Reviving the Irish language

El_mariachi

From wikipedia

"According to the language survey, levels of fluency among families is 'very low', from 1% in Galway suburbs to a maximum of 8% parts of west Donegal. With such sharp decline, particularly among the young, the real danger exists that Irish will largely become extinct within two generations, possibly even one."

Is there anyone else who things like this concern. It would be so sad to see our native tongue die out. Is there anything going on to help with the reviving of Irish and if not would people be interested in trying to save it?

p.s
I am crap at Irish . I really disliked it at school till i finish my Lc last year. I really wish to become fluent in it. i am fluent in Spanish and very nearly in French. but i spent time living there so thats how i learnt them.... but I am stumped for learning Irish. Any advice?

Twinkle-star15

I think the way it's taught in schools needs to be changed- if we had more interesting lessons, or lessons that taught Irish as an actual language and not just poetry and legends, that would be a lot better. And if we were actually fluent in it after a few years- everyone should be fluent in after 6, 7 years studying it: it's disgraceful that I've been doing Irish for the last 13 years, yet I can barely string two words together.

mad man

El_mariachi wrote:

From wikipedia

"According to the language survey, levels of fluency among families is 'very low', from 1% in Galway suburbs to a maximum of 8% parts of west Donegal. With such sharp decline, particularly among the young, the real danger exists that Irish will largely become extinct within two generations, possibly even one."

Is there anyone else who things like this concern. It would be so sad to see our native tongue die out. Is there anything going on to help with the reviving of Irish and if not would people be interested in trying to save it?

p.s
I am crap at Irish . I really disliked it at school till i finish my Lc last year. I really wish to become fluent in it. i am fluent in Spanish and very nearly in French. but i spent time living there so thats how i learnt them.... but I am stumped for learning Irish. Any advice?

I would be concerned about this too.I was crap at it in school.I actually feared it when I was in school.I come from Waterford City which like most of the country is almost purely English Speaking.My first four years in School,I was thought by Kerry women teachers who had a good command of Irish but who didn't seem to understand they were teaching English speaking kids not from the Gaeltacht.They were brutal in the way they taught it and everything else.In my last year in primary school a Christian Brother nurtured an interest in the language in us and had us at a good level of conversational Irish by the end of the year.However a totally inept teacher in secondary school we had for Irish until the Inter totally undid all that work.

In any case I have been interested in learning the language and started a course this year.There is elements in the established media like Kevin Myers who would like nothing more than to see the language die.This IMO would be a great tragedy for Ireland.There is a good chance of this happening but it is up to the individual and you get out what you put in.

Gael

Please quote a source, any other source, besides wikipedia!

El_mariachi

"TG4 is to air a four part series with Manchán Magan traveling Ireland using only the Irish language when communicating. He wanted to find out how difficult life would be in Ireland if you only spoke Irish, 1.6 million people claim they speak Irish in Ireland but is that a true figure?

Manchán Magan claims the Irish language is dead in Dublin and he experienced first hand how an Irish speaker, in their own country, might be perceived.

In a Dublin pub, on Grafton Street, Manchán was told to speak English or get out and had one man place his fingers in his ears at the Ordnance Survey Office. Worse yet, the tourist office in Dublin were somewhat angry at him speaking Irish as they couldn’t understand a word he was speaking and it is an official office that is supposed to have all information available in Irish. "


I think if you watch this show and see the hardship this guy had in Ireland trying to talk only through Irish it shows how big the problem is,



"Manchán Magan claims the Irish language is dead in Dublin"
"Manchán was told to speak English or get out "
"the tourist office in Dublin were somewhat angry at him speaking Irish as they couldn’t understand a word he was speaking and it is an official office that is supposed to have all information available in Irish"

Come on like?
don't tell me Irish isn't in big risk of dying out?

When the 2006 census is made available we will see how bad the problem is because this time people had to see when and where and why they used Irish.

While I am sure I will be laughed at i don't care. It is up to us and those who love Irish to try make Difference.

sorry source for the top about the show No bearla is from Irish times

Peanut

This reminds me of when TG4 would interview people as Gaeilge on the streets, except that off-camera, they would have to coach them to answer by rote beforehand. Who knows, maybe they still do it.

Anyway, the point is, why stick your head in the sand?
Everyone knows the census results are farcical, it just needed a programme like this to bring the point home. It doesn't benefit anyone trying to pretend that there is a certain level of knowledge, when there isn't.

csk

El_mariachi wrote:

I think if you watch this show and see the hardship this guy had in Ireland trying to talk only through Irish it shows how big the problem is,


"Manchán Magan claims the Irish language is dead in Dublin"
"Manchán was told to speak English or get out "
"the tourist office in Dublin were somewhat angry at him speaking Irish as they couldn’t understand a word he was speaking and it is an official office that is supposed to have all information available in Irish"

Bhí an-bhrón orm nuair a chonaic me cúpla gearrthóga beag de clár "No Béarla"*

I think that Manchán went about it in the wrong way. In the clips that I saw he was very obnoxious. I mean who was going to talk to someone standing in the middle of the street shouting their head off.

There was also another one where he was ordering food in a restauraunt. The waitress had a bit of Irish and she was able to understand what he was saying but then he kept on pushing it. He ordered orange juice and when the girl wrote it down he started asking for it with out bubbles!

I would say if people don't want it to die then they should try and use it as often as possible. There is no point in saying "I don't want Irish to die out but I was no good at it in school myself..."
Even if it is only little bits, every bit counts.

*if anyone sees any faults in my Irish please point them out mar tá mé ag folghaim an teanga arís agus tá gaeilge an-bhriste agus an-shimplís agam. Go raibh maith agaibh

Twinkle-star15

I think the other problem with the No Bearla thing is that yer man didn't specifically go to the people who declared themselves gaeilgóirí (sp?). He just went to random people- which must've been very frustrating for everyone, because he obviously understood English.

Alun

mad man wrote:

My first four years in School,I was thought by Kerry women teachers who had a good command of Irish but who didn't seem to understand they were teaching English speaking kids not from the Gaeltacht.They were brutal in the way they taught it and everything else.

Speaking as an Englishman currently living in Ireland, but who, unlike many of my countrymen is something of a linguist and speaks 4 foreign languages, one of them fluently, I can sympathise with you. Since arriving here 5 years ago, I've tried on a couple of occasions to learn some Irish, but honestly, neither teacher had the remotest clue as to how to teach the language, or any foreign language for that matter. My wife also had a similar experience with a different teacher.

They all seem to assume some kind of innate, inbuilt basic ability in the language obtained from who-knows-where, and wouldn't know a grammatical construct if it bit them in the face. One teacher I had didn't know the difference between an adjective and an adverb, for example.

Killaqueen!!!

I know so many people (like myself) who are awful at Irish, who hate Irish as a class but absolutely love the language and would love to be fluent in it. I find Irish so hard..I was surprised to have passed Irish in the Junior Cert. I've been learning it for 10 years and wouldn't be able to recite a short passage on, say, my family...wheras I can do that in German which I have only been learning for 3 years.

The problem lies in the school (I sound like such a twat saying this) - I don't know what it is but it's not working. I knew more Irish in primary school than I do now.

To be honest, if we're not speaking it, and it doesn't get revived (which it won't), and we don't start speaking our native language fluently - it should be gone. It shouldn't be a subject anymore. I know that's sad, but what's the point if we can't speak it?

Gael

csk wrote:

I think that Manchán went about it in the wrong way. In the clips that I saw he was very obnoxious. I mean who was going to talk to someone standing in the middle of the street shouting their head off.

That sums up the pieces of the programme that I've seen. I sympathise with the point he was trying to make but sadly he took a ridiculously tabloid sensationalist approach to it and just came off as an asshole who was just trying to be difficult, not someone who had some genuine desire to communicate with others in Irish in a non-confrontational manner. Sad really.

faceman

I cant see the irish language dying out completely. We still have people in ireland who are fluent in latin. there will always be a minority who will learn irish fluently.

However i resent the compulsory teaching of irish in schools. as someone who lived some years abroad but not being allowed an exemption when i returned to sit my leaving in the 90's, im might pissed off about it. My letter to the dept of educ asking them how they expected me to learn irish in africa and what careers outside of ireland would irish be of benefit went unanswered.

As with any foreign language (and thats what is reduced to nowadays), unless you are immersed in a society that speaks it daily, you're unlikely to become fluent.

The irish language serves little purpose economically in ireland so i dont really think there is anything that will revive it as a language unless e.g. it becomes a requirement to enter the civil service?

Gael

faceman wrote:

The irish language serves little purpose economically in ireland so i dont really think there is anything that will revive it as a language unless e.g. it becomes a requirement to enter the civil service?

It was a requirement to get into the civil service until the 1970s.

faceman

Gael wrote:

It was a requirement to get into the civil service until the 1970s.

Yeah i know, my dad worked there. but could the rules change again? I suspect it might be seen as a barrier to non nationals getting into gov jobs?

Why was dropped as a requirement back then?

El_mariachi

csk wrote:

Bhí an-bhrón orm nuair a chonaic me cúpla gearrthóga beag de clár "No Béarla"*

I think that Manchán went about it in the wrong way. In the clips that I saw he was very obnoxious. I mean who was going to talk to someone standing in the middle of the street shouting their head off.

There was also another one where he was ordering food in a restauraunt. The waitress had a bit of Irish and she was able to understand what he was saying but then he kept on pushing it. He ordered orange juice and when the girl wrote it down he started asking for it with out bubbles!

I would say if people don't want it to die then they should try and use it as often as possible. There is no point in saying "I don't want Irish to die out but I was no good at it in school myself..."
Even if it is only little bits, every bit counts.

*if anyone sees any faults in my Irish please point them out mar tá mé ag folghaim an teanga arís agus tá gaeilge an-bhriste agus an-shimplís agam. Go raibh maith agaibh

I was crap at in school. I do use it everyday with a few friends but soon we are just repeating the same old stuff because without a large amount of different people using Irish it becomes stale.

Manchán is an asshole I don't like him at all, manly because he works for tg4 but says and i quote about Irish "I don't give a **** if it [Irish] dies out or not" and was a prat to people in the show
but I use him to show you my point of in place where they are meant to be fluent Like the tourist office in Dublin and they are not. it goes to show that if people don't start promoting Irish it will decline and only be studied as a Classical Subject as Latin is nowadays.

To all those who think its been thought wrong in schools! I am 110% with you guys I had one of the worse teachers ever, who if you weren't A class level in Irish he ignored you and never would answer questions,Lucky me coz I had him from 1st year to 6th year.

snickerpuss

I've been watching No Béarla too and i definately agree hes going about it the wrong way. When he was standing in temple bar shouting and wailing with a camera crew, noone would go and talk to him. I wouldn't have gone up to talk to him, even in english!

Anyway i still hold a grudge from that article he wrote for the irish times not long ago saying how he dislikes "the castrated irish of dublin people". Which annoyed me. Ar laghad nuair a táim ag feachaint ar, cheapaim go bhfuil Gaeilge saghas maith agam! Yay!

ReefBreak

Is there anything going on to help with the reviving of Irish and if not would people be interested in trying to save it?

For a start, money that is being spent on pointlessly translating official government documents into Irish (that will never be read) could be spent on programmes that actually achieves something instead. Similarly, why is the EU being forced to spend money on making Irish an Official Working Language when other languages such as Catalan (6 million speakers) aren't? Note that Irish is an official language, just not an official working language.

Gael

ReefBreak wrote:

For a start, money that is being spent on pointlessly translating official government documents into Irish (that will never be read).

Speak for yourself mate! :mad:

Kwekubo

ReefBreak wrote:

Note that Irish is an official language, just not an official working language.

Nope, all official languages of the EU are also working languages: http://europa.eu/languages/en/chapter/33 (note that the list has yet to be updated for the latest three additions). It just depends on what you take "official language" and "working language" to mean in EU-speak.

simu

snickerpuss wrote:

Anyway i still hold a grudge from that article he wrote for the irish times not long ago saying how he dislikes "the castrated irish of dublin people". Which annoyed me. Ar laghad nuair a táim ag feachaint ar, cheapaim go bhfuil Gaeilge saghas maith agam! Yay!

Yeah, I find him to be a right eejit and I'm sick of seeing his negative comments about Irish in the meejuh. He keeps going on about Irish being a relic from the past (but yet, it's through Irish that he became (somewhat) well-known) and having been coerced into learning it by his grandmother and feeling guilty about that (newsflash, a Mhancháin: don't assume all Irish speakers are as neurotic as yourself).

I don't think he's very representative of Irish speakers in this country anyway tbh.

snickerpuss

Yeah i agree. I suppose its because i'm from dublin but most of the people i know are first generation irish speakers if you get me. No one else in my family speaks irish. I do find he goes on about his grandmother too much! Get over it, to lots of us, irish is all shiny and new!

Well, you know what i mean...

Rosita

csk wrote:

Bhí an-bhrón orm nuair a chonaic me cúpla gearrthóga beag de clár "No Béarla"*

I think that Manchán went about it in the wrong way. In the clips that I saw he was very obnoxious. I mean who was going to talk to someone standing in the middle of the street shouting their head off.

There was also another one where he was ordering food in a restauraunt. The waitress had a bit of Irish and she was able to understand what he was saying but then he kept on pushing it. He ordered orange juice and when the girl wrote it down he started asking for it with out bubbles!

I would say if people don't want it to die then they should try and use it as often as possible. There is no point in saying "I don't want Irish to die out but I was no good at it in school myself..."
Even if it is only little bits, every bit counts.

*if anyone sees any faults in my Irish please point them out mar tá mé ag folghaim an teanga arís agus tá gaeilge an-bhriste agus an-shimplís agam. Go raibh maith agaibh

CSK,

Just to take you up on your offer to point out faults in your Irish (which seems quite good), I will do so in the best possible spirit.

You mention "cúpla gearrthóga". Obviously you are using the plural (uimhir iolra) "gearrthóga" in this case, which is the logical thing to do when English is the first language. However, in Gaeilge "cúpla" takes the singular (uimhir uathu) so it would correctly be "cúpla gearrthóg". A common and understandable error. I hope you don't mind me pointing it out but it will probably ensure that you'll never make that error again!;)

Rosita

I did not see the programme but that 'No Béarla' programme from what I hear strikes me as one where the presenter seemed to be determindly forcing himself on people who couldn't speak Irish to get a reaction and thereby making the programme more of a talking point.

We all know that most Irish people cannot speak Irish and most are also terribly sensitive about this. But to be honest, if you walk into a bar determined to converse in a language that the barman cannot reply in, and he sees a camera pointing at him, he is bound to get annoyed. The fact that it is Irish is almost beside the point as the circumstances may have seemed provocative from the barman's point of view.

Heinrich

Rosita wrote:

I did not see the programme but that 'No Béarla' programme from what I hear strikes me as one where the presenter seemed to be determindly forcing himself on people who couldn't speak Irish to get a reaction and thereby making the programme more of a talking point.

We all know that most Irish people cannot speak Irish and most are also terribly sensitive about this. But to be honest, if you walk into a bar determined to converse in a language that the barman cannot reply in, and he sees a camera pointing at him, he is bound to get annoyed. The fact that it is Irish is almost beside the point as the circumstances may have seemed provocative from the barman's point of view.

I get some queer reacrtions when I go to the pub with my francophone visitors. The Irish that I seem to be rubbing up the wrong way have a colossal chip on their collective shoulders regarding any language other than their pidgin english. When we discuter en francais we get funny looks.

Like the time I went to the "smoking room" with a friend and we were chatting away. A nana came in and after listening to us for a few seconds started muttering that we were rude. Paying no attention to the bimbe until another bloke came in and asked what language we were speaking I got the drift.

Now it was the bimbo who was rude and we gave her some English explanations as to why we were minding our own business so she left.

The Irish language is dead because that is what the great beer guzzling patriots with the tricolour at the Celtic matches and Spanish beaches want.

csk

Rosita wrote:

CSK,

Just to take you up on your offer to point out faults in your Irish (which seems quite good), I will do so in the best possible spirit.

You mention "cúpla gearrthóga". Obviously you are using the plural (uimhir iolra) "gearrthóga" in this case, which is the logical thing to do when English is the first language. However, in Gaeilge "cúpla" takes the singular (uimhir uathu) so it would correctly be "cúpla gearrthóg". A common and understandable error. I hope you don't mind me pointing it out but it will probably ensure that you'll never make that error again!;)

Don't worry! As I said I'm trying to re-learn and while I would have a bit of a starting base from school, the only outlets are TG4 and the internet. The greatest evil though and it seems to be the main stumbling block regards anyone learning Irish, is that outside school or the Gaeltacht, it's hard to find anyone to talk to as Gaeilge.

So any help is much appreciated.

Go raibh míle maith agat.

Mr. Brightside

You can watch the first part of the series, where hes in Dublin on tg4.ie which is what Im after doing (cos Im not living in Ireland for the time being). Theres certainly no easily solution to reviving the language.

One of the major problems is education. The standard of teaching in both primary and secondary level is atrocious! My own mother is a primary teacher and while she can teach whats she supposed to, if one of the pupils was actually fluent she would not be able to converse with him/her. Teachers do not have to do keep up a high standard of Irish! The same was true in secondary. While I had comparatively good teachers who I know practised it semi-regularly in Rathcairn (one of the Gaeltachts in Meath), the teaching was still of a basic level and we never spoke it in class till 6th year!

Another problem is inherent in Irish people, we dont like making fools of ourselves in public! I think that for many years up until the 90's Ireland was a closed community. There was no tradition of entrepreneurship. This has started to change of course as the power of such institutions as the Catholic Church has disappeared. I once started to talk Irish to a cousin of mine and he asked me if I was drunk (which I wasnt!) because in some way I was going against the norm.

According to this website: http://www.volkmar-weiss.de/table.html, the average Irish IQ is 93, which as a Western country is not really something to be proud of. Compared to countries such as Spain (97), Portugal (95), Italy (102), United Kingdom (100) and our oft derided stateside cousins USA (98), we as a nation are unfortunately at a natural disadvantage as it is. You just have to look at our infrastructure, health-care system and rip-off Ireland culture to see that despite our complaints, these problems were self-inflicted. And if you want to blame the governments, then remember that these were governments that Irish people voted in.

Im not trying to insult our collective intelligence or anything but sometimes its very depressing thinking about Irish. You walk around Dublin and English is often the second most common language on the street and I think I've only heard Irish spoken once in all my time in Dublin city centre.

So is there any point trying to confuse foreigners who have come to Ireland to work with another language. Irish should be the language of a people but is there really an Irish identity anymore? We're not welcoming like we used to be, we use loads of British slang (chav, darling, mate, cheers etc.) and American phrases (like, whatever etc.) and we've become binge drinkers like the British and Americans and soccer is the most played (at least on a non-competitive basis) sport. You look at the lads who caused all the trouble this time last year in the riots and do you think any of them could string a few sentences together in Irish? Not a chance. They just wanted to have a bit of fun and rob a new pair of Nike runners.

I believe if Irish is to be revived there would need to be a rapid overhaul of society. Teachers will HAVE to be able to speak Irish and do so with their pupils in class. You look at other countries and after 3 years of English ONLY English will be spoken in class. This model needs to be used.

A dedicated Gaeltacht needs to be set up in Dublin city. 1 in 4 Irish people lives here and its the centre of all decision-making for the coutry. Irish should be spoken in Ireland's capital city and not just behind closed doors!

The government will need to set up some sort of Irish clubs where participation is encouraged and is actually fun. Anybodys whos ever been to the Gaeltacht in the summer will say its a fantastic experience but the number of people who participate needs to be expanded and include all members of society (eg half the course should not be Southside Dubs as always seems to be the case!).

Irish should distance itself I feel from folklore, Irish dancing and the like. Most people, especially lads, arent into Irish dancing or trad music so the teaching of Irish should be kept relevant. Trad Irish music can very often be repetitive and boring in my opinion but contemporary music with Irish lyrics should be encouraged. Poetry is also very alienating to the vast majority of the population.

Id be optimistic kind of regarding the Gaelscoils. At the moment its mostly upper-middle class going to these places. If Irish can become the language of the elite, then maybe in a round-about way it could force poorer people into learning it in the same way as it forced them to learn English in the first place.

Thats my two cents anyway. Id be interested in other peoples views but at the moment Id say the language will die in two generations time unless the government and the Irish people (if there's even such a thing) bother to do something.

diarmuidh

tá mé ag éisteacht le RnaG anois thrín Idirlíon why not try it
http://www.rte.ie/smiltest/rnag_new.smil

Bí ag léamh na scéalta in san Irish Times freisin! agus off course bí ag féachaint ar TG4...

leím as an mballa agus bí ag déanamh rud !!

simu

Mr. Brightside wrote:

According to this website: http://www.volkmar-weiss.de/table.html, the average Irish IQ is 93, which as a Western country is not really something to be proud of. Compared to countries such as Spain (97), Portugal (95), Italy (102), United Kingdom (100) and our oft derided stateside cousins USA (98), we as a nation are unfortunately at a natural disadvantage as it is. You just have to look at our infrastructure, health-care system and rip-off Ireland culture to see that despite our complaints, these problems were self-inflicted. And if you want to blame the governments, then remember that these were governments that Irish people voted in.

Taibhsíonn an suíomh sin beagán... naitsíoch dom mar sin ní bheadh aon mhuinín agam as a bhfuil le rá acu mar gheall ar mheabair cinn!

(That site seems a bit Nazi-ish to me so I wouldn't take their views on intelligence too seriously!)

:eek:

Peanut

One unfortunate aspect of the language is a perceived link with extremist politics.

Mr.Brightside, you mention that Irish should distance itself with folklore, dancing etc., while I feel this is true to an extent, I think it's just symptomatic of a bigger problem which is that the Irish language is sewn into the politics and history of this state as part of some vision which looks towards the past, and is thought of as somehow nostalgic and, dare I say it, backwards.

You also say "Irish should be the language of a people", but there is no compelling reason for this, apart from the usual old arguments. This doesn't mean we have to let it die out, but if insisting that it should be the language of the people, then it very well may do so due to the bad feeling this can inspire in non-native speakers.

If you look at the 'problem' in terms of energy, or work required, then it's quite clear what happens. People will usually try to choose the path that uses the least energy (work), in their everyday life.

So for instance, if I am being taught Irish in school, but don't have the need or opportunity to use it outside of this context, then it becomes increasingly more work to speak the language fluently.

But you can't just force people to change their everday language.
And similarly, if you try to change it by other means, e.g. promoting Irish language tv, radio etc., you will get some more interest, but still the overwhelmingly practical option is to remain fluent in English, which is now effectively the global language.

If you try to argue that people should be bilingual, well yes that's great if they can be, but it's just not possible for many people. A lot of people struggle with English as it is, to become bi-lingual they would have to stretch their language-learning capabilities over two languages, some people just can't do that, and I see no good reason why they should be pushed to do it.

I don't believe Irish will die out at all, but it seems like it will still take more time to find a comfortable place in modern life.

gigglingrat

Is deagoir mise, agus is aoibheann liom an teanga, ach faraor, nil aon ait ar bith agam chun dul agus a bheith ag caint. Is mor an trua e, mar nil gaeilge liofa agam, ach ba mhaith liom fheabhas a chuir air agus nilim abalta. Ba ceart do na rialtas...nil "clubanna" an focail ceart, ach..aiteanna a thionscnamh don daoine agus fonn foghlama orthu.

But you can't just force people to change their everday language.

Nilimid a ra "O, ni mor duinn beith ag caint as gaeilge an t-am ar fad", ach "Caithfear rud eigin a dheamamh faoin drochstadus Ghaelige sa la ata inniu ann".

I'm a teenager, and I love the language, but unfortunatly, there's no place for me to go to speak it. It's a shame because I don't have fluent Irish, but I'd like to improve and I can't. The government should set up..."clubs" isn't the right word, but...places for people who want to learn.

We aren't saying "Oh, we must speak Irish all the time", but "Something must be done about the poor status of Irish today.

Ta bron orm ma ta a lan botun ann!

fonpokno

Mr. Brightside wrote:

Irish should distance itself I feel from folklore, Irish dancing and the like. Most people, especially lads, arent into Irish dancing or trad music so the teaching of Irish should be kept relevant. Trad Irish music can very often be repetitive and boring in my opinion but contemporary music with Irish lyrics should be encouraged.

if you want contemporary music with irish lyrics look for the seachtain na gaeilge cds! i have '05 and '06 (i dont know if there are any others) but they're actually really good! they have like the corrs and mundy and like loadsa others all singin in irish, some of the songs are excellent and some are a bi more trad-ish but all in all they're quality music! i think they're doin one every year now so go find them if you can! kila are excellent too!

im in 6th year now and i've got pretty good irish cos i go to a really good gaeltacht but i hate the subject in school! it is so so so so SOOO boring! al feckin poetry and stair na gaeilge (history of irish)... and my teacher is kinda bad. i find him grand cos he speaks irish all the time and i understand him but the rest of the girls in my class who dont have much fluency are pretty much abandoned and just left up the crek without a paddle.

oh and btw! there's a cafe on dawson street that speaks irish! the menu is in both english and irish and the food is really good! and there's a club somewhere in dublin called Sult and its all about the irish! legendary!

Cork

diarmuidh wrote:

tá mé ag éisteacht le RnaG anois thrín Idirlíon why not try it
http://www.rte.ie/smiltest/rnag_new.smil

Bí ag léamh na scéalta in san Irish Times freisin! agus off course bí ag féachaint ar TG4...

leím as an mballa agus bí ag déanamh rud !!

Splanc on Friday night on Newstalk is good.

But if you are going to a public sector organisation - Speak Irish.

Don't be put off by fast Irish talkers on TG4 or Rnag.

Peanut

gigglingrat wrote:

I'm a teenager, and I love the language, but unfortunatly, there's no place for me to go to speak it. It's a shame because I don't have fluent Irish, but I'd like to improve and I can't. The government should set up..."clubs" isn't the right word, but...places for people who want to learn.

We aren't saying "Oh, we must speak Irish all the time", but "Something must be done about the poor status of Irish today.

Sure... if it's something that appeals to people, then they will join up.
But I wouldn't rely on the Government to try to create something appealing..

gigglingrat

That is true alright...

Be The Holy

According to this website: http://www.volkmar-weiss.de/table.html, the average Irish IQ is 93, which as a Western country is not really something to be proud of. Compared to countries such as Spain (97), Portugal (95), Italy (102), United Kingdom (100) and our oft derided stateside cousins USA (98), we as a nation are unfortunately at a natural disadvantage as it is.
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The reason given for our low IQ status was that we have been exporting our brightest, youngest and best for the last 200 years or so with a thus resulting fall in our IQ levels. This should be reversed in the coming years as we obtain the resulting brain drain from eastern europe.

As regards the language, the growth of Gaelscoileanna is to be welcomed and should be encouraged by government if they really want to develop a bilingual society as they state. People are generally well disposed towards the language but lets be honest the standard of teaching in school was brutal, so its no surprise when the tg4 dude cant find that many people able to converse. I managed to develop some proficiency in it only by four visits to the gaeltacht as a teenager, spoken conversational irish didnt seem to come into the school ciriculum and then being forced to listen to donegal irish which is pretty incomprehensible, the accent is strong enough in english never mind irish.

OTK

Alun wrote:

Speaking as an Englishman currently living in Ireland, but who, unlike many of my countrymen is something of a linguist and speaks 4 foreign languages, one of them fluently, I can sympathise with you. Since arriving here 5 years ago,

I've tried on a couple of occasions to learn some Irish, but honestly, neither teacher had the remotest clue as to how to teach the language, or any foreign language for that matter. My wife also had a similar experience with a different teacher.

They all seem to assume some kind of innate, inbuilt basic ability in the language obtained from who-knows-where, and wouldn't know a grammatical construct if it bit them in the face. One teacher I had didn't know the difference between an adjective and an adverb, for example.

I agree. I am Irish and I have studied 6 languages including Irish and speak three with reasonable fluency. Irish was taught in a completely different way to any of the others. The teacher claimed that hard and fast rules simply did not exist for Irish grammar or spelling.

The main problem for me was that we were being taught to speak Irish with a pronunciation completely alien to the native speakers. Non-gaeltacht teachers taught some ugly version that could never be fluent as it had not the natural cadence of a living language. It reminded me of my latin classes -a language spoken as if it were English.

"Taw on tooktarawn egg chockt gu dee awr skull." (in a Dublin drawl)

Now this kind of thing happens with all foreign language teaching by non-native speakers, and it's fixed by spending some time with native speakers and learning the music of the language. I can still read Irish fairly well but I learnt far less in 12 years of Irish than say in 4 years of German (with 9 months spent in Germany).

Irish college didn't help. You need total immersion with native speakers for a month or more to adjust your ear to a foreign language, so spending two weeks with horny fourteen year old english speakers was never going to work. The few words I heard of native Irish from the bean a tí's family in the evening was something but there were eight english speaking children in the house. We outnumbered her family. Most of the day was spent with more Dublin teachers speaking Dublin 'Irish'. On the odd occasion I spoke with a native speaker I could hardly make out a word.

Whatever you think of Manchan, he does speak beautiful Irish - the reason, I believe, being that he had a native Irish speaking relative living at home with him while he grew up.

So I would say that you can't really learn Irish without living in a real Gaeltacht apart from non-Irish speakers, And the problem is that there isn't enough Gaeltacht to do this for every child. At least the teachers of Irish should have to do this.

greenteaicedtea

Irish IS a hard language to learn because it differs in big ways from English.

(I realize you all may know this but please bear with me)

There is no word for "yes" or "no". There is no word for "to know" or "to have", it's all workarounds like "knowledge is at me" and "on me" and stuff like that. There are no direct equivalent words to memorize, so you have to learn the whole sentence structure first, before you make any sense, and the sentence structure differs from English too, so not only are you learning new vocab, but the grammar is indivisible from the verbs. I think it'd be hard for the average teacher to teach on a good day.

In French, there are direct equivalents of most verbs, and many tenses, but not all, it's a lot easier to learn IMO.

It might be easier to encourage people to speak it to their children, if possible, rather than learn it in school.

Or if there was an Irish equivalent of Sesame St.? Young children pick up complex concepts easier than when they get older.

Cork

There is no place to use and practice Irish.

Down here in Cork - I go to weekly conversational Irish classes.

But after my weekly class - I have zero opportunity to use the language.

Not to be deterred by this - I hope to stick up Irish posters around the office next week.

gigglingrat

In French, there are direct equivalents of most verbs, and many tenses, but not all, it's a lot easier to learn IMO.

Ah now, but Irish only has eleven irregular verbs! Easy peasy....


For me in school, I notice a lot of people would consider themselves better at French than Irish, but it's only because of the discrepency between the caighdean of Irish required and that of French. I think that a middle level for Leaving Cert Irish, in between ordinary and higher, might help the language...and I do agree with what OTK said; it needs to be taught by native speakers. That would bring the language to life.

OTK

gigglingrat wrote:

Ah now, but Irish only has eleven irregular verbs! Easy peasy....


For me in school, I notice a lot of people would consider themselves better at French than Irish, but it's only because of the discrepency between the caighdean of Irish required and that of French. I think that a middle level for Leaving Cert Irish, in between ordinary and higher, might help the language...and I do agree with what OTK said; it needs to be taught by native speakers. That would bring the language to life.

By the time I left school, my caighdeán of Irish was a lot lower than for languages I had studied for a fraction of the time.

I was always hesitant speaking as I didn't have the grammatical bedrock of knowing the genders of nouns and the inflection rules for noun cases and how to agree adjectives and so on. Of course you can avoid all this nasty grammar with enough exposure to the native language but I wasn't getting that either. In 12 years, there would have been plenty of time to learn this stuff.

I hated 'Is fearr Gaeilge briste ná Béarla cliste'. What a philosophy! Let's all be idiots - at least we're not Brits.

Does anyone know a good Irish grammar book?

gigglingrat

I think graimear an draoi is pretty good, got it for junior cert but it covered pretty much all of the bases.

Peanut

OTK wrote:

I hated 'Is fearr Gaeilge briste ná Béarla cliste'. What a philosophy! Let's all be idiots - at least we're not Brits.

Yeah this sort of in-your-face nationalist attitude is/was one of the most damaging obstacles for learning. Who would want to learn a language that actively promotes bigotry? If not bigotry, then at the very least it's a silly "my language is better than yours" mindset.

It's effectively saying to the potential student, "Here, we still have this chip on our shoulder about the Brits and how they imposed English speaking on us - if you really want to learn the language, then you should have it, too."

There's a place for national pride but not at the cost of small-mindedness. I don't want to offend Irish speakers, but if the language is to grow then it needs to get rid of the redundant attitudes like this.

simu

Grammar: this one's very clear imo: http://www.amazon.com/Irish-Grammar-Book-Nollaig-Congail/dp/1902420497

You can also get it in Irish, it's called Leabhar Gramadaí Gaeilge.

OTK

Thanks for the links to those books. When I was in school I didn't have the initiative to find a decent Irish grammar book.

As an Englishman (Irish ancestry) I find it intriguing that the majority of people have simply lost interest in their native language.

I recently asked a colleague about this, her response "800 years blah blah de blah". I don't know what percentage of people spoke Gaeilge (as a first/only language) in the 1920's, but I'm certain it was much higher than today.

Perhaps you should look at Wales, the welsh language also declined but there were enough people at grass roots level interested in keeping it alive and it is now widely spoken in Northern parts of the country.

Most people need a reason to learn a language, I have travelled the world and in many places English was widely spoken enough, but once away from the main centres, I needed to have knowledge of the language to get by.

What reason does the average man in the street have to learn Irish!

dame

I started a thread in the Parenting Forum on Gaelscoils. Some of you might be interested;

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055047557

I did two three-month stints with Gael-linn when I was in primary school. The scheme was where a primary school pupil lived with a gaeltacht family and went to the local primary school for three months. I went in 5th class and again in 6th class, staying with a different family each time.

The first time I went I had basically zero Irish (crappy Irish teaching in primary school at home) and by the end of it my ear was tuning in and I could understand pretty much everything said to me and could usually reply fairly decently. The second time I went I tuned in pretty much straight away and was fluent by the end of it, Connemara blas and everything. My Irish was absolutely fantastic after it.

I then returned home and to the local primary again where I had far better Irish than the teacher and I learned pretty quickly not to correct her or try and help anyone else out! :mad: All through secondary school the Irish teaching was absolutely crap. Even with streamed honours/pass classes and all that it was still crap. People just had this mindset that Irish was hard and they didn't really need it anyway so why bother. Irish just wasn't cool. By and large the teachers were just as apathetic. There was one teacher who was a native Connemara woman and for some reason she had a pass class who really did not give a **** so she was wasted on them. She was about to retire though so maybe she was just fed up after years of it and wanted an easier syllabus to teach. There was another who was fantastic and who I had for two years but she was so enthusiastic about the Irish and very strict and there was just a bad air in the class because people resented being told to speak in Irish at all times during class. It's true what someone else said earlier - Irish people do hate to look silly or be seen to not know something! :rolleyes: Overall my own Irish deteriorated drastically during my secondary school years. I still got a fantastic result in it for my leaving but I was in no way as fluent as I once was, despite trying.

As far as I could see nobody else in my class actually really understood what they were learning. We were given standard answers to standard poetry/literature questions and people just learned them off. They also learned off sample essays (some of which were written by the teacher and all of which had been strongly edited by the teacher) For the oral exam I'd say I was the only one not to have written out a script and rhymed it off. The amount of people who came out saying they got asked X but managed to give answer Y (which they had prepared) anyway was unreal. The amount of these people getting high B results was staggering! The standard of Irish of even "good" Irish leaving cert results is actually ridiculously low.

There are moves to improve the teaching of Irish in schools but will they be implemented? They definitely ought to be.

The Gael linn scheme I mentioned has been scrapped as far as I know. The interest in it dwindled over the years. It had been going for decades (my mother and her siblings had all had a stint of it). When I was there in 5th there was a Dublin child who got homesick and left after 3 weeks and in 6th class there was another Dublin kid who also left after 3 weeks. Neither of them made any real effort to speak Irish while they were there and went on about how their school at home was bigger and better and there was so much more to do in Dublin. :rolleyes: Maybe it's partly due to kids like those that it finished. A pity.

Sorry for the long rambling post folks, hope it makes sense.

As far as I could see nobody else in my class actually really understood what they were learning. We were given standard answers to standard poetry/literature questions and people just learned them off. They also learned off sample essays (some of which were written by the teacher and all of which had been strongly edited by the teacher) For the oral exam I'd say I was the only one not to have written out a script and rhymed it off. The amount of people who came out saying they got asked X but managed to give answer Y (which they had prepared) anyway was unreal. The amount of these people getting high B results was staggering! The standard of Irish of even "good" Irish leaving cert results is actually ridiculously low.

I think that says it all really, people don't realy want to learn a language if all they can do with it is recite poetry, literature etc.

Language needs to be used as a tool for communicating with others, it needs to be taught as such to be of any use to anyone.

luckat

Speak her and she shall heal.

simu

dame wrote:

As far as I could see nobody else in my class actually really understood what they were learning. We were given standard answers to standard poetry/literature questions and people just learned them off. They also learned off sample essays (some of which were written by the teacher and all of which had been strongly edited by the teacher) For the oral exam I'd say I was the only one not to have written out a script and rhymed it off. The amount of people who came out saying they got asked X but managed to give answer Y (which they had prepared) anyway was unreal. The amount of these people getting high B results was staggering! The standard of Irish of even "good" Irish leaving cert results is actually ridiculously low.

That is scarey and disgraceful. :mad: We need some sort of Turing test fot students of Irish by the sound of it! :eek:

There are moves to improve the teaching of Irish in schools but will they be implemented? They definitely ought to be.

I'm not that optimistic - the general trend in education in this country is towards dumbing down and learning any language requires hard work.

dame

simu wrote:

the general trend in education in this country is towards dumbing down

Sadly true.

dame

simu wrote:

We need some sort of Turing test fot students of Irish by the sound of it! :eek:

What's a Turing test?