The Glance Card

The Glance card is a useful item for any learner of the Irish language. It may not look like the most user-friendly tool when you first pick it up, but once you understand how it works, you won't want to miss it. It is worth every learner's effort to try and understand the structure and logic behind the glance card.

Side 1 deals with short verbs and irregular verbs. It displays some of the most commonly-used verbs in the top section plus the irregular verbs in the bottom section. See also the Entry below on more information about the Irregular Verbs.

The grammatical personas are given on the sides of the card. The singular forms are on the left:

First person: 1 - mé (I)

Second person 2 - tú (you)

Third person: 3 - sé/ sí (he / she)

On the right are the plural forms:

First person plural: 1 (we)

Second person 2 - sibh (you)

Third person: 3 - siad (they)

Further down, we will explain how sentences are phrased. Take note for now that the first person plural (we) has three different boxes forms (colour coded for the tenses). This shows that a verb when used in the first person plural has 3 different possible endings, one for each tense shown on the card.

We broke ... Bhriseamar

We break (every day) .... Brisimid

We will break .... Brisfimid

Again: The colour codings on the card indicate the the tenses.

This is the base form of the verb. It is the form you would find in your dictionary when you look up a particular verb. The base form is also the Imperative, or the Order or Command form. For example, when you order a man, woman, boy or girl to close a door, you would say:

"Dún an doras!"

For plural, you need to add -(a)igí.

Seasaigí!

Negative

The middle section, first column shows the negative imperative, how to use for example "Don't close the door!"

Ná dún an doras!

INNÉ = YESTERDAY

The Glancecard deals with the simple past tense only. The past habitual (recurring events -e.g. in English 'we used to go swimming' ) is not scope of the Glancecard.

The past tense forms of the verb are in the red column. Of course, past tense is applied to any action that happened in the past, whether 2 minutes ago, or in the last millennium.

Forming the sentence "He closed the door yesterday.", we would look up the word for CLOSE from the red column and find "Dhún". Now we get the Grammatical person (He), and find "sé". Put together we get this:

Dhún sé an doras inné.

Negative/ Interrogative

The negative and interrogative forms tell us that we use 'Níor' and 'Ar'. For example to say "He didn't close the door yesterday", we get

Níor dhún sé an doras inné.

And to ask 'Did he close the door?', we would take the interrogative 'ar...?' + the verb + the grammatical person and we get:

Ar dhún sé an doras inné?

(the answers here can be "Dhún." for affirmative, or "Níor dhún." for negative .

GACH LÁ = EVERY DAY

The yellow column shows the habitual present tense forms. Consult with a grammar book to find out about the present tense in Irish. This column shows the forms as you would use them if the action is done habitually. Words like 'every day' and 'usually' would give you a clue that you are dealing with the habitual present tense.

She closes the door every day.

"Dúnann sí an doras gach lá."

Note how there is a little yellow inset box in the Grammatical Person box of MÉ? The yellow indicates that there is a change in this tense in the first person singular, so "I close the door every day" would be

"Dúnaim an doras gach lá."

Whether to enclose the (a) or not depends on the caol le caol agus leathan le leathan rule.

NOTE: In the habitual present tense, the ending for We is -(a)imid

Negative/ Interrogative

The interrogative and negative forms are in the middle-section. Please note that

AN ECLIPSES
NÍ LENITES

This is not in your glance card!

So " An dtuigeann tú mé?" but "Ní thuigeann tú mé."

AMÁRACH = TOMORROW

The blue column shows the future tense forms. The interrogative and negative forms are again in the middle-section.

NOTE: In the future tense, the ending for We is -f(a)imid

again:
AN ECLIPSES
NÍ LENITES

This is not in your glance card!

So "An bhfanfaidh tú?" but "Ní fhanfaidh tú"

Special form: Caithfidh

Note the change that the column “Caithfidh” undergoes? The triangle is drawing your attention to the extra meaning that ‘caithfidh’ can take.

Be careful when using the future tense form of caith (throw, spend, wear), as it takes a special meaning in its future tense form caithfidh.

Caithfidh mé can mean “I will throw/ spend/ wear” but it also means “I must”.

Ainm Briathartha stands for Verbal Noun. These are nouns that are formed from a verb.

'Ag'-constructions (English -ing endings: washing)

The simplest of usages that a learner encounters early on are the 'ag' constructions of sentences. For example:

Tá mé ag ní mo lámha.

The translation is of course "I am washing my hands." (Literally I am at washing of my hands.)

Infinitive (English 'to wash')

When you use a sentence like "I would like to wash my hands" - the 'to wash' is the infinitive. Here, too, you will go to the column of Ainm Briathartha for the correct form:

Ba mhaith liom mo lámha a ní.

Aidiacht Bhriathartha - the Verbal Adjective - one way to remember what this column represents: they are adjectives that describe something of having been done. It is similar to the original verb in its meaning, but it has now become an adjective and so it describes a noun.

For example "My hands are washed." (in the state of having been washed!)

Tá mo lámha nite.

Note: ólta (drunk) is for example to describe that the carton of milk is now empty, the milk has been drunk: tá an bainne ólta. When describing 'under the influence of alcohol, inebriated', while ólta is used, a better translation would be 'ar meisce' (amongst other possibilities).

On Side 1 are the 11 irregular verbs. As in most languages, it is the most commonly used ones that undergo often radical changes. Take note of the asterisks in the red column. These are very irregular verbs, meaning that their forms change even more dramatically from the past tense to the future tense.

Note also, how Gheobhaidh has an additional asteriks in the Future tense (blue)? Take a look further below the card: along the bottom you find six red boxes and a blue one. All the very irregular verbs have been used in a sentence fragment to form a basic question sentence, and the answers have been given both in the affirmative or negative. The colour coding of red indicates that these questions all relate to the use in the past tense.

Faigh (get / find) changes the most radical in its future form, hence the further clue that you are dealing with something highly unusual. The blue colour will remind you that this is a question in the future tense, i.e

An bhfaighidh siad?
Will they get? with possible answers: They will get. They won't get.

A few pointers on the verb bí

The yellow column has two entries to allow for present and habitual present, making it unique among verbs

The verbal noun column has a séimhiú, again making it unique

The verbal adjective column is blank, because there is none