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Resources for students

Everything on this page is provided for the benefit of Irish language students anywhere in the world and may be freely distributed but not sold. In general we try to keep items to one or two pages so it can be easily printed, laminated if you wish, and then handed out to students. If you have something useful that you wish to share then send it to us. We prefer material that adds some new information or insight not usually found in textbooks.

If you are a teacher and wish to use any of this material as the basis for a lesson, for example with a weekly class or during an immersion weekend, then please be sure to acknowledge where it came from. Better still, include a link to this page on your own group's website.

This list illustrates the noun ending changes that happen in the genitive and plural for each of the noun declensions. It's a ms-word document so you can sort the table by any column before printing and then practice by un-covering just column 1 and then working out the rest. Once you get the hang of the endings then try adding the article. Here is another page that shows the effect of the article on a noun. For the curious, the noun list was compiled from chapter one of the new official standard. Once you get the basic picture, try the other noun drill (see below) which uses nouns from the textbook "Progress In Irish".

The Verb Glance Card has been a popular teaching aid for over 25 years but comes with no instructions. Read this document Glance Card Explained to see how it all works.

Once you get the hang of the Verb Glance Card you will eventually see it has some limitations, but it's possible to extend the scope with very little efffort. Read this document to see what's possible Extending the scope of the Glance Card

The textbook "Progress in Irish" has no table of contents or index, but you can use this roadmap to find your way through it.

This page is from one of our recent newsletters and gives a roundup of useful software to help you use your computer in Irish.

If you have recently started on Buntús Cainte you will need to work from a plan in order to get the best out of it. Try this study plan and cruise through all three volumes in less than a year.

The back cover of Buntús Cainte has a rather nice bi-lingual example of how the "flow" in Irish differs from what you would find in English. This breakdown page dissects the whole thing and explains what's going on. Now find a piece in English of similar length and complexity that you can translate into Irish and see how many of the same ideas you can incorporate. This Will definitely help your Irish look more like Irish.

The spelling changes that occur at the start of many words in Irish are known as "Initial Mutations" and cause unimaginable grief to beginners until it's been explained. This simple guide explains the five different types and how to tell them apart.

Finally getting somewhere ? Here are some computerised drills for testing your knowledge. They cover verbs, nouns, counting, and prepositional pronouns Download the four separate drills, (just right click, then save as), make a shortcut to each and then read this instruction sheet. The file type is html so they should work on any computer or tablet and you don't need to remain online while using them.

The four drills in the previous paragraph all work fine with Internet Explorer and have also been tested with an Android tablet. But one of them (the verb drill) won't work with Chrome although the others do. We think this is a defect in how Chrome handles scripts within html files and have written to Google asking them to fix it. Not expecting a reply anytime soon.

In the meantime we are currently working on a "stage 2" verb drill that covers the past habitual and the conditional as well as a "stage 3" that covers the imperative and the subjunctive. Both should be ready around mid-year and, just like the stage 1 drill, will use all the verbs from the glance card.