin (tash-PAW*-in); taispeáin domé, show me it

The groups "aibh, aidh, aigh" are often pronounced (eye) when in an accented or initial syllable, as in:

saibhir (SEYE-vir), rich

aidhm (eyem), aim

saighdiúir (seye-DYOO-ir), soldier

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