Shinn Trilingual Tetraglot Groupie India gallery.takingitglob Joined 6412 days ago 61 posts - 69 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi*, Oriya*, SpanishB2 Studies: FrenchB1, Japanese, Irish
| Message 9 of 25 21 November 2008 at 11:08pm | IP Logged |
Cainntear wrote:
A lot of people complained about No Bearla: the presenter interviewed a lot of people in Irish and then completely skipped them in the film, because it didn't help him make his point. |
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I wasn't aware of that but I don't find it hard to believe that people might have complained; filmamkers and documentary filmmakers in particular, do tend to be biased at times. I watched it because it was the only thing I could find in Irish at that time, although I was a little surprised at the reactions he received.
I notice you speak Scots Gaelic. As a point of interest, how similar are the two, particularly as far as pronunciation goes?
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Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh
| Message 10 of 25 22 November 2008 at 4:01am | IP Logged |
The pronunciation is quite different. Vocabulary-wise, it's the most common words that are the most different. Irish also has a more complicated grammar, with 1 or 2 more verb tenses than Gaelic and a few different endings.
All in all, there's a large gap in understanding, but they are idiomatically nearly identical so the conceptual gap is very small (only those pesky extra/missing tenses) and there's plenty of folk who've learned one quite quickly from the other.
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scop Diglot Groupie Ireland Joined 5849 days ago 70 posts - 73 votes Speaks: English*, Irish Studies: German, Ancient Greek
| Message 11 of 25 22 November 2008 at 7:48am | IP Logged |
To the question about pronounciation I think most Irish people find it easy, intuitive somewhat, and I cannot explain why that is. They also fall into the grammar easily enough, but that is linked to Hiberno-Irish which is English fiddled about somewhat from the old Irish structure.
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draoicht Groupie Ireland Joined 6313 days ago 89 posts - 146 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 12 of 25 22 November 2008 at 9:48am | IP Logged |
Hi Shinn
Heres some links for you to have a look at
Daltai, here, has a great forum for people learning Irish.
"Progress in Irish" is a good book for a beginner learning Irish here
Audio for "Progress in Irish" here
Resources for "Progress in Irish" here
Yahoo Group for "Progress in Irish" here
All the above resources are free except for the book and I think you might be able to get it cheaper than Amazon are asking for it.
Edit I found the book elsewhere much cheaper here
Edited by draoicht on 22 November 2008 at 10:11am
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jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6909 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map
| Message 13 of 25 22 November 2008 at 11:43am | IP Logged |
I once read somewhere that the dialect used in the old 1974 edition of Linguaphone was a somewhat artificial "standard" Irish, and that nobody really speaks that way. I've also heard that Teach Yourself Irish is based on Munster dialect. Maybe somebody could confirm that?
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Shinn Trilingual Tetraglot Groupie India gallery.takingitglob Joined 6412 days ago 61 posts - 69 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi*, Oriya*, SpanishB2 Studies: FrenchB1, Japanese, Irish
| Message 14 of 25 22 November 2008 at 2:19pm | IP Logged |
I'm repeating myself, but a great big thanks to all of you for your help and answers. Someone once told me that learning a fairly uncommon language might be difficult because of the availability of the resources (or the lack thereof) but the support from speakers is usually far more. I guess that's right!
jeff_lindqvist, it's true that the Teach Yourself Irish series used to be based on the Munster dialect, but the new one (by Diarmuid O Se and Joseph Shiels) follows Standard Irish. I happen to have the book and audio, and I've tried out the first couple of lessons. Although the content thankfully stays away from that awful touristy tripe that makes up Pimsleur, the audio sounds a little... odd; almost computer generated, rather than human read. I have used Teach Yourself Japanese to great success, so I'm hoping I'm wrong and that Teach Yourself Irish works the same miracle on my Gaeilge.
On the other hand, I liked Pimsleur's audio and perhaps it is better to stick to one dialect (Pimsleur uses Munster) if what I've read online is true. It seems dialects can differ far more than I had imagined. On the IMDB page of the movie I mentioned earlier, I read that they could be as different as Chinese and Arabic -- confirmations, anyone?
I found some old files that I had from last year when I first decided to check out Irish and I found a few links, which I'll post here in case anyone's interested. This is a pretty thorough list of Irish learning material found online. I particularly liked Giota Beag and Giota Beag Eile which I had listened to back then. It's a good show, but it isn't enough for the serious learner who wants to go beyond an cupla focail.
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Aras Groupie United States Joined 6758 days ago 76 posts - 83 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Ancient Greek
| Message 15 of 25 22 November 2008 at 4:44pm | IP Logged |
Quote:
I mentioned earlier, I read that they could be as different as Chinese and Arabic -- confirmations, anyone? |
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That's false, from my experience and that of many others.
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jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6909 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map
| Message 16 of 25 22 November 2008 at 7:12pm | IP Logged |
Yes, that sounds extremely exaggerated. I have only had very little exposure to spoken Irish (and mostly through songs), though.
Some information about dialects and differences:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munster_Irish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Irish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connacht_Irish
http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaeilge/gramadach/canuinti.html
http://www.irishlanguage.net/irish/dialects.asp
Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 22 November 2008 at 7:15pm
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