The aim of this book is to teach you to understand basic, everyday Irish. It is suitable for both the complete beginner and for Irish people who have learned some Irish at school but who have had little opportunity of speaking it. This is a functional course, based on the kinds of situations in which Irish is used, each of which is dealt with in a separate unit. The first half of the book includes much of what you would expect to find in a phrasebook, and enough Irish for you to get by in simple situations. The second half of the book will prepare you to be more adventurous, and at this stage you can make more use of the appendices at the back of the book. Each unit has one or more dialogues, a vocabulary for each dialogue, questions about the dialogues, some cultural information, a grammar section and exercises to check your progress. The book starts with a comprehensive guide to pronunciation and at the end of the book you will find the key to the exercises, appendices which summarise the main grammar points, an Irish-English vocabulary and an English-Irish vocabulary and, finally, a grammar index. The recorded material to accompany the course is available separately as a double CD or double cassette or together with the book in a pack.
