Basic Irish: A Grammar and Workbook

Nancy Stenson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN:
  9780415410410
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134129256
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Basic Irish: A Grammar and Workbook provides a jargon-free introduction to the most commonly used grammatical structures within the Irish language. Focusing on the repeated use of grammatical patterns, this Workbook develops an understanding of the structures presented, making the forms familiar and automatic for learners.

This user-friendly workbook includes:

• terminology introduced and explained with multiple examples
• exercises in the grammatical forms introduced in the text
• translation exercises
• an exercise key.

UNIT ONE
Spelling and pronunciation

One of the greatest challenges of Irish is learning to navigate the spelling system. Irish spelling is actually more systematic than English, but the letters are pronounced differently enough to require careful attention and a willingness to abandon one’s assumptions about sound–spelling relationships. Once a student learns to do that, the system becomes accessible, and learning can progress reasonably quickly. The following overview provides a start, but it is important to realize that the process of adjusting to Irish spelling will necessarily be a gradual one. There are also significant differences depending on the dialect being learned, so listening to native speakers is important. Pronunciations given here are those of Connacht (specifically Connemara, County Galway), the variety with the largest number of speakers.

Alphabet and pronunciation

Irish is written with the same alphabet as English, but normally only the following letters are used: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, l, m, n, o, p, r, s, t, u. Other letters appear occasionally in English loanwords, especially j and v (e.g., jab ‘job’; vóta ‘vote’, also sometimes spelled bhóta).

Consonants

For the most part, consonants have about the same values as in English, with one major difference:...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Introduction
• Unit 1 Spelling and pronunciation
• Unit 2 Word order and simple sentences
• Unit 3 Initial mutations: lenition
• Unit 4 Other mutations
• Unit 5 Nouns and articles
• Unit 6 Noun classes and cases
• Unit 7 Personal names
• Unit 8 Place-names
• Unit 9 Prepositions I
• Unit 10 Basic numbers
• Unit 11 Verbs I: Present tense of regular verbs
• Unit 12 Verbs II: Future tense of regular verbs
• Unit 13 Verbs III: Past tense
• Unit 14 Irregular verbs I
• Unit 15 Irregular verbs II
• Unit 16 The verb bí
• Unit 17 The copula is
• Unit 18 Other copula structures
• Unit 19 Verbal nouns I
• Unit 20 Verbal nouns II
• Unit 21 Adjectives
• Unit 22 Pronouns
• Unit 23 Prepositions II: More prepositional pronouns
• Unit 24 Possession and ownership
• Unit 25 Verbal adjectives and the present perfect
• Irish–English and English–Irish glossaries