Grandma Girl here, happy St. Patrick's Day.

To help you get closer to your Irish heritage or simply celebrate as if you were Irish, I've

asked Benny Lewis to help us speak English like the Irish.

Benny is an Irish polyglot I met at Blog World who travels the globe while helping people

learn new languages.

Benny wrote this in the first person and I left it that way because it would have lost

too much of the Irish flavor if I'd changed it to third person.

So just know that when I say I, it's actually Benny, not me.

Despite there not really being a single Irish accent, there are commonalities that stem

from a combination of factors.

The most important being that just a few generations ago, Irish Gaelic was the dominant

language of the country.

Even though fewer people use Irish Gaelic these days, its influence on their English

is huge.

Irish grammar is pretty consistent, but the standard spoken form in Ireland takes

on a life of its own.

For example, rather than rely on to have just done for a recently completed action, we

would say to be after doing.

For example, instead of saying, I've just found a Euro on the road, an Irish speaker

would say, I'm after finding a Euro on the road.

Another interesting influence from Irish Gaelic is its absolute lack of the words yes and

no.

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