How To Say I Like To Read In Irish

Let’s take a bitesized look at how to say ‘I like to read’ in Irish, and learn some associated vocabulary!

Is maith liom a bheith ag léamh /Iss mah lyum a veh eg lay-uv/

We can break this sentence down into three constituent parts:

Firstly, Is maith liom /Iss mah lyum/ means ‘I like’ (though translated literally it means ‘Is good with me’).

Secondly, a bheith /a veh/ means ‘to be’ (and contains the verbal noun of the verb bí /bee/, ‘to be’)

And thirdly, ag léamh /eg lay-uv/ combine the preposition ag and léamh, which is the verbal noun of the verb léigh /layg/, ‘to read’.

So, ‘I like to be reading’, or in the idiom of English, ‘I like to read’.

We can use this structure to talk about anything that we enjoy doing, simply by changing the verb that we use in its verbal noun form at the end of the sentence.

Is maith liom a bheith ag siúl /Iss mah lyum a veh eg shool/, for instance (‘I like to walk’) or Is maith liom a bheith ag canadh /Iss mah lyum a veh eg kon-ah/ (‘I like to sing’).

But back to books and reading!

If you want books you might go to a bookshop. The Irish for bookshop is siopa leabhar /shup-ah

low-er/. This term contains the irish word for shop, siopa, and the Irish word book, leabhar, in its genitive plural form (it just happens to be the same as the nominative singular!).

You might prefer to go to the library, in which case you’ll looking for an leabharlann /un low-er-lun/.

Here we have that word for book again, leabhar, plus the word ending ‘lann’ which features commonly in Irish nouns that are places devoted to a particular purpose. Bialann /bee-a-lun/, for instance is a restaurant (bia means food).

In Irish all nouns are either masculine of feminine, and all of these names for places that have the word ending ‘lann’ happen to be feminine. Figuring out what gender a noun is in Irish can be tricky but there a number of word groups that are either feminine of masculine – check out our free Noun Gender Cheat Sheet if you would like to dispel the mystery and find out what they are!

So what do you like to read?

Perhaps you like crime stories: Is maith liom coirscéalta /Iss mah lyum kwir-shkee/ul/thah/

..or poetry: Is maith liom filíocht /Iss mah lyum fil-ee-ukth/

Or maybe you prefer mythology: Is maith liom miotaseolaíocht Iss mah lyum myut-as-o-lee-ukhth/

..or science fiction: Is maith liom ficsean eolaíochta /Iss mah lyumfik-shen ow-lee-uk-thuh/