Duolingo Irish Course Summary

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Lenition

updated 2018-10-25

Welcome to the Lenition skill!

Séimhiú (lenition) is where an extra h is added between the first and

second letters of a word in certain situations. This changes the

spelling and pronunciation of the word, but not the meaning. Only some

initial letters can be lenited: b, c, d, f, g, m, p, s, and t. Words

that begin with other letters do not undergo lenition at all.

Here are examples of words being lenited:

Lenition is used in the following situations.

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1. Feminine Nouns

Feminine nouns are lenited after the definite article an in the

nominative case.

Examples:

mairteoil beef, an mhairteoil the beef

bean woman, an bhean the woman

An exception to this rule is that feminine nouns beginning with d or t

are not lenited. Another exception is that nouns beginning with s

becomes ts if the s precedes a vowel, l, n or r.

Examples:

an deasc the desk

an traein the train

an tsubh the jam

an tsláinte the health

an tsnaidhm the knot

an tsráid the street

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2. Feminine Adjectives

Singular feminine nouns cause lenition of the following adjective.

Examples:

bean mhaith a good woman

an mhairteoil dhearg the red beef

Note: Only when the adjective directly follows its noun.

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3. Possessive Adjectives

Lenition occurs after mo my, do your, a his.

Examples:

mo chara my friend

do mhadra your dog

a mhac his son

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4. Numbers

Lenition occurs after the numbers one to six.

Examples:

sé chapall six horses

trí bhuidéal three bottles

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5. Vocative Case

The vocative case is used when directly addressing someone or

something, as in Cá bhfuil tú, a chailín? Where are you, girl? Lenition

is used after the vocative particle a.

(Note that masculine nouns and names are also slenderised after the

vocative particle: fear becomes a fhir, and Pól becomes a Phóil.)

More on this case in a later skill.

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6. Prepositions

Lenition occurs after the words ar on, de off, den off the, do to/for,

don to the, faoi under/about, ó from, roimh before, sa/san in the, trí

through, um around/about.

Examples:

don bhuachaill to the boy

sa pháirc in the field

An exception is that words beginning with d, t, s are not lenited after

den, don, sa or san.

Examples:

den doras off the door

sa teach in the house

don sú to the juice

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7. Other Words

Lenition is also used after the phrase nuair a when, the prefixes ró-

too and an- very, and the word má if (unless the next word is a version

of tá or deir). Other special cases will be highlighted in other

lessons.

Examples:

nuair a bhrisim when I break

ró-mhór too big

an-mhaith very good

má dhúnann sé if he closes

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DeNTaLS-DoTS

This is a handy mnemonic! If a word begins with d, t or s and it would

normally be lenited according to the above rules, but the word that

came before it in the sentence ends with d, n, t, l or s, then the word

is not lenited.

Examples:

den sagart off the priest

an-te very hot

Phew! I hope that wasn't too complicated. It will start to make sense

when you see some more examples! Good luck and see you in the next

skill :D

Possessives

updated 2018-10-25

When possessives are used in Irish, certain changes occur to the

following word. There are two systems: one for words starting with a

consonant, and one for word starting with a vowel.

Words starting with a consonant

Here are the possessive adjectives and changes that occur when a word

begins with a consonant:

Before words starting with fh + a vowel, mo and do are abbreviated to

m' and d', with no space before the next word.

Examples:

fón phone

m'fhón my phone

d'fhón your phone

If the word begins with a consonant that does not undergo lenition (or

eclipsis), the spelling remains unchanged.

Examples:

léine shirt

mo léine my shirt

ár léine our shirt

a léine his/her/its/their shirt

Words starting with a vowel

Here are the possessive adjectives and changes that occur when a word

begins with a vowel:

Instead of lenition or eclipsis, here you can see two other initial

letter mutations used in Irish: the h-prefix and the n-prefix.

The h-prefix is used after the word a (when it means her). Note

that there is no hyphen.

The n-prefix is used after ár, bhur, and a (when it means their).

Note the hyphen between the n- and the word.

You can also see from the examples above that m' and d are used instead

of mo or do, with no space before the next word.

A

The possessive adjective a can mean his, her, its or their. If you look

at the tables above, you can see how to identify which one is used. It

is usually clear from context, and from the word that follows the

possessive.

Verbs: Present 1

updated 2018-10-25

In Irish, it is important to note that there are two present tenses:

the present, and the present habitual. The present describes what one

is doing (right now) and the present habitual is used to describe what

one does (every day, every week, and so on).

In this skill you will learn verbs in the present habitual. You

previously met the endings for conjugating regular verbs in the present

habitual tense in Basics 2. But, lets revisit them here.

1. The first conjugation

These verbs have only one syllable¹, and the root form seen in the

dictionary is identical to the stem used for verb conjugation. In the

present tense the ending is, generally, added directly onto the stem.

Examples are dún ("close"), ól ("drink"), bris ("break")

¹There is a small handful of first conjugation verbs that have more

than one syllable. They aren't considered irregular- just a bit odd.

These will be dealt with later.

²In present tense verbs, mé and muid are generally not used; instead,

they are incorporated into the verb that precedes it, to make what is

known as the "synthetic form".

Examples:

dúnaim I close

dúnann sé he closes

brisim I break

briseann sé he breaks

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2. The second conjugation

These verbs have more than one syllable.

Many end in -aigh and -igh in the root form seen in the dictionary; to

get the stem used for conjugation, the last syllable of the root is

removed (i.e. remove the -aigh/-igh). The endings are then added to

that stem. Examples include ceannaigh buy, bailigh collect. The stems

for these would be ceann- and bail-.

Others end in -ail/-il, -ain/-in, -ais/-is or -air/-ir. To get the

stem, the last syllable of the root is removed but the very last letter

is kept, and then the appropriate ending is added. Examples include

inis tell and oscail open. The stems for these would be ins- and oscl-.

Examples:

bailíonn tú you collect

ceannaímid / ceannaíonn muid we buy

insím I tell

osclaíonn sibh you open

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3. Irregular verbs

The last group of verbs in Irish are the irregular verbs. 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!

The question form

To ask a question in this tense using a verb, you use the question word

an and add an eclipsis (urú) to the verb if possible.

Examples:

Dúnann tú You close

An ndúnann tú? Do you close?

Briseann sí She breaks

An mbriseann sí? Does she break?

The irregular verb bí be is an exception:

Tá tú You are

An bhfuil tú? Are you?

Táimid We are

An bhfuilimid? Are we?

The negative form

To put a verb in the present habitual tense into the negative form, you

use the negation word ní and add a lenition (séimhiú) to the verb if

possible.

Examples:

Dúnann tú You close

Ní dhúnann tú You do not close

Briseann tú You break

Ní bhriseann sí She does not break

Again, the verb bí is an exception in this tense, as well as the verb

abair say:

Bí

Tá tú You are

Níl tú? You are not

Táimid We are

Nílimid? We are not

Abair

Deir tú You say

Ní deir tú You do not say

Deirimid We say

Ní deirimid We do not say

Yes or No?

Irish has no word for "yes" or "no". That means when someone asks a

questions using a verb like those above, you either answer with the

positive form of the verb (the standard conjugated form) or the

negative form (as seen above)

Example:

An ndúnann tú an doras? Do you close the door?

Dúnaim (an doras) Yes, I close the door. (literally just "I close

(the door)")

Ní dhúnaim (an doras) No, I do not close the door (literally just

"I do not close (the door)")

Colors

updated 2018-10-25

Adjectives (such as colors) generally come after the noun in Irish.

Their spelling is modified so that they agree with the noun, in number

and in gender.

Masculine singular nouns

An adjective that follows a masculine singular noun does not change

(for example, an bosca dubh the black box).

Feminine singular nouns

An adjective that follows a feminine singular noun is lenited if

possible (for example, an eilifint dhubh the black elephant).

Plural nouns

An adjective that follows a plural noun has its spelling changed to the

plural form of that adjective. If the noun ends with a slender

consonant, the adjective is also lenited.

What is a slender consonant? A slender consonant is a consonant with a

slender vowel (e é or i í) next to it. For example, in the word beoir,

r is a slender consonant.

Getting Descriptive

In this skill, we give you the basic vocabulary to describe most of the

colours. One fun quirk in Irish is that there aren't of lots of words

for all the different shades on the spectrum. Instead, you describe a

particular colour by naming something that has that colour, or adding

some detail (such as another colour!). So for example, you could

distinguish something that is spéirghorm sky-blue from something that

is gormghlas blue-green, or contrast dearg red with bándearg pink

(literally white-red). Use the vocabulary you learn and get creative to

think of how you could say things like 'blood-red', and 'forest green'!

Questions

updated 2018-10-25

C question words

When asking a question in English, you generally use a W question word

such as who, where, what. Similarly, in Irish you generally use a C

question word such as cé, cá, cad.

Here are some examples of C question words:

Yes and no

There is no direct translation for the words yes and no in Irish. Where

in English you would use these words to answer a question, in Irish you

repeat the verb from the original question in either the positive or

the negative form. (You can choose to omit the pronoun if you like -

unless you are using a synthetic form of the verb.)

Examples:

Do you play soccer? Yes. = Do you play soccer? I play. = An imríonn

tú sacar? Imrím.

Do you eat cheese? No. = Do you eat cheese? I do not eat. = An

itheann tú cáis? Ní ithim.

Does she work in the city? Yes. = Does she work in the city? She

works. = An oibríonn sí sa chathair? Oibríonn (sí).

Do the children listen to you? No. = Do the children listen to you?

They do not listen. = An éisteann na páistí leat? Ní éisteann

(siad).

Prepositions 1

updated 2018-12-30

Prepositions (réamhfhocail) are short words that express relationships

between things, like to, for, with, on, between.

In Irish most prepositions are usually written on their own, but when

you use them together with a pronoun (me, you, he, she, it, us, them),

the two words get contracted together to make what are known as

prepositional pronouns (forainmneacha réamhfhoclacha).

Here are five prepositional pronouns in all their forms:

Examples:

Tá an fear liom The man is with me

Ritheann an cailín chuici The girl runs to/toward/towards her

When used in specific ways, some prepositions have special idiomatic

meanings in Irish. You already met the idiomatic use of ag to mean have

in Basics 2; here are some other examples.

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Ar

The basic meaning of this word is on. For example, Ritheann sé ar

bhóthar means He runs on a road.

When used with the verb bí, it conveys the idea of obligation to do

something. For example, Tá orm rith means I must run. (The literal

translation of the phrase would be "It is on me to run".)

Tá ort snámh You must swim

Tá ar Phól éisteacht Paul must listen

Tá orthu siúl They must walk

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Ó

The basic meaning of this word is from. For example, Ritheann sé ó

theach means He runs from a house.

When used with the verb bí, it conveys the idea of wanting something.

For example, Tá bia uaim means I want food. (The literal translation of

the phrase would be "food is from me".)

An bhfuil léine uait? Do you want a shirt?

Tá madraí uaidh He wants dogs

Tá uathu siúl They want to walk

Tá úll ó Phól Paul wants an apple

Tá na páistí ó bhean A woman wants the children

Another way to express wanting something is to use the verb teastaigh

(to be wanted/needed), followed by a version of ó. Written this way,

Teastaíonn bia uaim is the alternative way to say I want food; it can

also mean I need food. (A literal translation would be "food is needed

from me".)

Teastaíonn na leabhair uaithi She wants/needs the books

Teastaíonn seacláid uainn We want/need chocolate

Teastaíonn uaim snámh I want/need to swim

Teastaíonn cáca ó chailín A girl wants/needs a cake

An dteastaíonn na hataí? Are the hats needed?

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