Irish language revival

Johnny Jukebox

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

How sad, why would you discourage children from learning any language or its literature?

Its not the language per se I have an issue with - its the state forcing it down our throats in the form of mandatory education and exams and as a barrier to entry to employment when it serves no utility in practical terms.

When me and many of my generation say we hate "Irish", what we actually mean is that we hated our experience of Irish delivered through the education system in the 70s and 80s.

Johnny Jukebox

Johnny Jukebox wrote: »

Its not the language per se I have an issue with - its the state forcing it down our throats in the form of mandatory education and exams and as a barrier to entry to employment when it serves no utility in practical terms.

When me and many of my generation say we hate "Irish", what we actually mean is that we hated our experience of Irish delivered through the education system in the 70s and 80s.

That's very fair, and I share your experience to an extent. My own education in Irish was interrupted (between the ages of 12 and 15) by a linguistic demagogue who would routinely lose her sh!t if someone erred in their application of the plural-genitive case of a second declension noun (I wish I was kidding here).

I now manage to speak Irish fluently or almost so, and for that Im grateful to my primary school teacher and Leaving Cert teacher who were both from the West Kerry Gaeltacht. They even made Peig seem interesting.

The Irish-language purists absolutely do exist and they make the language seem dull and needlessly complex.

Sardonicat

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Sardonicat wrote: »

And I still don't know what it actually is.

It's just the conditional tense. It's not much more complex than the French version, and certainly easier and more consistent than its English counterpart!

My point was, I was never told what it was. Nothing was ever explained. Ever. Just declining verbs with different endings. Tenses never explained. How and why did they teach it like that. What was wrong with conversational Irish? If you want people to speak it, fecking converse !

_blaaz

Lads seriously showing their age here....im old enough like and peig was gone off the course years before i doned my leaving :pac:

Sardonicat

Sardonicat wrote: »

My point was, I was never told what it was. Nothing was ever explained. Ever. Just declining verbs with different endings. Tenses never explained. How and why did they teach it like that. What was wrong with conversational Irish? If you want people to speak it, fecking converse !

How can you speak a language without using the conditional tense?

I would (see?!) have trouble believing that it was never explained that the Modh Coinníollach is just the conditional tense.

I agree that the language is badly taught. But this mystery around the Modh Coinníollach is difficult to swallow. It's far easier to understand than, say, the Tuiseal Ginideach or the other cases.

ILoveYourVibes

Why the welsh?

ייִדיש איז אַ בעסערע שפּראַך.

И если вы научитесь говорить на идише, вы сможете писать задом наперед на английском!

Junkyard Tom

Haven't a word of Irish but would love to speak a little - I feel like I'm missing out by not being able to understand it.

_blaaz

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Haven't a word of Irish but would love to speak a little - I feel like I'm missing out by not being able to understand it.

Dulingo app

Sardonicat

Reati wrote: »

If they is nothing I like more than a dole bashing or a traveller bashing thread, it's an Irish language bashing thread full of the same old myths.

Let me cut through them (I'm on my phone so it'll be brief) and save people a heap of time.

1. No its not thought badly by teachers or any worse than the other subjects. Many people learn a European language for 5/6 years yet few could pass a (CEFR) A2 level. You can't learn a language with a few classes here a week. The teaching method is the problem. Immersion is the only way to learn a language.

6. Its all Peigs fault. Musha, poor old Peig. It's a tough read even if your near fluent so getting kids to read it was a terrible idea. You can blame the government for that one. It'd rumored they actually reworded a ton to fit the stereotype of a typical Irish western women.

7. Its too hard to learn. It's really not, if you actually put the effort into it. It's just an excuse to say it's too hard. Learning any language is not going to be easy, especially for monoglots.

I don't know what the teaching of Irish is like now but when I left school, 30 years ago, I left with more functional French than Irish. French was taught completely differently to Irish. Despite years of learning ****e off by heart. I can still manage to ask directions, order food, basic survival stuff in French. I live 30 miles from a gealtacht and would have to use English to do that. That's not cos I'm stupid or was too lazy to learn. I was never taught . I was never taught the meaning of what I was learning. Half the time I didn't even know what tense was being used . It was taught in an utterly counter-productive way. The kids who's folks could afford to send them to the gealtacht learned Irish. The rest just struggled to grasp what was going on. If you can speak it and want to use it, great. It's a beautiful language. It's not my language. It's not part of my heritage. It's not part of my identity. It might be for you. But it isn't for me.

ILoveYourVibes

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Haven't a word of Irish but would love to speak a little - I feel like I'm missing out by not being able to understand it.

A bisl of Irish never hurt anyone.

Junkyard Tom

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Haven't a word of Irish but would love to speak a little - I feel like I'm missing out by not being able to understand it.

Unfortunately you're not missing much. As mentioned earlier, the contemporary books are mostly rubbish, and the online news coverage (through Irish) is also woeful.

Raidió na Gaeltachta has occasional gems, but there's an awful lot of rough. It's almost a local-news station, at times

amcalester

Spent my summers in the Gaeltacht and had quite good conversational Irish but had no time or interest in Fear Lasta Lampai or Peig so did pass for the leaving, did well too.

Haven’t a word now and regret not keeping it up to the point that I think I’ll send my future kids to a Gael Scoil.

Sardonicat

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Sardonicat wrote: »

My point was, I was never told what it was. Nothing was ever explained. Ever. Just declining verbs with different endings. Tenses never explained. How and why did they teach it like that. What was wrong with conversational Irish? If you want people to speak it, fecking converse !

How can you speak a language without using the conditional tense?

I would (see?!) have trouble believing that it was never explained that the Modh Coinníollach is just the conditional tense.

I agree that the language is badly taught. But this mystery around the Modh Coinníollach is difficult to swallow. It's far easier to understand than, say, the Tuiseal Ginideach or the other cases.

Rather then saying, in Irish, now let's learn ,how about practicing conversation using the conditional tense and telling the students what the words Mo Coinníollach actually mean! Instead we got a list of verb endings to decline. No context. Like I said earlier, I only discovered that today! How the hell was that a good way to teach a language?

nuac

Dr Turk Turkelton wrote: »

Modh coinníollach.

Two words to explain why it won't be revived.

Agus an Módh Foshuíteach!

Sardonicat

Sardonicat wrote: »

Rather then saying, in Irish, now let's learn ,how about practicing conversation using the conditional tense and telling the students what the words Mo Coinníollach actually mean! Instead we got a list of verb endings to decline. No context. Like I said earlier, I only discovered that today! How the hell was that a good way to teach a language?

That sounds exactly how French is taught. Aside from French, I didn't study any other European language in the Leaving, but I seem to remember German as being the same.

In any language, you're bombarded with verb conjugations from an early stage.

You're definitely correct in saying that something has gone wrong in the teaching of Irish, I'm just not convinced that its verbs are the problem. They're really not much different to Latin languages and other Germanic languages.

jimbobaloobob

I use it daily for at least 50% of the day in general conversation, listening to radio and tv and in business, while i use it i cant say im bothered what language people want to speak, if someone has it and wants to speak english to me im not bothered.
I cant ever see it being more than it is though in irish society.

ILoveYourVibes

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

That sounds exactly how French is taught. Aside from French, I didn't study any other European language in the Leaving, but I seem to remember German as being the same.

In any language, you're bombarded with verb conjugations from an early stage.

You're definitely correct in saying that something has gone wrong in the teaching of Irish, I'm just not convinced that its verbs are the problem. They're really not much different to Latin languages and other Germanic languages.

I think the trick is your parents have to learn it and speak it with you.

ILoveYourVibes

ILoveYourVibes wrote: »

I think the trick is your parents have to learn it and speak it with you.

one of my parents was born in the UK and the other one only learned Irish when his kids were grown up.

But yeah, we shouldn't look to outliers; rather to general trends, and having a Gaeilgeoir at home will surely enhance learning. I'm still mystified as to why the language is deemed so difficult, though. I say this as someone who can hardly post to boards without making a grammatical error, so I'm nearly sure it's unrelated to language skill in itself.

keepalive213

It's a dying language, every generation its getting worse.

Greyfox

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

In any language, you're bombarded with verb conjugations from an early stage.

Which is why I'll only ever speak English. In school I couldn't understand why it seemed like I was learning all these verb conjugations before learning what the Irish for all common English words where. Learning lots of words first and then the grammar does seem a more logical and interesting way of learning a language.

Sardonicat

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Sardonicat wrote: »

Rather then saying, in Irish, now let's learn ,how about practicing conversation using the conditional tense and telling the students what the words Mo Coinníollach actually mean! Instead we got a list of verb endings to decline. No context. Like I said earlier, I only discovered that today! How the hell was that a good way to teach a language?

That sounds exactly how French is taught. Aside from French, I didn't study any other European language in the Leaving, but I seem to remember German as being the same.

In any language, you're bombarded with verb conjugations from an early stage.

You're definitely correct in saying that something has gone wrong in the teaching of Irish, I'm just not convinced that its verbs are the problem. They're really not much different to Latin languages and other Germanic languages.

I can still still remember my first French class and my French text book and work book.
The very first lesson was 'My name is---' 'What's your name?' 'His name is ---' 'What's her name?' The book had cartoons with speech bubbles. We learned to decline the verb Avoir. The class was held in a language lab. With cassettes that played the conversation with different voices in different accents and time for us to repeat what we heard and practice it with each other. It was a very basic conversation. I experienced nothing like that in Irish. Of course it got more complicated as we progressed, but the basics were presented in a teenager appropriate way, talk about school, your family, your favourite music and TV shows. Irish was nothing like that. Nothing. Just texts that were never translated and grammar that was never contextualised in a conversation. It was awful. I could read aloud perfectly but only have the vaguest idea what I was reading. I'm not quite sure how they managed to impart that particular skill. Perfect pronunciation but not idea what's being pronounced. Well done! The kicker is I actually really wanted to learn it. It wasn't for want of trying.

blanch152

Sardonicat wrote: »

I don't know what the teaching of Irish is like now but when I left school, 30 years ago, I left with more functional French than Irish. French was taught completely differently to Irish. Despite years of learning ****e off by heart. I can still manage to ask directions, order food, basic survival stuff in French. I live 30 miles from a gealtacht and would have to use English to do that. That's not cos I'm stupid or was too lazy to learn. I was never taught . I was never taught the meaning of what I was learning. Half the time I didn't even know what tense was being used . It was taught in an utterly counter-productive way. The kids who's folks could afford to send them to the gealtacht learned Irish. The rest just struggled to grasp what was going on. If you can speak it and want to use it, great. It's a beautiful language. It's not my language. It's not part of my heritage. It's not part of my identity. It might be for you. But it isn't for me.

This is pretty much the reason why Irish is the way it is.

I feel sad for the poster, while I can accept that the Irish language is only a very small part of our culture today (and fully believe that such a small part is
its correct place) it remains a large part of our history and our heritage.

It would be nice to keep a few small parts of the country speaking Irish, even if only for tourist purposes, but aside from that, there is no need to speak it in everyday life. The Irish language is a part of our heritage, is a part of our identity, but equally, if not even more so, the English language is a part of our heritage and identity. Our greatest poets, our greatest story-tellers, our greatest musicians, our greatest broadcasters, our greatest anything, well they all did their best work through the medium of English.

Simple_Simone

Igotadose wrote: »

What's striking is how well Wales could do on preserving and encouraging it's language, while Ireland fumbles along spending a lot of money with poor results.

Seems like we could learn something from Wales.

Seems like you could learn something from England too - namely the difference between its and it's!

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

blanch152 wrote: »

This is pretty much the reason why Irish is the way it is.

I feel sad for the poster, while I can accept that the Irish language is only a very small part of our culture today (and fully believe that such a small part is
its correct place) it remains a large part of our history and our heritage.

It would be nice to keep a few small parts of the country speaking Irish, even if only for tourist purposes, but aside from that, there is no need to speak it in everyday life. The Irish language is a part of our heritage, is a part of our identity, but equally, if not even more so, the English language is a part of our heritage and identity. Our greatest poets, our greatest story-tellers, our greatest musicians, our greatest broadcasters, our greatest anything, well they all did their best work through the medium of English.

You use the word "our" a lot there - have you checked with everyone else?

I'm Irish, was born and raised in Ireland, but it most certainly NOT a part of my culture or my identity. I'll decide what defines me as an individual - not the State, not a language and not some conformed and assumed "culture".

(Interestingly, the word "culture" has the same root as the word "cult" - to worship" - which is not a word used in association with the langauge for most people)

Das Reich

Igotadose wrote: »

5 years in Ireland, and hear it nearly daily in interactions with others. Of course, living in a Gaeltacht region probably has something to do with that

What's striking is how well Wales could do on preserving and encouraging it's language, while Ireland fumbles along spending a lot of money with poor results. Seems like we could learn something from Wales.

Which Gaeltacht you can hear it? I lived near one in Dungarvan, NEVER heard Irish there, I live near Trim now where there is a supposed Gaeltacht but I asked few old people if they speak Irish and no one does, was recently in Connemara, stoped here and there and not a single word in Irish. And these people you hear they are first language Irish speakers (without English accent)?

Subcomandante Marcos

Das Reich wrote: »

Which Gaeltacht you can hear it? I lived near one in Dungarvan, NEVER heard Irish there, I live near Trim now where there is a supposed Gaeltacht but I asked few old people if they speak Irish and no one does, was recently in Connemara, stoped here and there and not a single word in Irish. And these people you hear they are first language Irish speakers (without English accent)?

Either you're talking bollocks or you need a hearing aid. You hear Irish regularly in Galway city from people form Connemara in doing their shopping. Sit in Fig Coilis or Tom Sheridan's of a weekend and there will be umpteen auld lads chatting away as gailge.
Even a short trip to Moycullen or Barna and the majority of people are fluent and slightly further west and it's the default language.

kingchess

Subcomandante Marcos wrote: »

Either you're talking bollocks or you need a hearing aid. You hear Irish regularly in Galway city from people form Connemara in doing their shopping. Sit in Fig Coilis or Tom Sheridan's of a weekend and there will be umpteen auld lads chatting away as gailge.
Even a short trip to Moycullen or Barna and the majority of people are fluent and slightly further west and it's the default language.

Was in Galway and Connemara awhile ago and heard a lot of Irish spoken,People shopping and nattering away in Irish,

Subcomandante Marcos

kingchess wrote: »

Was in Galway and Connemara awhile ago and heard a lot of Irish spoken,People shopping and nattering away in Irish,

Literally sat across the aisle from a young mother and her three young kids as they chatted away in Irish on a train from Galway to Dublin the other day too. This is normal enough when I'm visiting Galway. I hear it very often, and I think it's brilliant.

dd973

I understand the viewpoint of bad memories of sitting bored in class having Peig rammed into your brain but can't see why so many people are apparently anti our language especially when it's a demarcation of not being perceived as English or British which is something most Irish people regard as their raison d'etre.

Das Reich

Subcomandante Marcos wrote: »

Literally sat across the aisle from a young mother and her three young kids as they chatted away in Irish on a train from Galway to Dublin the other day too. This is normal enough when I'm visiting Galway. I hear it very often, and I think it's brilliant.

Sure is brilliant and I wish more people would speak it, but the fact is that I never heard it, and I don't think I need a hearing aid as I can well recognise Polish, Romanian, Lithuanian etc... (that are languages that I hear every week). My ex boss was from Galway and could speak only a how are you, I will believe this language exist and some people use it as first language only after hearing.