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The role and usefulness of Irish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| maaku Senior Member United States Joined 5574 days ago 359 posts - 562 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 65 of 162 01 July 2010 at 9:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm not Irish, and in fact haven't spent more than 12 hours in the country for a stopover on the way back from Europe a week ago (can't wait to go back though!). But during those twelve hours I had an interesting conversation with an Irish polyglot I met in a pub. I asked him why he speaks so many languages (English, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch), but not Irish. His response was first that Irish is taught like a dead language in Irish schools, comparing it to Latin. He could conjugate verbs very quickly and impressively, but couldn't hold a basic conversation. Second, many/most Irish teachers are employed merely by virtue of the fact that they are native speakers and don't have sufficient training in teaching, linguistics, or second language acquisition. Finally, he said the standard material used was dreadfully depressing, and that as a kid he made the association that Irish = dreary and disheartening. He was hopeful that educational reforms would be made for the next generation.
Just one Irishman's opinion, delivered second-hand. Edited by maaku on 01 July 2010 at 9:11pm 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| SeanOB Newbie Ireland Joined 5400 days ago 4 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* | Message 66 of 162 13 January 2011 at 12:58am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Tús Maith Parts 1, 2 & 3, present a kind of standardised Donegal Irish that is influenced by the standard language. Each volume comes with a number of CDs and is a good place to start. An Ghaeilge Ó Lá Go Lá, by Art Hughes is a beginner's book of exercises based on Donegal Irish as is his intermediate level 'Trialacha Tuigbheála' which also has CDs. Art also has a serious of recorded dialogues (without grammar notes - that version still isn't published despite being used in the Diploma In Irish at the University of Ulster) called 'Bunchomhrá Gaeilge'. His big verb book contains lots of useful verbs conjugated in the Standard but also in the three main dialect groupings, therefore including Donegal. http://www.benmadiganpress.com/english/publications.html I hope that will get you started! 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 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 67 of 162 13 January 2011 at 1:37am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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My own studies of Irish are on hold until I have 'digested' Bahasa, but I find the language very interesting, and it seems that there is a devoted group of people who put lots of useful things on the internet. I find Maaku's summary of his discussion with the Irishman very informative - bad teachers can kill of any language, and a language with the connotations of being confined to rural areas and a few music groups is especially vulnerable.
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| Laurae Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 5038 days ago 51 posts - 67 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Dutch | Message 68 of 162 12 February 2011 at 3:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
As an Irish person, I also had many years of Irish tuition in school. I had the opportunity to take an oral Irish test for my entry to the public and civil service 2 years ago. I haven't had the necessity or opportunity to speak it since my interview, but was surprised my ability after 9 years! However,I think that my knowledge of French, which I also learned at school is far superior to my Irish language abilities. I agree that Irish has 'dreary' and 'disheartening' connotations amongst school children. As a teenager, I was upset that I could not learn two European languages at my school, but was obliged to learn Irish. In contrast I am very impressed when I visit Wales and encounter the enthusiasm and love for the Welsh language. In my opinion, the biggest problem in teaching Irish comes from NON-NATIVE speakers who have been taught poor Irish (especially pronunciation) through the school system; obviously some teachers will study to a degree standard in university, though there is generlly a low number contact hours for the language in Irish universities (I base this on the experience of two students I know). In contrast, my experience of native Irish speaking teachers has always been positive; they have shared a true joy and fluent lively usage of Irish. For an excellent and amusing account of the status of the Irish language in Ireland, and the difficulties in learning it, I highly recommend this RTE TV programme: http://www.rte.ie/tv/inthenameofthefada/ It was very popular in Ireland! Edited by Laurae on 12 February 2011 at 4:09pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Damhsa Newbie United States Joined 5034 days ago 3 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Irish | Message 69 of 162 12 February 2011 at 8:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Tá mé ag foghlaim Gaeilge - I am learning Irish!
It is not an easy thing to do, as I live in a part of the United States where I've never met a single person who speaks the language (most people here think "Irish" means English with an Irish accent). Regardless, I've been listening to the language in music since I was ten years old and am drawn to it for many reasons, but mostly the aesthetic beauty and the culture. I'm about six months into my studies, and spend a minimum of 30 minutes daily learning, though many days I will go for hours. I especially love TG4; it is an Irish television station available online, I watch the news, a soap opera, and lots of documentaries, interviews, and TV specials in the language. Every few weeks I become very distraught and say "That's it! I'm done!" but the next morning I am again listening to the news; the language has magnetic properties for me. If anyone is interested in hearing some beautiful samples of the language being used in very diverse ways, I have a many good YouTube videos saved - native speaker conversations, popular music, weather forecasts, poetry, etc. There don't seem to be many people on this forum learning Irish, though. It is very hard to find an active forum for the Irish language, especially for beginners. The only active Irish forums are far too advanced for me to take part of. I joined this one for the learning strategies section. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5556 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 70 of 162 13 February 2011 at 8:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Welcome to the forum, Damhsa. It's great to see another admirer of the Irish language, and I completely agree about TG4 - it really does have a bevy of brilliant award-winning programmes and the website's a pleasure to use!
Like Iversen, I've also got Irish on hold for the moment, just until I get somewhere in Russian and brush up a bit on the languages I've let slide since last year. However I'm planning to go full throttle on Irish next year and would be very happy to share any info or discoveries I've made in the meantime if you and others are interested. Here's a link to the Irish resources I'll be using. So far, I haven't been able to find any suitable long parallel texts (and believe me, I've contacted nearly everyone I could think of and really scoured the Net), however I've found some excellent potential resources for which you can get the Irish, English and accompanying audio, and have included them in the list I've linked too. I wish you all the best with your continuing studies, and would be really interested to hear how you get on in the meantime (perhaps you could start a log for Irish here on the forum). :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Khublei Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Yugoslavia homestayperu.net Joined 5347 days ago 90 posts - 141 votes Speaks: English*, Irish*, Spanish Studies: Russian, Khasi, French, Albanian | Message 71 of 162 14 February 2011 at 1:26pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
What kind of parallel texts would you like? It's something I've been thinking about doing for quite a while. I'm a writer (blogger really) who writes in English and Irish. I could if you like take some newspaper articles and translate them to English? I'd probably get done for copyright but if it was just sending them by email and not publishing them it should be fine. Why don't we start an Irish thread? We can have a simple conversation there. I can tell you how to say whatever you need to. I'm an aspiring Irish teacher so I would love to help some people out! Oh, and if you haven't discovered it yet, Gaelscéal is an Irish language newspaper that is available for free online. Check out www.gaelsceal.ie Edited by Khublei on 14 February 2011 at 1:28pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5556 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 72 of 162 14 February 2011 at 4:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Some great ideas there, Khublei! And thanks for your link, I've added it to the list.
Anything really would be great. Ideally, I'm trying to put together interesting contemporary material where we have i) the Irish text, ii) an English translation, and iii) some good quality accompanying Irish audio. Anything like this would be incredibly useful. And if you could manage it, you'd definitely go right to the top of my "who I want to buy a round of guinness for" list. :)
How wonderful, I'd love to be able to do something like this one day. Do you have a link to your blogsite?
I haven't really started my journey in Irish yet; just dabbled a bit, and collected lots of info and materials over the last few years in preparation for the road ahead. Juggling languages to learn and maintain is so hard, especially balancing this with work and home. Yet it goes without saying that I am very passionate about all of them, and especially Irish. I just wish I could do this full-time (yeah, guess I'll just have to keep playing the lotto too!). Right at this moment I'm working on Russian, which is proving to be quite a challenge, however I've got Irish penciled in for 2012 and more than enough resources to get started. And with the positive feedback I've been getting from everyone recently to start up sooner, and the strong allure of TG4, I might still bring that date forward and take you up on this properly (if you don't mind waiting for me to catch up). ;) Edited by Teango on 14 February 2011 at 4:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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