Seo an snáithe le plé as agus faoin teanga Gaeilge. / This is the thread for discussions in and about the Irish language. (Only clueless Americans call it "Gaelic"!)

Acmhainní ar líne/Online resources

Gramadach na Gaeilge: http://nualeargais.ie/gnag/gramadac.htm (A comprehensive grammar of Irish written in English.)

Graiméar Gaeilge na mBráithre Críostaí: http://ec.europa.eu/translation/language_aids/freelance/documents/irish/christian_brothers_irish_grammar.pdf (Irish only; the definitive grammar of the contemporary standard language.)

Daltaí na Gaeilge: http://www.daltai.com/daltai.htm (Aimed primarily at North American learners, but the discussion boards attract an active and international audience.)

Beo: http://beo.ie/ (Irish-language online monthly; articles incorporate glosses of unfamiliar vocabulary. Page includes links to other Irish-language media such as TG4 and Raidió na Gaeltachta.)

Foclóirí/Dictionaries

Pota Focal: http://www.potafocal.com/ (Excellent English-Irish/Irish-English dictionary for beginners.)

Irish Dictionary Online: http://www.englishirishdictionary.com/dictionary. (Useful general dictionary, although the examples are drawn heavily from the bureaucratic language.)

Foclóir Téarmaíochta: http://www.focal.ie/Home.aspx (The national terminology database for Irish.)

An Foclóir Beag: http://www.csis.ul.ie/focloir/ (Irish only; particularly useful for looking up inflected forms.)

Go raibh math agat, a Linguoboy! I'm learning a bit from online, and as soon as my book gets here I'm going to start learning for real.

Linguoboy, which Irish are you learning? Standard or a dialect or a mix? What are you using/did you use? And how much Irish do you know?

Tyler and I are gonna use Learning Irish.

I'm focusing on Munster Irish (specifically West Cork), but in situations like this I try to write as close to the standard as I can. (E.g. "faoin teanga Gaeilge" instead of "fén dteangain Ghaelainne".) As for how much I know, well, I think someone else will have to answer that. Enough to read modern literature, but with difficulty.


Excellent book even though I never made a lot of headway in it for some reason.

He's very good, especially (and this is meant in a good way) for someone who has little or no opportunity to speak with Irish speakers (as far as I know).

BTW, I think you are best off to learn the standard initially at least. Once you know the spelling of the standard, you can start to pronounce it like the dialects, but as most formal Irish is written in the standard, you really have to know that. I would also suggest that you don't start learning Irish by launching into the declensions because for a while at least, because if you are not used to initial consonant mutations and all the different ways that Irish nouns change, it is quite intimidating.

Tánn tú ró-fhial liom!


I learned standard spelling and dialect pronunciation at the same time. It's not intrinsically more difficult than for any other language, since normative pronunciation and standard spelling are never a perfect match. There's always some amount of diglossia.


Fortunately, Ó Siadhail holds off for a bit before getting into that kind of nitty-gritty. IIRC, the Connacht dialect he teaches makes less use of the genitive than some others, which no doubt helps.

I really really like Irish declensions, I've read about them on the internet, and I actually do have the book "Teach Yourself Irish Grammar" that's pretty decent, but I think it's more of a reference book than a textbook.

An mhalairt ar fhad atá fíor.

I agree totally. I am glad I learned standard spelling and pronunciation initially (and I sort of have to use that for exams), because it gives you a good foundation to pick a dialect. I am a fan of standarised spelling for Irish, because pronunciation doesn't have to be the same.


That's good. I only learned the declensions pretty recently, and I'm glad. Because now I pretty much know how to form the plurals when I hear the word, and I can figure out what declension most nouns are in because I know most of the genitives from hearing them. It's a great help.

Have you started learning ILuvEire or Seán or both?

No, we're waiting for our Learning Irish books to arrive. We also have the Basic and Intermediate Irish books by Nancy Stenson, and have heard they are quite good, but I don't really like them. Does either of you know anything about them? Neither of us have any money, so we can't just buy any books, but if I had money I would buy Progress in Irish.

Seán, the lucky butt, has already received his book. I want it soo bad.