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Irish and Welsh: Day 1 | ||
Tags: Welsh | Gaelic (Irish) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Talilugh Newbie United States Joined 4571 days ago 9 posts - 12 votes Studies: Irish | Message 1 of 15 29 May 2012 at 2:04am | IP Logged |
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So today is my first day of simultaneous study of Irish and Welsh. Tá mé ag foghlaim Gaeilge agus Breatnais. Dwi'n dysgu Cymraeg a Gwyddeleg.
I have really wanted to learn the three major Celtic languages (Irish, Welsh and Gaelic) for a long time. Since Irish and Welsh are both so beautiful, I could not choose between the two, and since I have enough time in between semesters (I can dedicate about an hour each a day) I figured to just go for it. Irish and Welsh are different enough that hopefully there won't be too much confusion between the two. Irish will be my main focus, and I would like to one day become fluent in it. I would like to at least become an intermediate speaker of Welsh and Gaelic (I figured that at this point Gaelic and Irish would be too similar and I would get them confused too easily, and I also prefer the sound of Irish over Gaelic. Yes, there is a difference!) My main tools will be Teach Yourself Irish(not the older Munster-based version but the newer and less-popular version by Diarmuid Ó Sé) and Teach Yourself Welsh. I will be supplementing these with the wonderful resources available for FREE on the BBC's Learning Welsh and Irish websites. There's tons of games, quizes, dictionaries, grammars, and lessons for all three UK languages. I have also been watching a lot of TG4, and listening to a lot of BBC Radio Cymru and Raidió na Gaeltachta. Today, I continued working on Unit 8 of Teach Yourself Irish and I started Unit 2 of Teach Yourself Welsh. Unit 8 focuses on expressing likes and dislikes, ownership, and describing people. It turns out Irish uses idiomatic phrases to express the notion ''I like''. Is maith liom Gaeilge. I like Irish. (literally ''Irish is good with me''). This is in contrast to the more direct Welsh: Dwi'n hoffi Gwyddeleg. (literally ''I like Irish''). From what little I have learned, Irish grammar seems a lot more complicated than Welsh. There are lots of idiomatic phrases and lenition rules. That's not to say that Welsh mutations are not strange, but Teach Yourself Welsh seems to ease into the grammar alot easier than Ó Sé's text, which bombards you with about a dozen grammar points per lesson. While I enjoy speaking both languages, Welsh is also easier to read and to pronounce. Back to todays lessons. So I learned how to express likes, describe people, and express ownership. Again, in Irish an idiomatic phrase is used. Is liom an leabhar seo. The book is mine (lit. ''The book is with me''). We'll see in future lessons how this compares with Welsh. So far, the grammar seems fairly similar. Both languages place the verb first in the sentence, both use a particle with the verbal noun (Tá mé ag foghlaim, Dwi'n dysgu). Although I have noticed a few differeces, the similarities should make studying both grammars easier. My Welsh lessons were focused still on the basics, such as talking more about yourself and counting from one to ten. So I'll try to get in an hour of each tomorrow and post on progress. 28 Bealtaine 2012 Irish (1 hour 30 minutes) Welsh (1 hour) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Ellsworth Senior Member United States Joined 4965 days ago 345 posts - 528 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Irish | Message 2 of 15 29 May 2012 at 3:20am | IP Logged |
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While I love seeing people study Celtic languages, I would really strongly warn against studying Irish and Welsh at the same time. They have quite a few cognates and I really think it would mess you up. Why not just study one for a couple of months then move onto the other? Edited by Ellsworth on 29 May 2012 at 5:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4715 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 3 of 15 29 May 2012 at 10:55am | IP Logged |
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Interference isn't such a big problem imho.
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| Talilugh Newbie United States Joined 4571 days ago 9 posts - 12 votes Studies: Irish | Message 4 of 15 29 May 2012 at 11:14am | IP Logged |
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Ellsworth - I appreciate the concern, but thus far after flipping through the glossaries of both courses I have hardly found any cognates. I came across mawr in Welsh and mór in Irish meaning ''big'', but the languages are so different phonetically (at least to my ear) and the inventory of words is so different that so far I haven't had a problem confusing the two. But I will certainly keep your advice in mind and will concentrate completely on Irish if things get too thorny!
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| Ellsworth Senior Member United States Joined 4965 days ago 345 posts - 528 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Irish | Message 5 of 15 29 May 2012 at 12:13pm | IP Logged |
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Yeah well I am sure you can do it. It was just a thought. Good luck, I can't wait to see your progress.
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| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5564 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 6 of 15 29 May 2012 at 12:47pm | IP Logged |
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Ádh mór ort (good luck), a Thalilugh! I'm half-tempted to do a bit of Welsh on the side too (Say Something in Welsh looks like a good place to start). :) Edited by Teango on 29 May 2012 at 12:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Talilugh Newbie United States Joined 4571 days ago 9 posts - 12 votes Studies: Irish | Message 7 of 15 29 May 2012 at 12:58pm | IP Logged |
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Teango - Go raibh maith agat. Tá an Bhreatnais siúmiuil ar ndóigh. I don't know anything about Say Something in Welsh, but I'm using Original Catchphrase (http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/catchphrase/catchphrase1/lessons 1.shtml) as a supplement to Teach Yourself Welsh. Tá 144 aonaid ann! For free! It's been really helpful since I only have the book and not the audio CDs. (Those are on order). BBC also has an 87 page grammar PDF you can skim through to get an idea of the language. Go raibh maith agat arís. Slán!
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| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5564 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 8 of 15 29 May 2012 at 1:05pm | IP Logged |
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Nice find! I'll be bookmarking the BBC "learn Welsh" section for later, it looks really good. Edited by Teango on 29 May 2012 at 1:05pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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