Going from post-school broken Irish to fluency

boblong

Hi,

I am probably unfortunately typical in that I've been doing Irish in school for the majority of my life, but still managed to leave with a relatively poor grasp on the language. I can string a few phrases together, and I actually think I know most of the grammar, but I can't follow a TV show on TG4, for example.

What I'm wondering is, is there any literature specifically for people who want to be able to speak the language, but have something of a fundamental base from school? For example, a book that spends time going through irregular verbs and grammar would not really be much use to me. I don't know much about learning learning languages so it's possible that I don't know what I want.

Thanks!

mr chips

The "Now You're Talking" series wasn't bad for teaching key phrases and helping people develop conversational Irish. Only thing is, I'm pretty sure it's out of print, but you might find a used copy on Amazon. It came with a cassette (shows you how old it is!) and if you have a "base" on which to build I reckon it would help you re-familiarise yourself with stuff you thought you'd forgotten. You'll still encounter explanations of grammar to let you know why something is said in a particular way etc, but not in an intimidating or overwhelming way.

somairle

Gaeilge Gan Stró (lower intermediate) & Turas Teanga (book/cd/DVD) are both aimed at people who have learnt Irish in school and want to take it up from there. I have them both and can't recommend them highly enough, TT is older but for me you couldn't beat the cd/DVD/book combo it hit all the areas I needed, great fun