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I went through them with several friends on Skype. We would listen to Tadhg read a chapter. You can download it into your iTunes and then listen with your study partner while you’re on a Skype call. Then we read one paragraph to each other through the same chapter we just heard Tadhg reading. Then we would go back and translate with the other person reading the alternate paragraph while the other person translates. It is EXTREMELY helpful. We did this on Skype over the last several months. You can also try to ask each other questions about the chapter after you’ve read it. For example. “Cén fáth a raibh na Fianna ag troid le chéile?” You will learn alot of Irish this way.
Ní féidir liom Skype. But reading them will still help. 🙂
Wow, Lughaidh’s posts did dissappear…that is STRANGE!
I also saw some of my posts disapear on this thread as well as the one about Census. I’m assuming there may have been a crash and they restored database from backup. Any posts between scheduled backup and crash would have been lost.
However that’s just a guess on my part. (I work in IT)
Cad chuige nach bhfuil tú ábalta Skype a dhéanamh? Tá sé an easca. Caithfidh tú ach cheannach “microphone” agus má teagmhail ar idirlíon agat, is féidir leat Skype a dhéanamh. Ní caithfidh ceamara a bheith agat.
Cad chuige nach bhfuil tú ábalta Skype a dhéanamh? Tá sé an easca. Caithfidh tú ach cheannach “microphone” agus má teagmhail ar idirlíon agat, is féidir leat Skype a dhéanamh. Ní caithfidh ceamara a bheith agat.
Oh, it’s not a technological issue, it’s a 4 kids, full time job, shared computer time-management thing. The only time I can truly be certain that I would be available is my lunch hour at work. Where, of course, such usage of their equipment/bandwidth is strictly forbidden. Still, I’m sure the books will help. I was actually quite surprised how much of it I could read….Like your message! I didn’t need the dictionary once! 🙂
I speak very basic Irish. I can express a whole lot of what I wish to express. (whether I’m doing it right or not is another question). There is just NO SUBSTITUTE for you interacting with someone in the language. Find a study buddy in your area and enjoy. I think it is a good idea also to just read the text in a simple meaning way. Assume the simpler meaning like on that one phrase “le chéile” “with each other”. These are basic basic books that are not meant to have a lot of innuendo etc. which is good for us. I find that some folks on forums etc really complicate the hell out of it all. It if were all that precise and complicated no one would speak in the language. I try to spell everything in standard Irish to get one paradigm down in my mind, so I would recommend that you do that. You will notice that Tadhg has written the books in starndard Irish. Ádh mór ort. Chuir cheist orm t-am ar bith nuair atá ceist faoin leabhair agat. Le meas, Féabar
Dia dhuit arís a Aislingeach,
I (finally!) started reading books last year and because I am learning Munster Irish, I began with a nursery rhyme book in the Munster dialect called Rabhlaí Rabhlaí
http://www.cdu.mic.ul.ie/rabhlai/default.htm
Now I have moved on to the next book in the series which is a collection of folk-tales called Scéilín Ó Bhéilín
http://www.litriocht.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=374
Both of these books come with CD’s of native speakers reading every rhyme and story.
You mentioned that you are learning Munster Irish so I thought I should let you know about these books. There is a 3rd book in the series called Tídil Eidil Éró but I haven’t checked it out yet.
http://www.litriocht.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=6031
Actually, there are tons of books, songs and poetry written in the Munster dialect so there is no shortage of things to read – especially if you like folk-lore and poetry 🙂
By the way, I personally don’t see any reason why you should conform to “standard” spelling for everything that you write. There are lots of words in the Irish language with valid alternate spellings that are all to be found in Ó Dónaill’s Dictionary. If it’s a real word and it’s in the dictionary, I don’t see why you shouldn’t use it. Just putting in my two cents 😉
If it’s a real word and it’s in the dictionary, I don’t see why you shouldn’t use it.
yesssssssss
and I’ll even say: if Gaeltacht people say it, it should be in the dictionary (not all Gaeltacht words and expressions are in the dictionaries, unfortunately) and I don’t see why you shouldn’t use it 😆
Tá an ceart agat, a Lughaidh!
I think the perception that standard Irish is the only “correct” form, only serves to marginalize native Gaeltacht speakers.
I agree with you. Fortunately, not everybody believes that standard Irish is more correct than Gaeltacht Irish. There are other countries where most of the linguistic diversity has disappeared because of such stupid ideology… may it not happen in Ireland!
I speak very basic Irish. I can express a whole lot of what I wish to express. (whether I’m doing it right or not is another question). There is just NO SUBSTITUTE for you interacting with someone in the language. Find a study buddy in your area and enjoy. I think it is a good idea also to just read the text in a simple meaning way. Assume the simpler meaning like on that one phrase “le chéile” “with each other”. These are basic basic books that are not meant to have a lot of innuendo etc. which is good for us. I find that some folks on forums etc really complicate the hell out of it all. It if were all that precise and complicated no one would speak in the language. I try to spell everything in standard Irish to get one paradigm down in my mind, so I would recommend that you do that. You will notice that Tadhg has written the books in starndard Irish. Ádh mór ort. Chuir cheist orm t-am ar bith nuair atá ceist faoin leabhair agat. Le meas, Féabar
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and suggestions with me. 🙂 I enjoy feedback from other learners, as it often contains helpful hints, and answers to questions I haven’t yet asked. But I also enjoy the discussions that some would consider “overcomplicated.” The precision and exactitude appeal to the perfectionist in me. In fact, that is how I learn best. I always need to know the “why” of everything. The big picture never seems to “click” for me until I thoroughly understand the nuts and bolts of it. If there is an exception to a rule, I need to know why it is an exception in order to remember its existence. That’s just the way my mind works. Fortunately, there are people here with a wealth of knowledge, at all skill levels, and the patience to explain it! As for the spelling, I am not a big fan of the CO. My preference is to learn dialectal Irish; familiarity with the standard will come from exposure to Irish media. But that is simply a personal choice, and perhaps not the best choice for others. Thank you also, for your offer of assistance with questions about the Fionn Mac Cumhaill books. It is appreciated.
A WFM, grma for the info and links. Going shopping tomorrow! 🙂
I certainly don’t mind complexity when it is there (like the direct and indirect forms I’ve been working on). I appreciate your comments and don’t mean at all to say Standard Irish is somehow superior. It is just what has helped me to gain a starting point in what is a very difficult language. (I found Hebrew much easier even with a different alphabet). I always want to know how thoughts are expressed in the Standard so I can understand it when I see it in a newspaper, magazine or a book (or when you talk to many people who were raised in Irish in Dublin….many speak a very “standard” sort of Irish) . And as you point out you do see the dialectal forms from time to time. I spent 3 weeks in the Donegal Gaeltacht last summer and will return in July. We would look at songs and things that were in Ulster dialect. Other than that most of the learning materials they gave us were I believe in Standard Irish (not really sure about that) but naturally we learned the Donegal/Ulster way of saying basic certain verbs, question words, etc. I don’t know if somethings like “Cad chuige”, “tig liom”, “Cad é mar tá tú”, “fosta”, “cluisim”, “druid” are considered “standard” or not. I just use them as that is how we spoke up in Ulster. I stayed with Irish speaking families and they just tried to understand me and communicate with me and pretty much spoke that way. One guy I met was hostile to anything about Standard Irish, but that’s how the Glance Card and such have been created, so we’ll just have to wait for something different. He told me one day “they’re all teaching you a language that is not my language” . I just told him that I appreciated what he was saying and that we come trying to learn, and just try to do the best with what we’re presented with. I challenged him to encourage someone to come up with alternatives.
Languages do standardize over time (French did/does continually and English did at some point and continues to morph) so standardization is to be expected in Irish. I have learned a lot from Lughaidh about how the verbs actually sound in Ulster (he graciously sent me files before I left and they were helpful to me) Once I was there, I found some of the things to be simpler than I had been imagining them. It has to be or kids couldn’t talk to each other. I learned a lot from a 10 year old kid in the household where I was and he was a native speaker. It was very enlightening. It was stunning to just ask him some complicated English sentence and have him rattle off the Irish way to say it. I realized also that I can do my best and I’ll NEVER sound like a native because I am not, and that’s OKAY. There are many people who are non-native speakers of English who do a great job, but they will never be native speakers….they can’t be. They were not born into the language and their mother did not speak it to them. Doesn’t mean I can’t try my best, but I am learning to accept my natural limitations. I do wish you well and am excited for you. It is a fun journey for all of us. I hope someday just to be able to express my thoughts without hesitating or stopping. That day will come if I/we just all keep at it.
A WFM, grma for the info and links. Going shopping tomorrow!
Amáireach, an ea? Well, here are a few other books that come to mind with CD’s of native speakers:
http://www.litriocht.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=6518
Séadna is the book that Dillon and Ó Cróinín recommend to everyone who manages to survive Teach Yourself Irish. The CD’s to Séadna are read by a fluent native speaker from Múscraí and are sold separately:
http://www.litriocht.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=6500
And here’s a GREAT book with CD’s by a renowned storyteller from Kerry:
http://www.litriocht.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=6303
Last but not least, here’s a book and CD’s from the most famous storyteller of them all:
http://www.litriocht.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=6426
Bain taitneamh astu, a chara! 🙂
A Féabar (don’t know the vocative for that):
The facility with which children process languages amazes me. My youngest son is studying French in school; he also has the cúpla focal and some ASL and one of our conversations went like this:
Seosamh: (something in French)
Me: Gabh mo leithscéal, a mhic, ach ní thuigim.
Seosamh: Dúirt mé “Hi mom, how was your day?”
Me: Ah. Bhí sé go maith. Agus tusa?
At this point his mouth was full, so he signed that he had had a great time in cooking class that day.The conversation continued in English, and it was just snippets of the various languages, but the fact that he could switch from French to Irish to English to Irish to ASL and then back to English in the space of a few minutes, without missing a beat, absolutely blew my mind. It kind of stripped my mental gears to keep up.
A WFM:
You are going to bankrupt me!
I don’t know if somethings like “Cad chuige”, “tig liom”, “Cad é mar tá tú”, “fosta”, “cluisim”, “druid” are considered “standard” or not.
For “tig liom” I don’t think so, and I guess you meant “cluinim” instead of “cluisim”, but the other are accepted in standard Irish. Standard Irish is a set of grammar and spelling rules, but there’s no standard vocabulary.
and I’ll NEVER sound like a native because I am not,
I know non-native speakers who sound like natives. Of course you need to spend quite a lot of time in the Gaeltacht or to listen to many people/recordings of people and to imitate them, but it’s possible.
I don’t know if somethings like “Cad chuige”, “tig liom”, “Cad é mar tá tú”, “fosta”, “cluisim”, “druid” are considered “standard” or not.
For “tig liom” I don’t think so, and I guess you meant “cluinim” instead of “cluisim”, but the other are accepted in standard Irish. Standard Irish is a set of grammar and spelling rules, but there’s no standard vocabulary
I thought till quite recently that tig liom was just “Ulster dialectal”, but ‘An Foclóir Beag’ gives, as one of the many idioms with teacht: bheith in ann (ní thig liom sin a dhéanamh). In Nollaig Mac Congail’s ‘Leabhar Gramadaí Gaeilge’, in the section ‘Bealaí chun can, be able a aistriú’, we’re offered, with examples: bheith in ann/bheith ábalta/tig le/is féidir. And I’ve seen it used often enough outwith Ulster-specific contexts. So thiocfadh linn a rá go bhfuil glactha leis sa CO.
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