A

The first Irish letter is A (pronounced “ah”) compared to the English A (“ay”).

Like all Irish vowels, there are two forms of A: short A (A) and long A (Á).

The long A (Á) is marked with a fada (´), giving Á.

Both Irish As are single (pure) vowel sounds, unlike the gliding English sound of “ay” (say, hay).

We’ll practice the sounds step-by-step, so you can recognize and pronounce A correctly in Irish.

The Two As

The short A (A) is a front vowel, an “ah” sound you make by keeping your:

Mouth. Fully open.
Tongue. Flat to floor of mouth and pushed towards the front teeth.
Lips. Unrounded / flat, like a slight smile.

The pronunciation of short A (A) is written as [aː] in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). It is an open, unrounded vowel sound, and the triangular colon (ː) means it is held a little when sounded. The vowel in English ship is [i], while the vowel in sheep is [iː], for example.

The long A (Á) is a back vowel [ɑː] that you make by keeping your:

Mouth. Open, same amount as short A (A).
Tongue. Flat to floor of mouth but pulled back towards the throat.
Lips. Unrounded / flat, same as short A (A).

You’ll hear the difference clearly in the audio:

The long A (Á) is always pronounced the same, no matter where it is in a word.

It is much more complicated for short A (A), but there are consistent patterns we can learn.

Start of a Word

The short A (A) has several possible pronunciations depending on what letters follow it, but there are consistent patterns.

It can be pronounced in its standard form as [aː] (“aah”).

You can hear this in the word ard (high, tall):

Many words will have the standard [aː] sound, but there are important exceptions.

abh- becomes a glide between two vowel sounds (diphthong ), [au], like the “ow” in English how. Notice how your mouth moves when saying “ow”, rather than staying steady like a pure vowel sound (monophthong ).

The Irish word abhainn (river) has this change:
amh- becomes a long, mid-back rounded vowel [oː], like the first “o” in the name of the town of Oranmore.

You can hear this in the Irish word amhrán (song):
adh- or agh-, become a glide between two vowel sounds, [ai], pronounced like “eye”.

You can hear this in the Irish word aghaidh (face), which sounds much like the English eye:
But, if the adh- / agh- is followed by a “heavy” sounding consonant like M, then the short A (A) is sounded like a long A (Á), [ɑː].

You can hear this change in the Irish word adhmad (wood, timber):

Before certain letters (ll, m, nn ) the short A (A) is sounded like a long A (Á):

The Irish word am (time) is a perfect example, where you can hear the “awh” quality of the short A (A).

The stress at the start of a word also has a huge effect—if the A is not stressed, it becomes “reduced” (shorter/weaker):

The A in ag (at) is a quick, lazy “eh” called schwa (ə).

The same pattern applies to words like anseo (here), ansin (then) and anois (now), where you barely hear a vowel before the first N.
While the A in ar (on) is a quick, mid-open front vowel (ɛ).

Middle of a Word

If short A (A) is neither at the start nor the end of a word, we say it is “in the middle”.

And there are a few possible pronunciations:

Short A. In its standard form, [aː], if the syllable is stressed.
Schwa. If the syllable is not stressed, then it is a schwa, like the a in China. We’ll cover this below.
Silent. The “a” is silent in buidéal (“bottle”) being used to mark the “l” as broad.

How will you know which is which?

Practice! But usually any short A (A) that is not in the first syllable is a schwa.

End of a Word

At the end of a word, short A (A) is not pronounced like the full “ah”.

This is a common mistake, but very easy to fix.

A short A (A) at the end of a word is a quick, lazy “ah” called schwa (ə), a technical term for a neutral mid-vowel.

Mouth. Open (one finger width).
Tongue. Neutral position in center of mouth.
Lips. Unrounded / flat, like a slight smile.

The schwa is the most common vowel in English, like the “a” in China.

The short A (A) in the Irish word mála (“bag”) should sound like the “a” in China:

it should NOT be pronounced with a strong “AH” sound, i.e. “maw-LAH”. ❌︎