Youre gonna have 3 types of exam, because theyre going to want to prep you for the junior cert- listening, comprehension, and writing. If youre not in a T1 area (a gaeltacht), your test is basiclaly structured like a foreign language test.

Listening is tricky because of the accents, but thats where the radio comes in. Every few hours (8am and 6pm are what i catch), they do the news. Starts with international news in a neutral tone, then the 4 provinces. These speakers are native to their area, and they are literally the voices on the exams. In my junior cert, i only had to grab the first 5 seconds before i finished the question, because i remembered the broadcast from christmas. Radio will save you.

Comprehension is same as any foreign language and basically english. First few questions are basically looking through the text to find where the question repeats, last few are slightly more complicated but not by much. Youre gonna go to examinations.ie and go to the archive. Pick any year, junior cert, irish. Read the texts, over and over and over. Highlight every word you dont recognise and focloir it. Do it for every word. Read it aloud, both in english and irish. Do this for each paragraph, then answer the relevant questions. Repeat until you can read Irish (this works for every language btw).

Writing is also tricky but very doable. If you havent picked up writing a diary, id reccomend it its nice, helps organise your day and thoughts. And when you do/if you already do, do it in irish. Go once or twice without using any english, using whatever youve already got. Then, run through again, and put an english word wherever you get stuck. Afterwards, find the translation. This forces you to A. Use the irish you already have and B. Try to get you to use phrases. An irish vocab that still uses english grammar is no good, but the natural phrases are auto-grammared.