I am trying to get a friend to join the local Irish class.

If he wants to pick 20 useful verbs to learn inside out what do ye think would be the most useful, in addition to the irregular verbs which do be used a lot.

Basically he wants a stock of verbs and phrases related to them that he can fall back on and be able to say something in most situations, even if it is not completely correct.

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Bíonn rudaí maithe mall

A list of the top 1000 Irish words by frequency: http://borel.slu.edu/fleiscin/mile.html.

Extracting a list of the top 20 regular verbs is going to be a bit tricky because there's been no attempt to tag anything by part of speech. So, for instance, I suspect roinnt is ranked at 169 on account of its use as a quantifier rather than as a verbal noun. But it does represent a jumping-off point at least.

You might like to have a look at the resources page on the Cumann Gaeilge na hAstráile website -

www.gaeilgesanastrail.com/docs/verbs.html

maybe these for starters
ól; scríobh; léigh; siúil; cuir; éist; oscail; dún; imir; caith; rith; labhair; foghlaim; bris.

Bain and féach seems like obvious omissions to me. I would also include fág, fan, glac, and imigh at the very least.

I almost feel there needs to be a separate list for ones that mostly appear as verbal nouns. Siúil falls into that category for me, along with braith, codail, cónaigh, luigh, seas, and suigh.

Come to think of it, one of the more interesting features of Irish is its tendency to use expressions that are paraphrastic or even, strictly speaking, non-verbal (depending on your analysis of the copula) where English would use an ordinary verb or modal. So I think any list of "basic verbs" in Irish is going to need to include some of these. At a minimum probably:

With copula

• cóir/ceart
• cosúil
• cuma
• dócha
• dóigh
• féidir
• gá
• leor
• maith

With bí

• ábalta/in ann
• ag
• aithne
• ar
• cead
• eolas
• f(h)ios
• ó
• súil
• suim/spéis

Aon dearmhaid follasacha?

Great thanks lads

As well as the list below I was thinking on fiafraigh agus Braith ?

Bain
Féach
Fág
Fan
Glac
Imigh
ól;
scríobh;
léigh;
siúil;
cuir;
éist;
oscail;
dún;
caith;
rith;
labhair;
foghlaim;
bris
tóg
glan
díol
gearr
caill
nigh
líon
tar
tabhair
ith
clois
beir
abair
déan
téigh
faigh
feic
ceannaigh
tosaigh
críochnaigh
dúisigh
cruinnigh
deisigh
éirigh
imigh
foghlaim
ceangail
imir
inis



Typical, my attempt to give my friend a helping nudge in spiraling out of control.
I was going to give him a list of twenty verbs with maybe 2-3 phrases with each.
Now I am looking at a list of fifty plus, then considering verbal nouns and worst of all the copula

All valid points though.

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Bíonn rudaí maithe mall

I started writing out my list and doing up some phrases
tar Do thána tagaim tiocfad
tabhair do thugas tugaim tabharfad
ith d’itheas ithim íosfad
clois Chuala cloisim cloisfead
beir Do rugas beirim béarfad
abair dúrt deirim déarfad
déan do dheineas deinim déanfad
téigh Chuas téim Raghad
faigh fuaireas faighim gheobhad
feic chonac cím chífead

then I realised that of course for all of these I will have to have a mix of the different personal forms and examples of the negatives and questions. Not so quick

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Bíonn rudaí maithe mall

You should look for ways to economise, at least initially. For instance, I don't know that you need to include fiafraigh when you also have ceist a chur ar and bheith ceist ag X ar Y available. Not only does that help him get accustomed to Gaelic idiom, it also avoids having to teach a word with a somewhat non-intuitive pronunciation in Munster (i.e. fiafraí > fiarthaí).