Basic Irish Grammar

Gramadach galore!

In Basic Irish Grammar, Dr. Caoimhín Ó Liatháin explains the essential rules and structures of the Irish language through 30 concise videos. This comprehensive course will be available for viewing over the coming weeks as follows:

An Introduction to Irish

1. The alphabet and spelling (slender with slender, broad with broad, síneadh fada)
2. The two definite articles (an and na, in the nominative and genitive cases).
3. Overview of the four noun cases (nominative, genitive, vocative, dative).
4. An Caighdeán Oifigiúil
5. A word about dialects

Genders

1. Overview of the two noun genders,
2. Masculine nouns in the nominative case.
3. Feminine nouns in the nominative case.
4. Masculine nouns in the genitive case.
5. Feminine nouns in the genitive case.

Available May 20th: Verbs

1. The verbal noun – 30 verbs you need to know!
2. Using a verb to give an order.
3. Verbs in the past tense.
4. Verbs in the present tense.
5. Verbs in the future tense.

Available June 3rd: Mutations

1. Overview of the initial mutations (lenition, eclipsis, t-prothesis, h-prothesis)
2. The Seimhiú explained.
3. The Urú explained.
4. The vocative case.
5. t-prothesis, h-prothesis

Available June 17th: Pronouns and Prepositions

1. Personal pronouns (basic and emphatic forms).
2. Possessive Pronouns – saying something belongs to someone.
3. 6 common prepositions (to, for, about, of, in, at and from).
4. Prepositional pronouns (agam, agat, aige, aici etc.).
5. Compound prepositions (le haghaidh, i dteannta, os cionn etc.).

Available July 1st: Numbers

1. Overview of numbers in Irish (“bald” numbers, counting things, counting people, ordinal numbers)
2. Numbers used for counting (maoluimhreacha = “bald” numbers) (a haon, a dó, a trí etc.)
3. Counting things (cardinal number + noun) (X amháin, dhá X, trí X etc.) and na céadta, na mílte, na milliúin
4. Counting people (personal numerals 1–10, then same system as for things) (duine amháin, beirt, triúr etc.)
5. Ordinal numbers (an chéad, an dara, an tríú etc.)