Are you willing to learn Irish to keep the language alive

ch750536

Just wondering like, from the other thread.

BoJack Horseman

We all already learn it.

darkpagandeath

Language has to be used, learning it does nothing. It needs to be used day to day if not it falls by the wayside of history.

ch750536

Can't use it without learning it.

stefanovich

I think the fact that I passed both Irish and French at leaving cert and only know the very basics of both said a lot. It is taught badly at school. I wouldn't learn it properly now just due to lack of time.

darkpagandeath

ch750536 wrote: »

Can't use it without learning it.

People already learn it..

ch750536

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

We all already learn it.

Do I? Please explain.

darkpagandeath

ch750536 wrote: »

Do I? Please explain.

Did you not go to school In Ireland ?

BoJack Horseman

ch750536 wrote: »

Do I? Please explain.

Brace for shock.....

Most Irish people were educated in schools in Ireland & accordingly taught Irish.

News for some apparently!

Wang King

Irish is the everyday language in certain parts of the country. It's used in both business, and the home. As long as these people keep using the language it's alive and well.
Whether or not the broader population wish to try and get a working knowledge of Irish is a different matter

swampgas

It's already a dead language for the vast majority of the people. It's about time we faced that fact instead af pretending otherwise.

Penny Tration

I already know it. Speak it with a friend and the bf fairly regularly.

ch750536

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

Brace for shock.....

Most Irish people were educated in schools in Ireland & accordingly taught Irish.

News for some apparently!

I wasn't. Now that's apparently news for some!
Also, question is about you, today. Obviously most people are not speaking Irish. I want to know if they are willing to learn it.

darkpagandeath

ch750536 wrote: »

I wasn't. Now that's apparently news for some!
Also, question is about you, today. Obviously most people are not speaking Irish. I want to know if they are willing to learn it.

What would I gain over speaking English ? Speaking English gives me a much better option speaking to people especially from a foreign country. At the moment if I Learnt Irish I would only be able to communicate with a very very small section of people. Where as English gives me access to the world pretty much It is basically the language of business.

DivingDuck

If I could unlearn it to free up space in my brain, I would.

I respect other people's interest in it, but it is of no use to me personally, and I resent it being forced in there against my will for twelve years.

identer

I think it what we speak...i.e we learned it already...still confused though.

From that thread surely another choice should be "or would you rather not, but foist it on your kids instead".

Dirty Dingus McGee

The only way you'll revive it is to start with the youth.It's too late for anyone who's past school age.If all primary schools became gaelscoileanna then a whole generation would be fluent by the time they were 12 would be using the language on a day to day basis in conversation with their friends and it would be spoken outside of school and eventually grow as a language.

Making all primary schools gaelscoileanna would'nt be that difficult and it would revive the language.

ch750536

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

The only way you'll revive it is to start with the youth.It's too late for anyone who's past school age.If all primary schools became gaelscoileanna then a whole generation would be fluent by the time they were 12 would be using the language on a day to day basis in conversation with their friends and it would be spoken outside of school and eventually grow as a language.

Making all primary schools gaelscoileanna would'nt be that difficult and it would revive the language.

That's a no from you then?

darkpagandeath

Cueva wrote: »

It benefits your brain and it's abilities by learning and speaking Irish.

learning Klingon would give me access to more people than speaking Irish. I mean no offence at all, It has no Practical benefits over the language I speak.

Dirty Dingus McGee

ch750536 wrote: »

That's a no from you then?

Yes because it's too late for me and any one of my age.People who have jobs don't have enough time to be doing something that is essentially pointless.

An attempt to revive the language should be made because it's shameful that we are one of the few (if the only) country in Europe that has our own language and don't speak it.Start with the young and the language would be revived within a couple of generations.

Links234

Nope, no interest. Been studying Japanese, that's far more interesting and useful to me.

salmocab

My nephew was excused Irish in school as apparently he has a learning difficulty. It was the first thing that he was allowed drop. My Irish is abysmal because in secondary school I had very poor teacher and I had no interest, not sure which came first. I would love to learn it properly even just to have reasonable conversational Irish. I think a different approach to teaching needs to be taken.

Grayson

Will it get me money or sex?

Maximus Alexander

Cueva wrote: »

It benefits your brain and it's abilities by learning and speaking Irish.

In that respect you'd be better off learning French, German, Spanish or Mandarin surely?

I have nothing against Irish, or it's speakers, I wouldn't mind being able to speak it myself. But for the majority it would be no more than a hobby. I think trying to dress it up as a practical use of one's time is fairly disingenuous.

Mesrine65

I would love to learn Irish, never did it in school, I was exempted because I left Ireland when I was 3 & returned when I was 13

anothernight

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

The only way you'll revive it is to start with the youth.It's too late for anyone who's past school age.If all primary schools became gaelscoileanna then a whole generation would be fluent by the time they were 12 would be using the language on a day to day basis in conversation with their friends and it would be spoken outside of school and eventually grow as a language.

Making all primary schools gaelscoileanna would'nt be that difficult and it would revive the language.

This. From a cultural point of view, it's a shame that the language is so underused and undervalued. But if the current standard of teaching is so bad that I (a foreigner excused from Irish class) know as much Irish as my boyfriend (an Irish man) something is clearly very wrong with the way it's taught.

I had to sit in Irish class in school even though I didn't have to study it myself. The most memorable bits were girls asking "miss, how do you say 'and'?" and the teacher telling them to write 'Boots' instead of teaching them the word for 'pharmacy'. Same girls somehow studied An Triail for the leaving cert even though they could barely string a sentence together. =/

Making the Irish school system work through Irish, or on a bilingual basis with some classes in Irish and some in English, would greatly improve the chance of survival for the language.

ihavenoname3

I heard a guy talking to his kids in Irish, more giving out to them, but if I am honest I was cringing for him, it seemed like he was showing off using Irish. then he got his change from the cashier and said cheers lol. it is sad that these days people who give their kids Irish names, speak Irish and send their kids to gaelscoil's come across as pretentious (the people who dont live in Gaeltacht areas). I don't think Irish should be compulsory in schools.

ihavenoname3

I heard a guy talking to his kids in Irish in a supermarket recently, more giving out to them, but if I am honest I was cringing for him, it seemed like he was showing off using Irish. then he got his change from the cashier and said cheers lol. it is sad that these days people who give their kids Irish names, speak Irish and send their kids to gaelscoil's come across as pretentious (the people who dont live in Gaeltacht areas). I don't think Irish should be compulsory in schools.

Pumpkinseeds

It's like flogging a dead horse, most of us don't care about the Irish language and even fewer of us ever speak it, let alone fluently. Let it die out and if people want to hear it let them go to Gaelteacht areas where they can continue be ripped off for the pleasure. I've no interest in it, never did have any interest in it. It's ridiculous that most street signs for housing estates are in Irish and most people living in those areas have zero idea what the English translation of that is.

You'd have to be living under a rock to not be able to speak even basic English and yet we still have both an English and an Irish version of all public signage and on atm's etc. Time to let it go already, but so long as the shinners and shinner bots are around the money will continue to be wasted on it.

pconn062

I am currently trying to learn it (as I never really learned it in school). I also speak reasonable German but would have more opportunities to speak Irish daily in work and with a few fluent friends. I would love to be able to speak it fluently, if you are interested in languages then it is actually a very beautiful and unique language, hence the reason a lot of polyglots choose to learn it.

Depraved

I learned conversational Dutch because I lived in The Netherlands for a while and wanted to fit in.
I am learning Tagalog because I now live in The Philippines and it's widely used (not everyone here speaks English).

I have no reason to learn a mostly dead language.

If a language is to survive, there has to be a practical need for it.

Dramatik

Nein! Tá mé ein cabáiste!

Geniass

I would like to have it, but it wouldn't be worth the effort to acquire it.

With that said my children go to Gael Scoil and are doing very well there.

My wife can also converse in Irish.

I spent two years in a class where we were supposed to be studying Peig. Think it was a horror story or something.

magicmushroom

I'd be willing to learn it if there was any point, but it's not used anymore so there would be no benefit to me taking the time - far more useful to learn Chinese, Spanish or something!

By the way I am English so I wasn't taught the language at school.
It's such a shame that it's taught at school in this country but it's never used so everyone forgets it, such a waste, kids would be far better off putting those few hours each week into something else

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

To the (currently 12) people who said yes: are you leanring it?

Supergurrier

No.

Can it not just die with some dignity atleast and be done with it.

Ficheall

ihavenoname3 wrote: »

I heard a guy talking to his kids in Irish in a supermarket recently, more giving out to them, but if I am honest I was cringing for him, it seemed like he was showing off using Irish. then he got his change from the cashier and said cheers lol. it is sad that these days people who give their kids Irish names, speak Irish and send their kids to gaelscoil's come across as pretentious (the people who dont live in Gaeltacht areas).

How is it pretentious?


OT: I speak Irish on a daily basis, but I don't know if I'd learn it now if I didn't know it. That said, I wouldn't study history, geography, or art either..

Geniass

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

To the (currently 12) people who said yes: are you leanring it?

Or are they already proficient

guitarzero

I think the best we can do is use the Gaeltact like some co-op village type thing where ppl who wish to continue the language, local or not, live there and keep it alive. No one really cares about it and I've met far too many who pretend like they care yet only speak 4 words.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Geniass wrote: »

Or are they already proficient

Thread title said "are you willing to learn", so I kinda ruled them out.

Very Bored

stefanovich wrote: »

I think the fact that I passed both Irish and French at leaving cert and only know the very basics of both said a lot. It is taught badly at school. I wouldn't learn it properly now just due to lack of time.

I think this is the key problem. I spent five years learning German at school and was able to say "my favourite football team is...". I spent two years, as an adult, teaching Italian to myself via books, CDs, newspapers, films and music and practising with Italian friends and am able to discuss, in detail, almost anything. I'm not saying that makes me a good teacher, but I am probably the best person to judge how I, myself, learn.

ancapailldorcha

I'll be doing my best to ensure that any children I may have don't have to learn it. When I think of all the time I was forced to waste on it that I could have used to learn a modern language, IT skills, more time in STEM subjects... The mind boggles.

Alfred Borden

Probably the most useless subject I have ever studied.

Manach

Currently I'm re-learning it on Duolingo. No pressure from the state or teachers, just a willingness to do so, along with 700,000 other people.

Geniass

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Thread title said "are you willing to learn", so I kinda ruled them out.

If only that stopped people from voting

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

ancapailldorcha

Manach wrote: »

Currently I'm re-learning it on Duolingo. No pressure from the state or teachers, just a willingness to do so, along with 700,000 other people.

Is Duolingo any good?

eviltwin

No interest in learning it. I'd like to learn a language but a useful one.

ancapailldorcha

It's spoken by a tiny amount of people in comparison.

nxbyveromdwjpg

Let it die a natural death