I have attempted to put together a list of the most common words and phrases for Irish. My aim is to help beginners, myself included, to focus solely on what is important.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0At9uxVPstuRGdFF1QnJ3eWZZc0N4S1NkU0l3VE5jQXc#gid=0

I'm going to add another column which offers each word and phrase as part of a simple sentence. However, I need help with this and am therefore looking for volunteers. Please contact me if your interested!

I previously learned Swedish with the help of such a list. It really helped my to understand roughly what people where on about, which is the most important step when learning a new language. On the train to work I would simply read down through the list until I hit a word I didn't know. I noticed that reading the words as part of a sentence was more efficient in terms of learning as context makes it easier to remember their meaning.

The list also includes sound clips and the rate of occurrence (0.01 = word occurs on average every 100 words), Apparently, native speakers are exposed to something in the order of one million words a week. Therefore it is my estimate that this list represents those words and phrases that are repeated at least once a week on average.

There's a problem with your list, sometimes, instead of words, there are 2 or 3 words or even parts of sentences... is it normal I thought there would be only single words...

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

That's on purpose! For example take the sentence "What are you on about?" "on about" has its own meaning independent of what "on" and "about" mean by themselves. In other words, "on about" is something extra we had to learn as children after we learned what "on" and "about" meant.

Thanks for this. I was going to ask if there's a reference book anyone knows of I can purchase.

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Suzanne D. Williams is a native Floridian, wife, and mother with a penchant for spelling things and an Irishman somewhere way back in her background.

Does Kevin Scannell participate here? Years ago he generated such a list for me as well.

Thanks to whoever is doing this, it's an invaluable resource. Oxford used to publish a series of books entitled "10,000 German Words" (or French, or Spanish, etc). and they were incredibly helpful. I always lamented the lack of such a resource for Irish.