How to say “I Love You” to your Irish Valentine

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:

These tracks are from our complete lesson on Love and Terms of Endearment, available to Bitesize Irish 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 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:

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!”

Happy Valentine’s day from the Bitesize crew to you! Now get out there and share the love!