Should Irish be an optional subject not a cumpulsory one

fkt

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

it has been compulsory for 70+ years without much problems

The difference being that we currently have a fiscal deficit of nightmare proportions and our limited resources therefore must be spent in a way which aids any hope of a long term economic recovery.

The government is raising taxes, cutting benefits, borrowing money from foreign governments - These all effect people. Does the teaching of Irish?

People do not appreciate how serious a situation we are in. We cannot afford the luxury that is Irish anymore.

conor.hogan.2

Wibbs wrote: »

Ooooh get her. FYI, calling someone on a debate isn't trolling. It's... you know... debate. At this point you've pretty much exhausted the circular logic meme so this retort of yours is hardly unexpected. However I was hoping for and expecting better.

High five you are a master debater. Such salient and well thought out points.

Wibbs

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

High five you are a master debater.

Wrong verb...

WillieFlynn

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

Why did you do French if you were bad at languages?

English, Irish, Maths, Physics, applied maths, chemistry, geography and accounting would have left you with 6 honors why did you choose to do French?

Because I needed to do a modern European language in order to qualify to get into a NUI college.

In my case I didn't need to pass Irish to get into university as I was born in Wales (my parents are Irish). It is crazy that the NUI requires most students to pass three languages to get in, but that could be a topic of a whole thread by it's self.

conor.hogan.2

WillieFlynn wrote: »

Because I needed to do a modern European language in order to qualify to get into a NUI college.

In my case I didn't need to pass Irish to get into university as I was born in Wales (my parents are Irish). It is crazy that the NUI requires most students to pass three languages to get in, but that could be a topic of a whole thread by it's self.

Ah yes.
You should have got an exemption in Irish then, they are very very easy to get.

fkt

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

Ah yes.
You should have got an exemption in Irish then, they are very very easy to get.

Post 872

kowloon

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

Luckily you mod all the forums I find boring or irrelevant.

Getting quite bitchy there, maybe you're the troll?

Why did you do French if you were bad at languages?

I was of the understanding most school make you do a European language and a science. French and German are the most common.

WillieFlynn

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

Ah yes.
You should have got an exemption in Irish then, they are very very easy to get.

My problem was that all of my schooling was in Ireland. If you start in school here before the age of 11 you have to do Irish.

In my secondary school a French classmate didn't have to do Irish but his bother who was a year younger did.

conor.hogan.2

fkt wrote: »

Post 872

Yes and removing Irish from education would gain how much money when you put a lot of the Irish teachers on the Dole?

Our fiscal problems will not be helped much by cutting down monetary support of Irish. An Bord Snip cut it down as much as they felt it was needed to be cut.

WillieFlynn wrote: »

My problem was that all of my schooling was in Ireland. If you start in school here before the age of 11 you have to do Irish.

In my secondary school a French classmate didn't have to do Irish but his bother who was a year younger did.

Ah ok, you still could have gotten an exemption. They seem very easy to get.

kowloon wrote: »

I was of the understanding most school make you do a European language and a science. French and German are the most common.

Yeah that was pointed out, I forgot that you needed that for the NUIs and possibly Trinity.

WillieFlynn

BTW It is only at LC that I didn't want to do Irish because of a very high workload. If it had been optional for the inter-cert (showing my age now), I would have most likely still done it.

fkt

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

Yes and removing Irish from education would gain how much money when you put a lot of the Irish teachers on the Dole?

Our fiscal problems will not be helped much by cutting down monetary support of Irish. An Bord Snip cut it down as much as they felt it was needed to be cut.

You make it optional. Re-train the younger teachers and let the older generation teach until they reach retirement. Then you stop it altogether.

We could then focus investment on languages of the future - Mandarin, Japanese. This attracts Asian companies to set up their European operations in Ireland. Employment results - real employment.

This country could really achieve something. There is so much potential. But instead we can't get away from the "history" which quite frankly no-one will give a f*ck about when this country is in a real real crisis in fifty years.

conor.hogan.2

re-training costs money. optional could lead to some classes with 2 people and some with 30 do you pay them all the same?

Mandarin is optional in a lot of schools? Anyway, Asian companies are already doing a lot of business here and with us. These business deals happen in English, but I agree knowing their language is always nice and would help.

This was all up for cut in an bord snip and other nip/tuck budgets and it was deemed not worth it as the money spent on it is very miniscule.

WillieFlynn

kowloon wrote: »

I was of the understanding most school make you do a European language and a science. French and German are the most common.

When the push comes to shove, all subjects except Irish are optional, as the school will still get their capitation grant. Unless of course your parents have enough money to pay the school instead, then Irish suddenly becomes optional.

May be the exemptions are easier to get now. However if someone studies Irish up to the inter-cert (now the JC), I'm not sure how one could justify an exemption for the LC.

As you pointed out later the NUI entry requirement are another matter all together. I wish they would take the general requirements from the JC and then just six subjects from the LC for points, in a similar way to England with O and A-levels

Dublinstiofán

Compulsory, that is all.

conor.hogan.2

WillieFlynn wrote: »

in a similar way to England with O and A-levels

I think it is just a fundamental difference in the education systems.

We favor a system which allows for a broad range of subjects which favors a lot of people but not people who like you knew they wanted to do Engineering and doing languages was just extra pressure and hassle.

fkt

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

re-training costs money. optional could lead to some classes with 2 people and some with 30 do you pay them all the same?

Mandarin is optional in a lot of schools? Anyway, Asian companies are already doing a lot of business here and with us. These business deals happen in English, but I agree knowing their language is always nice and would help.

This was all up for cut in an bord snip and other nip/tuck budgets and it was deemed not worth it as the money spent on it is very miniscule.

Yes it would be a misfortunate short term siutaion which really needs to be undertaken for the long term benefit of the country.

Yes of course there are Asian languages taught here and there are Asian companies here. The same as in any other country in the world. However it could be taught and promoted more and more; eventually you end up with a very attractive, highly diversified workforce.

fkt

Dublinstiofán wrote: »

Compulsory, that is all.

Compelling.

conor.hogan.2

fkt wrote: »

Yes it would be a misfortunate short term siutaion which really needs to be undertaken for the long term benefit of the country.

Yes of course there are Asian languages taught here and there are Asian companies here. The same as in any other country in the world. However it could be taught and promoted more and more; eventually you end up with a very attractive, highly diversified workforce.

Perhaps. But the current government (the "alternative") will not do this though. It would certainly not further worsen our crisis, I agree and would help.

We are a bit more active in Asia than a lot of countries and not just meeting with vice-presidents. But again every little helps.

Anyway I agree the more people speaking foreign languages the better. I do not know what the Chinese LC subject is like but if it includes any character writing I can see why few pick it up it takes a lot of time, effort and patience.

But learning to speak asian languages is very important. But not going to happen in place of Irish at least not in the foreseeable future.

Anyway despite the population dominance of Chinese (mandarin and others) and Indian (generic/wrong I know) English is the global language of business so us learning Asian languages is not vital in that sense.

fkt

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

But learning to speak asian languages is very important. But not going to happen in place of Irish at least not in the foreseeable future.

Anyway despite the population dominance of Chinese (mandarin and others) and Indian (generic/wrong I know) English is the global language of business so us learning Asian languages is not vital in that sense.

What is actually going to happen is not what we're discussing though. We're not trying to predict the future. It's about what we think should happen.

English is the principal language of business at the moment. However, times are changing and will continue to do so. At no stage will the continual teaching of Irish aid us to adapt to this change. It will continue to waste our very limited resources and limit our next generation.

GaryIrv93

Enkidu wrote: »

I don't think this is very sensible. If you are supposed to speak a language, then you should be able to understand the speech of different speakers. Secondly there is no Eastern accent, as there is no native Irish speaking community in the east, outside the one in Meath, but the people there don't speak Leinster Irish (which is extinct).

No, not I said that there shouldn't be any different, difficult accents used in the aural. I've no problem with a bit of a challenge in these exams, which there needs to be, but I said there should be less difficult accents used - if I'm ever going to speak Irish to somebody else, it will most likely be to another Dubliner, or somebody from a GDA country with a similar speech that I can understand. Few people live in Donegal, Sligo, etc, not to mention that people there speak perfect English just like the rest of us, and maybe a little more Irish, making the likeliehood of speaking any Irish to anyone else in the future even less likely - which reduces the point of using hard-to-understand accents. There just should be less, not none though. Listening exams are hard enough without using difficult-to-understand speakers 95% of the time.

conor.hogan.2

fkt wrote: »

What is actually going to happen is not what we're discussing though. We're not trying to predict the future. It's about what we think should happen.

English is the principal language of business at the moment. However, times are changing and will continue to do so. At no stage will the continual teaching of Irish aid us to adapt to this change. It will continue to waste our very limited resources and limit our next generation.

I think we can all agree Irish is not going to fuel our International business potential. But no one argues this, it is important for very different reasons.

There is no reason both can not be taught. In fact they have been for years.

kingofthenerds

irish should be totally and utterly abolished. all texts books and any evidence of its written existance should be burned. such a useless language.

conor.hogan.2

kingofthenerds wrote: »

irish should be totally and utterly abolished. all texts books and any evidence of its written existance should be burned. such a useless language.

Doing so while obviously pointless and stupid would actually be quite impressive and would take a lot of time, money and effort to do considering the vast amount of it around considering its long history.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Dublinstiofán wrote: »

Compulsory, that is all.

Now there's a new argument for the thread.

Enkidu

Wibbs wrote: »

The Irish you speak/are learning/grew up with is as different to old Irish as modern English is to Chaucer. Well nearly. IIRC it's more like Latin, has extra genders and pronunciations are different. Things like TH and GH are pronounced as you would pronounce them in modern English, not the soft sound of modern Irish. Hopefully Enkidu comes along soon, he's a charm and education on this stuff.

All of this is correct. Primitive Irish was quite similar to Latin, for example:
Modern English:
“I swear by my smock(habit),” said the third man, “if you two won’t be still I’m going to leave you here in the wilderness!"
Primitive Irish:
“Tongū wo mō brattan,” esset bīrt trissas uiras, “ma nīt lēggītar kiyunessus do mū, imbit gabiyū wāssākan oliyan dū swi.”
Early Old Irish:
“Tongu tarm chulche”, ol in tris fer, “mani·lécther taue dom, ime·n-imgéb in n-ule ndíthrub airib.”
Normal Old Irish:
“Toingim fom aibit,” ol in tres fer, “mani·léicthe ciúnas dom co n-imgéb in fásach uile dúib.”
Modern Irish:
“Dar m’aibíd,” arsa an treas fear, “mura ligeann sibh ciúnas dom fágfaidh mé an fásach uile daoibh!”

Primitive Irish is quite similar to Latin, although the spelling above might not suggest it (because that spelling is completely phonetic, as the language was actually written in Ogham.) Verb tenses and noun cases were formed in a very similar way.

Old Irish, especially normal Old Irish, may look as though you could understand it from Modern Irish, but that's because this is a nice example. The grammar is much more complex. A less easy example is:
Ilar mbríathar mbláith rot-char = You have been loved by many gentle words.

As Wibbs said the pronounciation is quite different. TH like it is in English, four different R's, L's and N's and other difficulties. In general it is not as soft as modern Irish.

WillieFlynn

All the talk of exemptions, makes me think that there is a solution which will keep everyone happy

Keep Irish compulsory, but give an exemption to anyone who wants one.

WillieFlynn

Irish, English and Maths all suffer from the same problem at the LC, the subjects are too broad and need to be split in two. It is unfair that they have two exam papers each, but are only count as one subject the same as every other LC subject.

WillieFlynn

Enkidu wrote: »

As Wibbs said the pronounciation is quite different. TH like it is in English, four different R's, L's and N's and other difficulties. In general it is not as soft as modern Irish.

It is interesting that Irish at one time had a TH sound but now lots of Irish people can't pronounce TH in the standard way when speaking English:D

Enkidu, I liked your post showing how Irish has evolved over time.

Wibbs

fkt wrote: »

We could then focus investment on languages of the future - Mandarin, Japanese.

I'll bet you any money Mandarin will never become a global language "of the future". For many reasons. First "China is taking over de worrld!!:eek:". I recall the same thing being said of Japan back in the day. They were second to the US at one point. If you wanted the definition of "economic bubble" you wouldn't go far wrong with China. Watched a good programme recently on the changes to a tiny rural village that became a city over the last ten years. It was like the "Celtic tiger" on speed. People becoming landlords, estate agents and builders. The shops were nearly all building supply and home furnishing outlets. When any town has an over abundance of tile and bathroom shops look out. For some reason bubbles seem to be reflected in how expensive you want your jacks to look. This miracle city had only one factory not involved in the building industry. Sound familiar or what... We built ghost estates thinking the hammer would never fall, they're building cities. One hammer is demographics. China's looking down the barrel of a slump in young people. The same young people who drove the economic boom in the first place.

Of the language? It's not an international language like English or Spanish. In those examples many more people who aren't from England or Spain speak the language. The vast majority of Chinese speakers are Chinese.. Secondly it's needlessly complex. The written language while beautiful and all that is very cumbersome. They realised that themselves and came up with a simplified version, but it's still OTT compared to the European languages. They had printing for over a century before us, yet printed little beyond religious texts. It reaches Europe and within a generation it began one of the largest shifts in world cultural history. It's a lot easier to typeset with 20 odd letters compared to 2000 odd pictograms. The spoken language unlike the other world languages is tonal. Slightest diff in an inflection can change the meaning of a word or sentence. This means great difficulty for non natives to get this right. With say English you could have a Mexican talking in broken English with a heavy accent and he would generally understand and be understood by say a Frenchman also speaking broken English with a heavy accent. You can say the same of Spanish and French. Not Chinese though.

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Now there's a new argument for the thread.

It pretty much sums up the circular argument of the Irish lobby.

LordSutch

Dublinstiofán wrote: »

Compulsory, that is all.

Head in the sand :rolleyes:

Ever wonder what outsiders think of the current farce that we have here? Well from experience I can tell you that any friends that have visited me from abroad are firstly curious about the language, then shocked (and amused) that we learn Irish for all our school lives, and yet we dont speak it! "like how can that be"? I then explain that we don't really learn it, we just do Irish lessons in school so that we may pass the Irish exams, "but why if youre not going to speak it"? well because that's what expected of us . . . because of history, tradition, if you want to be in the Gardai, etc.

"So you can't speak Irish fluently after Primary school", hell NO, sure we cant even speak it after another six years in secondary school )