Transcript of media clip Giota Chun Cinn Lesson 2: h Before a Vowel

Sometimes when vowel sounds come together in Irish a ‘h’ is inserted to prevent them running together. This is quite a tricky thing for learners to get to grips with sometimes.

The word le meaning ‘with’ will prefix a ‘h’ sound to a following vowel. ‘With gold and silver’ is le hór agus le hairgead If you try to say that phrase without the ‘h’ you will see how the sounds run together.

This also happens with the preposition go when followed by a word beginning with a vowel. Therefore ‘from place to place’ is ó áit go háit.

There are other instances where this happens, eg. with vowels in the genitive singular feminine before the article na
across the river trasna na habhann
doing the work ag déanamh na hoibre

Na (the article in the plural) will cause this to happen outside the genitive also
na héin the birds (where the singular of bird is éan)
na héisc the fish (where the singular of fish is iasc)
na hoileáin the islands (where the singular of island is oileán)

The third person singular feminine possessive a (her)
a hathair her father (athair ‘father’)
a híníon her daughter (íníon ‘daughter’)

Another instance which you may have come across is Dé hAoine, Friday.

The word cá (what place / what time) will cause h before a vowel also
cá háit Where
cá huair when

Counting using ordinal numbers (first, second, third etc.) will also cause a h to be inserted before a vowel following them.
an dara háit second place
an t-ochtú háit eight place

The cardinal numbers (as used when counting; one, two, three etc.) for three trí, four ceithre, and five cúig will cause h before a following vowel if using a plural form of the noun.
ceithre huaire four times
cúig háiteanna five places

Another instance where this occurs is when using ná followed by a verb with begins with a vowel.
ná hith sin don’t eat that
ná hól sin don’t drink that
ná himir sin don’t play that