A key to irish.

Ok, so time to learn how to read in Irish! Are you excited? :P Ok, so let’s start with consonants:

hard consonants	letter	Polish +/- way of reading soft cons.	soft consonants
bórd- table	B	bj	beal- mouth
crann- tree	C	kj	céard- what
donn- brown	D	dj	deoch- drink
fuath- hatered	F	fj	féile- poet
gorm- blue	G	gj	geal- bright
	(H)
luath- early	L	lj	leann- beer
maith- good	M	mj	mean- middle
nua- new	N	nj	nigh- wash
páiste- kids	P	pj	peann- pen
rothar- bike (more like an English one)	R		rothair- bikes (more like a Polish one)
sásta- satisfied (s)	S	sz	páiste- kids
tuismithearí- parents	T	tj/ć	teach- house

But sometimes for instance when we want to say that something belongs to us, we have to use mutation nearby some consonants:

1.     SÉIMHIÚ mutation

letter	after mutation	how to read it
B	BH	v, w
C	CH	really strong h like you want to throw your throat out
D	DH	ɣ- at the beginning, (as I head that’s the sound between words when you say dach domu, it’s hard to explan but it’s like g but really deep from your throat), sometimes you don’t say it –Ø, sometimes is like polish j and, at the end is like polish k
F	FH	nothing Ø
G	GH	again ɣ or polish j
M	MH	v, w
P	PH	f
S	SH	h soft
T	TH	h soft

2.     ÚRÚ mutation

Basically you read only THE FIRST LETTER

letter	after mutation
B	MB
C	GC
D	ND
F	BHF
G	NG
P	BP
T	DT

Vowels:

Hard vowels:

a/á

o/ó

u/ú

Soft vowels:

e/é

i/í

Long vowels are more important than short one (fear- [fʲæːɾˠ]- man, husband, féar- [fʲeːɾˠ]- grass)

Diftongs:

ae	long e
ea	a
eo	long o
ia	ia
ua	uə
ei	ei or long e
ai	a or ai
ao	long i
aoi	long i

Got it? :D ok, there’s one more but also important rule. In Irish soft vowels are next to soft and hard next to hard one which means that consonants cannot be surrounded by different vowels. Ex: (C- consonant): aCo, uCa, aCa, eCi, iCi, but NO: aCi, eCa, uCe

Now try to read this:

"I die with every word, but rise again with every breath"