How to say “Good morning” in Scottish Gaelic.
Let’s get straight into it. The Scottish Gaelic words for “good morning” are “Madainn mhath.”.
If we were to use phonetics (the phonetics that I use are sounds that I hope you will be familiar with in the English language), I would say it as follows:.
Ma-dean or Ma-teen for “Madainn,” which means’morning”
Vah for “mhath,” which means ‘good’
You may be wondering why I am giving you two options, or “Madainn.”.
It has a ‘d’ in it, not a ‘t’. You can see it’s a ‘d’; I can see that it’s a ‘d’, so why am I also saying ‘t’?
Honestly, it’s not to confuse you. This is about tongue placement, and tongue placement is a prominent feature in speaking Gaelic, but I go over that in detail in my course (click here to find out more).
Often, when we use the letter ‘d’ in English, we use the tip of our tongue to form that hard or broad ‘d’ sound, e.g., dog, dad, and day, but the ‘d’ in “Madainn” is made by using a slender version of the letter, and this is done by flattening the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth, which often sounds more like a ‘t’ e.g., bottle, little, later.
I urge you to go with whichever version feels most natural to you, because I find that it requires less effort to remember in the long run.
Learn Scottish Gaelic with me, and make sure to join my easy, beginner-friendly course for more in-depth details!
