Irish phrasebook

Irish (Gaeilge) is one of the three Goidelic languages, the others being Scottish Gaelic and Manx. This Goidelic (or Gaelic) branch, together with the Brythonic branch (Welsh, Cornish and Breton), form the Celtic language family. Irish is compulsory in schools in the Republic of Ireland, but spoken as a first language only by a minority of the Irish population. It is also taught in Catholic schools in Northern Ireland, but is in general much rarer than in the Republic. Practically all native Irish speakers are also able to speak English, so learning Irish is not necessary to communicate. That said, many place names and personal names are in Irish, so at the very least, knowledge of Irish pronunciation is useful for getting around and meeting people. If you plan to visit a Gaeltacht, an area where Irish is the main language of communication, it is a very good idea to at least learn the basics (although still only 66% of people in the Gaeltacht speak Irish). This shows respect to the local people you meet, and will almost certainly open doors for you that remain shut to tourists who only speak English.

Some features of Irish, which it has in common with other Celtic languages, but which may strike learners as odd are:

• 'mutations': sounds change, often at the beginning of words, as part of the grammar, e.g. cat 'cat', but mo chat 'my cat'
• the verb is usually at the beginning of the sentence
• prepositional pronouns that are conjugated, e.g. agam 'at me', agat 'at you', etc.

Outside of Ireland, the language is often referred to as Gaelic, but this is an error conflating Irish with its two sister languages. People in Ireland always refer to the language as Irish when speaking English.