It’s time to learn the caileandar (“calendar”). Tú learned earlier that Gaeilge is generally written in verb-subject-object order, which means that tú can be quite specific in order to convey when something is going to happen nó (“or”) has already happened. Irish people do this by using days and times. The following are the days of the week; the word for “day” is lá (masculine, pronounced “law”), and the word for “week” is seachtain (feminine, pronounced “shakh-tin”). However, when you are discussing specific days, as in Monday, you use Dé (pronounced “jey”) – it’s easy to remember because it sounds like “day”!

Dé Luain (Monday) [jey loo-in]

Dé Máirt (Tuesday) [jey marsht]

Dé Céadaoin (Wednesday) [jey keydeen]

Déardaoin (Thursday) [jer-deen]

Dé hAoine (Friday) [jey heena]

Dé Sathairn (Saturday) [jey sahern]

Dé Domhnaigh (Sunday) [jey downee]

Learn the lae (“days”) of the seachtain (“week”) by writing them on your own caileandar agus then move on to the ceathair parts of each lá.

maidin (morning) [majin]

iarnóin (afternoon) [eer-non]

tráthnóna (early evening) [traw-nona]

oíche (night) [ee-khya]

As you saw at the beginning of Step Two, when tú pair these words with maith (“good”), tú have wished someone a pleasant morning, afternoon, evening, or night indeed!

The word for “today,” then, is inniu. “Yesterday” is inné (note the close resemblance to inniu!), while “the day before yesterday” is arú inné. “Tomorrow” is amárach, agus “the day after tomorrow” is amanathar. Answer the following questions, starting with tá an lá inniu…

Cad é an lá é, an lá inniu? [key unn law ey, un law inyu]
(What day is it, today?)

Cad é an lá é, an lá amárach? [key unn law ey, un law amaw-rakh]
(What day is it, tomorrow?)

Cad é an lá é, an lá inné? [key unn law ey, un law inyey]
(What day is it, yesterday?)

Now tú can talk about the lae of the seachtain agus even refer to what general time of lá it is. Generally, place the time of the day before the actual day, as in maidin Dé Sathairn. The only caveat is that when you use oíche, you don’t need Dé and you lenite the lá of the seachtain, as in oíche Shathairn. Because you can’t lenite l, n, or r, you don’t lenite Luain (and just to make it a little confusing, you take away the h of Dé hAoine (Friday) when you talk about Friday evening). Give the following times of day a try.

a. Sunday morning

b. Friday morning

c. Saturday afternoon

d. Monday afternoon

e. Thursday evening tráthnóna Déardaoin

f. yesterday evening

g. Tuesday morning

h. Wednesday afternoon

i. Monday night

j. tomorrow night

Knowing these parts of the lá will help tú to describe when tú went somewhere or at what time something happened.

Tú can create labels for these as well. Cad é mar the bathroom mirror for maidin mhaith? Nó your alarm clock for oíche mhaith? Let’s not forget cad é mar atá tú (“how are you?”) nó its response, go maith (“fine”). The great thing is that instead of using tá for the rest of your life and always living in the present (although that has its advantages as well), you can simply replace tá with bhí (pronounced “vee”) and bingo! You’re in the past tense. Or replace it with beidh and you’re in the future tense. Nothing else changes in the sentence.

Let’s try substituting past tense and future tense in some basic sentences. Because the word order remains verb-subject-object, a sentence like tá mé sa chistin (“I am in the kitchen”) is an easy one to mess around with. Turn the next three present tense sentences into past tense sentences by using bhí:

Tá mé sa chistin.
(I am in the kitchen) (I was in the kitchen)

Tá mo chat anseo.
(My cat is here) (My cat was here)

Tá sí sa gharáiste.
(She is in the garage) (She was in the garage)

Now change your past tense sentences into future tense with the use of the verb beidh, future tense of tá.

(I will be in the kitchen)

(My cat will be here)

(She will be in the garage)

But let’s say you want to know where someone was yesterday? Substitute cá raibh (where was) or cá mbeidh (where will be) for cá bhfuil (where is). If you were (bhí) or will be (beidh) in Seattle, you respond Bhí mé i Seattle or Beidh mé i bPortland. But what’s that b doing in front of Portland?!? When you use the preposition i (“in”), it eclipses the following consonant (refer to the guide on page 4). If the place name starts with a vowel, i changes to in, as in Bhí mé in Atlanta. Respond to the following:

Cá raibh tú inné?

Cá raibh tú maidin inniu?

Cá mbeidh tú July 4?

Cá raibh tú arú inné?

Cá mbeidh tú amárach?

Knowing your roots is a good thing. People like to know where your people come from, to know if there is a potential family connection. Sometimes having your people come from Galway is enough! So people like to ask, Cá as tú, “where are tú out of?” This doesn’t mean “where do tú live.” It’s enough to say which state tú were born in, by saying Is as _________ mé (“It’s out of ____________, me”). Or, if it’s from a large city that people are likely to have heard of (Boston, Chicago), just say the name of the city. If you are talking about someone else, as in do mháthair (your mother) or d’athair (your father), or do chara (your friend), you’d say is as ___________í (her) or é (him). Agus then tú may ask, Cá as tú féin or “where are you from yourself”? Now answer these questions:

Cá as tú?

Cá as do mháthair?

Cá as d’athair?

Cá as do chat?

Cá as do mhadra?

If tú don’t have a cat or a madra, make up an animal and a place of origin just for the practice of it. And notice that when we use a singular possessive pronoun (my, your, his – but not hers), you lenite the following noun. For plural possessives (ours, y’all’s, their) you eclipse it as below. So:

mo chat my cat

do chat your cat

a chat/a cat his cat/her cat

ár gcat our cat

bhur gcat y'all's cat

a gcat their cat

If the noun starts with a vowel, as in athair (“father”), it’s m’athair, d’athair, a athair/a hathair, ár n-athair, bhur n-athair, and a n-athair.

Free focail:
daid … dad
diabhal … devil
díosal … diesel
dráma … drama
druga … drug