[1] Word order in Irish is of the form VSO (verb–subject–object) so that, for example, "He hit me" is Bhuail [hit-past tense] sé [he] mé [me].
Examples are: Irish is an inflected language, having four cases: ainmneach (nominative and accusative), gairmeach (vocative), ginideach (genitive) and tabharthach (prepositional).
To a certain degree the gender difference is indicated by specific word endings, -án and -ín being masculine and -óg feminine.
Na is the only plural form of the article; it causes eclipsis in the genitive for both genders, and no mutation in other cases.
Names of countries usually take the definite article in the nominative: An Fhrainc "France", an Bhrasaíl "Brazil", an tSeapáin "Japan".
There is no indefinite article in Irish; the word appears by itself, for example: Tá peann agam.
Compare Áras an Uachtaráin or Teitheamh na nIarlaí to English the residence of the President, the flight of the Earls.
Adjectives in Irish have two morphological degrees of comparison: the positive (Irish: bunchéim), e.g. Tá an buachaill cairdiúil "the boy is friendly", and the comparative (breischéim), e.g. Tá an cailín níos cairdiúla ná an buachaill "the girl is nicer than the boy".
Adverbs can often be created from nouns by putting a preposition before them, e.g. ar bith, de ghnáth, faoi dheireadh, etc.
Examples of tense conjugations: (all third person forms without subject pronoun): In addition to the passive voice, there is the impersonal form of the verb, termed the saorbhriathar or "autonomous verb", which serves a similar function (the most literal translation is "You/One/They...[e.g. say, are, do]").
However, the official standard generally prescribes the analytic form in most person-tense combinations, and the synthetic in only some cases, such as the first person plural.
The form muid in the 1st person plural has only recently been approved for use in the official standard, but is very common in western and northern dialects.
The standard and southern dialects have no subject pronoun in the 1st person plural, using the synthetic verb ending -imíd (alternatively -imid) instead.
Irish has no T–V distinction, i.e. it does not differentiate between formal and familiar forms of second person pronouns.
Nonhuman conjunctive numbers are used to count nouns that do not refer to human beings, e.g. capall "horse" "One" as a pronoun is rendered with ceann (lit.