🗣️ Gaeilge
Na Briathra Neamhrialta
The eleven irregular verbs, in the past
Nearly every Irish verb goes into the past the same way, with an h or a d’ at the front. Eleven verbs don’t follow that rule. They are the verbs you use most, so they’re worth knowing well.
Send eleven verbs into the past
First, a guess. In English, the past of go is went, which is a different word altogether. Irish does the same thing with téigh (go). Which of these do you think means “went”?
Now tap each verb to send it into the past, and listen.
Where people slip
With a regular verb, Níor says no in the past and Ar asks the question. Six of these eleven verbs don’t use them. Pick the right one each time.
How do you say “I didn’t go to the shop”?
How do you ask “Did you do the homework?”
Someone asks you this. You did see the dog. What’s the shortest answer?
Six verbs have two forms
Each of these six verbs has one form for saying yes, and a second form that only comes after Ní, An or Nach. Four of the second forms are different words. Tap a yes form, then tap the second form you think belongs to it.
Says yes
After Ní, An or Nach
The other two keep their word
Fuair (got) and dúirt (said) use Ní, An and Nach too, but the word itself stays.
What happens to the first letter
After An and Nach, a letter goes in front of the verb. It’s n before d, and bh before f: An ndeachaigh? An bhfaca? You know one of these already from An bhfuil?
After Ní, the verb gets an h: Ní dheachaigh, Ní dhearna, Ní fhaca. There are two exceptions. Fuair gets bh after Ní as well, and dúirt doesn’t change after Ní at all.
The short answers
Irish has no single word for yes or no. To say yes, you use the yes form. To say no, you use Ní and the second form.
Ní or Níor?
The other five verbs say no with Níor and ask with Ar, the same as regular verbs. Here are all eleven, mixed up. Pick the word that says no for each one.
Build any sentence
Pick what the sentence does, a person and a verb, and listen. Watch the verb each time you change what the sentence does.
What the sentence does
Who did it
The verb
Listen and pick
This time there’s nothing to read. Play it, then pick what it means. There are 308 sentences in here, so it’s different every time you come back.
Spot it
Here are six to finish with. Nothing is scored or timed.
Only eleven
Those are all the irregular verbs Irish has. English has about two hundred, such as go and went, see and saw, eat and ate. In both languages they are among the verbs people use most.
The past is where these eleven change the most. In the present, most of them take the same endings as regular verbs.
Next time you hear Níor chuaigh mé, you’ll know it should be Ní dheachaigh mé, and you’ll be able to say why.