What better way to wow your favorite Celtophile than by saying “I love you” in Irish for Valentine’s Day?
As a special Valentine’s gift to you, here are a few different ways to express your love, complete with audio tracks, so you can actually SAY them to your beloved!
So many ways to share the love!
Sometimes people are surprised by the many different ways to say “I love you” in Irish. Here are a few especially nice ones you may want to consider.
This is a very basic “I love you” said to one person. It can be used for anyone from your lover to your child to your granny:
Tá grá agam duit
Want to get a bit more passionate? Here’s something you might say to a lover or spouse. It literally means “My love to you,” and is used to mean “You are my beloved”:
Mo ghrá thú
And for that ultimate expression of love –“I’m in love with you” — here’s:
Tá mé i ngrá leat
These tracks are from our complete lesson on Love and Terms of Endearment, available to Bitesize Irish Gaelic members. That lesson also includes various degrees of expressing affection, as well as ways to talk about love/expression in the third person and affectionate terms for people, each with an audio recording.
Looking for more?
Perhaps you’re looking for something to write on a card or gift tag? Here are a few options (just phonetics for these, I’m afraid…no audio!):
Do mo ghrá geal (duh muh ggrah gyal): For my dear/bright love
Do mo chéadsearc (duh muh KHAYD-shark): For my true love (this also works well for “soulmate.”)
Do stór mo chroí (duh stohr muh khree): For the treasure of my heart (so romantic!). Yes, for grammatical reasons, the “mo” has to be in the middle like that.
If you actually want to SAY these to your beloved, you’d replace do mo… (to/for my…), or do in the case of the last one, with a (pronounced “uh”), which is known as the vocative particle:
A ghrá geal (uh gghrah gyal)
A chéadsearc (uh KHAYD-shark)
A stór mo chroí (uh stohr muh khree).
We have quite a few other affectionate and/or friendly options for you here (link will open in a new window).
Or you can just keep it simple
Don’t want to mess with all the lovey dovey stuff? Just say “Happy Valentine’s Day!”
Lá fhéile Vailintín sona duit! (lah leh VAL-in-cheen SUN-uh ditch!)
Happy Valentine’s day from the Bitesize crew to you! Now get out there and share the love!
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4 thoughts on “How to say “I Love You” to your Irish Valentine”
How ‘loved” is Ireland in the EU as a matter of interest?! I am living in Australia and the Irish have a heritage here and Ireland,EU now seems to be aware of this with some younger folk from Ireland arriving out here apart from a handful of “hoons” who give Ireland a bad name and are not Church attendees and are largely “personae non gratae”!
I arrived out here in Australia nearly 53 years ago from what I prefer to call “the British Isles” having “shared loyalties” for both Ireland where I was born and resided during school and University vacations but received a British Education with the Church-preparatory school(Holy Family Prepartory School,Coombe RidgeHouse, Kingston-on-Thames with Irish and French Religious in a French Order of Religious “Holy Family Sisters” from Villefranche,in the South France-Foundress St.Emilie de Rodas who is mentioned in Lourdes,France EU _Our Lady of Lourdes & St.Bernadette in 1858 are commemorated today 11 February 2022 and does Ireland truly know the message of Lourdes aand what ensured in 1870-the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune alas!cf.The Apparitions of Our Lady of Knock and the two menSaints beside her St.Joseph & St.John the Evangelist and the message for the Feminine Gender “in ascent” and with the Church for the IIIrd millenium and with Divinity !and Secondary ‘grant-aided” convent School St.Pilomena’s,Carshalton House, Carshalton,.Surrey UK run by the Belgian Order from Liege,Belgium,EU “Daughters of the Cross”-Headmistress from 1957-1962 in my time up to “o” levels -Sr.Mary Winifride aka Sr.Monica McAulay after Vatican II who appeared “through the mind” in Port Douglas,Far North Queensland.Australia at the “Wicked Cafe” in Macrossan St who assisted when I pondered on how to describe the Catholic Church with the Anglican Faith and some of the Uniting Church who had in previous generations or have now some of the best persons in our society often taken for granted who are occupied in both the material and immaterial side of llving and go unsung apart form what is manifested in retail,building consruction and outdoor living etc in addition to Religious Callings either as Ordained Clergy or Consecrated Religious of the Feminine Gender and some men as Religious Brothers mainly in Teaching Orders-Sr,Monica Mcauley declared”The Church!” which I agreed with! and His Grace The Archbishop of Brisbane Mark Coleridge(Formerly Archbishop of Canberra & Goulburn on his return from a decade in Rome,EU in the Papacy and Holy See of St.John Paul II,from Poland,EU who added “The Church for the IIIrd Millenium!” and he together with His Grace The Archbishop of Perth Timothy Costelloe SDB DD are Joint Presidents of the Plenary Council in Australia convened a few years ago at the request of The Holy See in Rome,EU to consider “The Church for the IIIrd Millenium” within Australia.! His Grace Archbishop Timothy Costelloe with some Indian connections -his family arriving in Australia after India gained their Independence from the UK in 1947 it is surmised and so-called “Anglo-Indians” were not wanted too much in India by the Indian nationalists in that era and Western Australia with the Indian Ocean on its shores offered settlement to this particular group who preferred Australia with a sunny climate to returning to the UK. or anything like….! This group of “Ethnics”! including His Grace with an Irish surname and a personal name of “Timothy” from “St.Paul!” may be required with some “shared loyalties” to assist India as well as Australia and this might cure any divided loyalties if they prefer Australia but help India and how many of them pray in English or an Indian language after 240 years of British rule in India -this latter nation is over-populated and has not taken the Church throughout the whole nation but must now to save themselves and have a “new sort!” in India which keeps accepting secular help e.g. “Computer Call Centres & Technology”-Bangalore etc but do not become Sacramental or pray with the Church & offer some Religious Vocations from that “gargantuan” & confused polation non-inventive largely…apart from Mr Tata and his cars etc and Rajiv Ghandi too!Mrs Sonia Ghandi-an Italian lass, Former President Rajiv Ghandi’s spouse met /encountered in Cambridge,UK as an English Laguage Student has not been able to “evangelise” the Indian population and society-possibly owing to incomplete understanding of the Church and Faith and has she heard of the new “divinations” i.e India since the time of the Apostles and St.Thomas one of them appointed to India should offer their story and events etc since “Anno Domini” from their records in nation with the Church’s Teaching as outlined in the Church’s Cathechism (Edited by emeritus Holy Father Benedict XVI of Germany,EU) and try and aspire to better moral standards in line with Science and Invention with Divinity for this nation!
Please convey these comments to the dioceses of Dublin and the other provincial capitals as well as the Cathedral @ Armagh for “Ireland-North & South”!
“What language do you pray in..!” is the question of this era and we have had “a gutful” of language -learning admiring secular culture without mention of “the divinity” and Science and Technology/Invention of the nationor not! in this the new and IIIrd millenium” -i.e. “The Church as the One & only Creed with the Holy Bible, the Church’s Teaching and the nation’s story /CHIEVEMENTS in the two millenia since…as of NOW!” and for all citizens to return to “Religious Observance” writ in the Law or the Church’s rulings as well as the First Three Commandments of God.. from the Old Testament-The Jews in nation are expected to ascend to the Church and give their support and intelligence to the Church as well as their allegiance whole-hearted to the nation they are living in and what about the parlous state of the “Biblical lands….!?” who except for modern Israel founded in 1948 are in thraldom with the outmoded reed of Islam alas!Can this be addressed and redressed..!
Thanks again
A nice phrase i picked up in my study of irish. “An bhean is teo le m’chroi . The woman dearest to my heart. This might help some poor man stuck for a phrase on st. Valentines day.! Padraig.
Another reason for visiting Ireland, besides learning/improving one’s Irish,
could be, to visit the Shrine to Saint Valentine
http://www.herald.ie/news/lovers-make-pilgrimage-to-st-valentines-dublin-shrine-28000704.html
Gearóid