Aistear: start or restart your Irish language journey with Bitesize Irish

Join over 250 members on Aistear

Sign up for EXPLORE Membership

For new learners, or returning to the Irish language.

€25 / month … $29 / month

  • Tús Maith foundational course
  • As well as existing favourites: Sing a Song, Crack Irish Pronunciation, and Bitesize Ióga

Sign up for GROW Membership

For active learners of the Irish language.

€35 / month … $39 /month

  • Tús Maith foundational course
  • As well as existing favourites: Sing a Song, Crack Irish Pronunciation, and Bitesize Ióga
  • Bitesize Pobal private learners community, with daily challenges and weekly conversation practice calls. Learn and practise with others.

€ Euro, $ US Dollar, £ British Pound and $ Australian Dollar available at checkout

Watch our recorded Q&A about Aistear

Aistear is a new platform by Bitesize Irish, launched in 2022. Aistear features a new foundational Irish language course, Tús Maith, plus our popular courses like Sing a Song in Irish and Crack Irish Pronunciation. New features will help your Irish language journey, including quizzes, certificates, and the ability to ask us questions.

Tús Maith: New complete Beginners course for Beginners and Irish language learners

Tús Maith is exclusively available on our new platform Aistear.

What is Tús Maith?

Tús Maith is a self-study course, similar to the old Bitesize Cúrsaí. There are ten modules, based on ten different topics, each of which was 9-10 lessons on vocabulary, grammar, conversation and culture. Tús Maith means “a good start”, from the seanfhocal “tús maith leath na hoibre” (a good start is half the work). As the name suggests, it’s intended as a beginning course, rather than a complete course: there are/will be other channels to develop your conversation, independence and creativity in Irish.

Who is Tús Maith for?

Tús Maith is appropriate for different kinds of learners. If you’re a beginner who has little prior knowledge of Irish, Tús Maith is a great introductory course. If you’re returning to the Irish language for the first time in a while, you’ll find a great guide to the most important topics and features of the language. If you’re an intermediate-level learner, you can go through Tús Maith a bit quicker to recap and add to your understanding of the language’s core concepts.

What are the advantages of Tús Maith?

  • Tús Maith has a simple, clear structure: ten modules of 9-10 lessons. Every lesson in a given module is related in topic and gives ample opportunity to practise the grammatical structures/vocab introduced in that module.
  • Tús Maith is also sequential: each module builds on what has been learnt previously
  • Tús Maith is familiar, with some of the format and content of Bitesize Cúrsaí in a new overall structure, but there is also a lot of new material: dozens of new lessons and hundreds of new audio files have been created.
  • Tús Maith is interactive: each lesson has a short quiz that gives you a chance to test what you’ve just learnt. This active feature makes for better understanding and retention of info, in comparison to passive reading/listening only. By completing the quizzes your progress will be marked as you go through Tús Maith.
  • Tús Maith is the first step in your language learning journey: more will be added in due course.

Frequestly Asked Questions about Aistear

Who has developed the new content?

Niall Ó Siadhail at Bitesize Irish is our dedicated learning content developer. He has years of experience teaching Gaeilge to adults in Ireland and abroad. He is a qualified Irish/English translator, which requires an intricate knowledge of the language.

Watch our interview with Niall about What is Aistear?

The entire Bitesize Irish team has been working together to bring you the new experience.

Which currencies Does Aistear support?

Good news! Bitesize Cúrsaí was only able to support US Dollar due to the limitation of that platform. Aistear is available in multiple currencies: Euro, US Dollar, British Pound and Australian Dollar.

I have more questions, how can I ask you?

Email us directly at [email protected] or use our online Contact form.