A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: » How sad, why would you discourage children from learning any language or its literature?
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.
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!
Sardonicat wrote: » And I still don't know what it actually is.
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 !
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.
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.
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.
Dr Turk Turkelton wrote: » Modh coinníollach. Two words to explain why it won't be revived.
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?
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.
ILoveYourVibes wrote: » I think the trick is your parents have to learn it and speak it with you.
A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: » In any language, you're bombarded with verb conjugations from an early stage.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)?
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.
kingchess wrote: » Was in Galway and Connemara awhile ago and heard a lot of Irish spoken,People shopping and nattering away in Irish,
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.
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