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The role and usefulness of Irish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| doubledouble Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5273 days ago 8 posts - 9 votes Studies: English | Message 57 of 162 21 June 2010 at 12:28am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I want to learn Irish but I'm not sure which dialect is best to start off with, living in Ulster I guess it wouldn't be sensible to say Conas atá tú? but Cad é mar a tá tú? I'm struggling to find any resources online focusing on Ulster dialect :S
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 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6910 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 58 of 162 21 June 2010 at 1:29am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I might remember wrong, but doesn't the Irish course (Giota Beag) at BBC focus on the Ulster dialect?
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 59 of 162 21 June 2010 at 2:10am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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It seems that the Irish speech synthesizer" (or 'blabbermouth') speaks Ulster Irish, so that would lend support to learning the Ulster dialect first. But it doesn't really matter which dialect you choose, because they are apparently all spoken actively by very few people (and the Ulster dialect is not the most widely used). Grab whatever you can get hold on!
On the other hand there can be no discussion about which written form to choose - the modern spelling is the one approved by the Irish Department of Education in 1948. But even at my level (ignominous beginner) I have noticed differences in spelling between my dictionary and Verbix and other systems, and between different textual sources on the internet. My trusty old Teach Yourself often mentions dialectal differences at all levels. Edited by Iversen on 21 June 2010 at 2:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Declan1991 Tetraglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6440 days ago 233 posts - 359 votes Speaks: English*, German, Irish, French | Message 60 of 162 21 June 2010 at 2:14pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Well you would say Goidé mar atá tú, because Cad é is pronounced, and normally written as Goidé in Donegal.
Most people use the spelling of An Caighdean Oifigiúil (the official standard), with the grammar and pronunciation of their own dialect. For example, mná is pronounced mrá in Conemara but still written as the former. However, there are some differences in writing, fá for faoi reflecting the pronunciation etc. Before 1950s the spelling was absolutely ridiculous, the infamous example being Lúghbhaidh, with all but the first two letter silent in modern Irish! Edited by Declan1991 on 21 June 2010 at 2:16pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Tally Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Israel Joined 5609 days ago 135 posts - 176 votes Speaks: English*, Modern Hebrew* Studies: French | Message 61 of 162 21 June 2010 at 2:47pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I think you convinced me there. Irish is now officially on my hit list :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 62 of 162 21 June 2010 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
While Irish is more conservative than Scottish Gaelic in terms of grammar, recent spelling reforms have made text in Old Gaelic less transparent to speakers of the modern language. Scottish Gaelic has a more conservative spelling system, so it's often claimed that Old Gaelic is easier to read for a Scottish Gael than an Irish one. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 63 of 162 01 July 2010 at 9:46am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
The point I was trying to make is that it is the combination of formal education and massive exposure that does the trick. We can look at three different examples: * English in Norway: 8 years of formal education + massive exposure = Very good results * German/French/Spanish in Norway: 3-6 years of formal education + very little exposure = mediocre results * English in Spain 6-8 years of formal education + little exposure= mediocre results. The one factor I did not mention of course is motivation. My sister had a charismatic German teacher, and wanted to impress him, and has a high degree of fluency in German now. I had the same teacher in French, and am now fluent in French. Not because he was a good French teacher, but because he made me love French, so that I the following year went to France and ended up studying it at the University of Oslo. And for the record, in my opinion you need to be an uncommonly motivated student in order to match a university study by self studying. What makes me sad, is that in Norway everyone who did high school, used to do English, German and French. Even those who specialized in Math had to do a little in all three languages. It did not make them fluent, but it gave them a basis, and those who were more interested could go on on their own. Now it is only the language nerds who do three foreign languages in high shool,and if your are too lazy you can just "specialize" in English and Norwegian instead of doing a second foreign language. The fact that most of us speak English well, make us forget how important the other languages are. We would for example need more people to be fluent in German, as Germany is an important trading partner,and in Germany people over the age of 50, who tend to have the most influential jobs, do not all speak English well. Had it been up to me, we would have started with English at the age of 4, German at the age of 7, French at the age of 10, Spanish at the age of 13, for then to let the pupils chose between Russian, Mandarin, Arabic or Japanese at the age of 16. This of course in combination with available TV- channels and games in all the mentioned languages, as well as in a number of other languages so that those who were particularly interested could learn more. Now that would help us learn the languages we needed!! 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Declan1991 Tetraglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6440 days ago 233 posts - 359 votes Speaks: English*, German, Irish, French | Message 64 of 162 01 July 2010 at 1:50pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Excellent post Solfrid, that's exactly what I think. The combination of education and exposure/motivation. Either on their own are a waste of time except for a few.
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