The Irish language thread

deise go deo · 15-02-2011 07:15PM

jumpguy wrote: »

But there's another problem, modern Irish industrial life has no place for Irish. But industrial life is growing, most people these days live to work when they graduate. No time to try and support the national language, it's not high on many's priority list. Irish has far more barriers to success than just how it's thought. That said, fixing how it's thought would be a good place to start...

Firstly Making Irish optional for the LC is not the perfect Compromise between one group arguing for Irish to be made optional for the LC and the other group arguing for it to Stay Compulsory. It is one side getting their way. No Compromise.

As for your point about Industrial Life not having a place for Irish, What makes you say that? Many industrys do not use Irish, That dosent mean that they are specifically hostile to it, nor does it mean that Irish is inherently unsuited to use in those industries. It just means that it is currently not used in (Most) Industry. This can and will change when more people are able to use Irish.

As more people learn Irish more Irish will be used.

Grindylow · 15-02-2011 07:53PM

So like.. Seeing as we're speaking of Irish :pac: Does anyone know if any of this makes sense? I'm trynna learn stuff but I never did this story so like..

Cheap daoine go raibh Clare craicealta.
Bhi si tuirsearch da saol agus Nior reitim si go maith le da fear ceile, Eoin.
Ni raibh Eoin ro-shasta nuair a chuaigh si in airde ar chrann sa ghairdin.
Ni raibh si in ann curam na bpaisti no curaimi an ti a laimhseail.
nior thainig clare anuas den chrann nuair a bhi se ag stealladh baisti agus nuair a bhi Eoin agus na paisti fearg.
Ach I ndeireadh na dala duirt Eoin nach mbeadh curaimi ti agus clainne ina ualach uirthi a thuilleadh.
Duirt Eoin go gcabhrodh se lei agus go mbeadh meas mor aige agus ag na leanai uirthi as sin amach.

15-02-2011 08:45PM

Noel2k9 wrote: »

So like.. Seeing as we're speaking of Irish :pac: Does anyone know if any of this makes sense? I'm trynna learn stuff but I never did this story so like..

Cheap daoine go raibh Clare craicealta.
Bhi si tuirsearch da saol agus nior reitim si go maith lena fear ceile, Eoin.
Ni raibh Eoin ro-shasta nuair a chuaigh si in airde ar chrann sa ghairdin.
Ni raibh si in ann curam na bpaisti no curaimi an ti a laimhseail.
Nior thainig clare anuas den chrann nuair a bhi se ag stealladh baisti agus nuair a bhi Eoin agus na paisti fearg.
Ach i ndeireadh na dala duirt Eoin nach mbeadh curaimi ti agus clainne ina ualach uirthi a thuilleadh.
Duirt Eoin go gcabhrodh se lei agus go mbeadh meas mor aige agus ag na leanai uirthi as sin amach.

Only one mistake that I caught. I assume you just omitted the fadas because you didn't want to type them.

bluejay14 · 15-02-2011 08:51PM

Foreign lanuguaes are definately my weakest subjects (gimme maths over Irish any day)so I s'pose that's why I'd like the option to not continue with Irish after the J.C. I probably would still take Irish though even if it wasn't compulsory or I'd at least give it a good go just for the.... I dunno really.... the pride and sense of accomplishment that I would get from saying that I'd been able to master the language what with it being one of my weakest subjects and it being part of our culture/heritage and all.

Aimsigh · 15-02-2011 09:18PM

Noel2k9 wrote: »

So like.. Seeing as we're speaking of Irish :pac: Does anyone know if any of this makes sense? I'm trynna learn stuff but I never did this story so like..

Cheap daoine go raibh Clare craicealta.
Bhi si tuirsearch da saol agus Nior reitim si go maith le da fear ceile, Eoin.
Ni raibh Eoin ro-shasta nuair a chuaigh si in airde ar chrann sa ghairdin.
Ni raibh si in ann curam na bpaisti no curaimi an ti a laimhseail.
nior thainig clare anuas den chrann nuair a bhi se ag stealladh baisti agus nuair a bhi Eoin agus na paisti fearg.
Ach I ndeireadh na dala duirt Eoin nach mbeadh curaimi ti agus clainne ina ualach uirthi a thuilleadh.
Duirt Eoin go gcabhrodh se lei agus go mbeadh meas mor aige agus ag na leanai uirthi as sin amach.

Ah, na chuimhní:)

Go n-éirí leat leis an ardteist.

Insect Overlord · 15-02-2011 10:59PM

Noel2k9 wrote: »

nior thainig clare anuas den chrann nuair a bhi se ag stealladh baisti agus nuair a bhi fearg ar Eoin agus ar na paisti.

I'd go with writing it this way ^.
Conorstuff got the rest.

Grindylow · 15-02-2011 11:54PM

Thanks guys!

I wish Clare never got in to the Spear.. It'd save me the effort! :pac:

jumpguy · 15-02-2011 11:58PM

deise go deo wrote: »

Firstly Making Irish optional for the LC is not the perfect Compromise between one group arguing for Irish to be made optional for the LC and the other group arguing for it to Stay Compulsory. It is one side getting their way. No Compromise.

It's rather narrow-minded to look at it from such a black-and-white point of view. I'm not talking about exams here, I'm talking about education, from primary school, to Junior Cycle, to Senior Cycle. Not only about the Leaving Cert. Essentially, what I propose is that Irish be mandatory from the latter half of the primary school stage when it is introduced (due to children being, hopefully, being more capable of learning independently) and to the end of the Junior Cycle. This means everyone will have to have some degree of Irish anyway, the will have to try it.

All the better, it opens more opportunities. If the Junior Cert exam is made more student-friendly (like, say, geography is, and geography has a huge LC take-up rate) then it will encourage kids to keep it up in LC. But, it will not be forced on them, hence no chip on the shoulder about it.

Speaking about the Junior Cert exam for a moment, at the moment it is a bit ridiculous, but it's improved with the new course a bit. Unseen poetry at Junior level Irish?! That's not even on for LC HL Irish!

As for your point about Industrial Life not having a place for Irish, What makes you say that? Many industrys do not use Irish, That dosent mean that they are specifically hostile to it, nor does it mean that Irish is inherently unsuited to use in those industries. It just means that it is currently not used in (Most) Industry. This can and will change when more people are able to use Irish.

As more people learn Irish more Irish will be used.

Well, industrialization and globalisation has seen the death of many indigenous languages. Education is not the only barrier to Irish, and lets not be naive about it. English is the language of business, and is spoken in countries like the UK and USA, all major economies. French is spoken in France (major economy), German in Germany (major economy), Spanish in Spain, and importantly, Brazil (emerging major economy). Even Chinese is quite important, with China now being the second largest economy in the world. What d'you notice? The most popular languages in the world are directly proportional to the size of the economies that speak them. It's a cold, callous and far less romantic way of looking at the entire thing, but if the business world has no use for Irish (which it doesn't atm), then even after education, most people are gonna forget about it.

If we all ditch English and start speaking Irish tomorrow, international business won't come here. We could be bilingual, but this would require a team effort of everyone in the country to go and learn Irish properly and attempt to speak it whenever they can. It's quite a big ask, it might be possible, but only if people actually learn Irish, which will require a major overhaul of how it's thought.

Alternatively, provide people with an incentive to learn Irish (bonus marks in exams...no...I'm talking money or something). Alternatively again, make it mandatory for people to have Irish of a certain level, and a fine or some sort of punishment if they don't. The latter would probably be rather unpalpable to civil society though!

amacachi · 16-02-2011 04:17AM

jumpguy wrote: »

Children's parents, at this generation, mostly, do not know Irish.

Hence it is solely up to teachers to begin a generation of fluent Irish speakers.

But children are heavily dependent on parents for their educational needs at a young age, parents who mostly cannot speak Irish.

Hence, wait until the children are older, and start teaching them Irish.

Or just let them decide.

I spent 15 years in school and then repeated the LC a few years later, and when my mother said the other night "I'd love to be able to speak Irish" I tried to be smart and reply in Irish but all I could think was "Ich will nicht." Enough said.

amacachi · 16-02-2011 04:48AM

jumpguy wrote: »

Spanish in Spain, and importantly, Brazil (emerging major economy).

COUGH PORTUGUESE COUGH

Pygmalion · 16-02-2011 06:07PM

deise go deo wrote: »

Firstly Making Irish optional for the LC is not the perfect Compromise between one group arguing for Irish to be made optional for the LC and the other group arguing for it to Stay Compulsory. It is one side getting their way. No Compromise.

Compromise isn't always the answer.
I don't want a "compromise" between having a choice and being forced to do something, I simply want to have a choice.

For the record, it does bother me that the language isn't used enough (though I didn't realise that I felt this way until after my secondary education ended, which may say something about how it's taught), I just think that it being mandatory isn't doing it any favours.
A lot of people simply have no interest, and the rest of them tend to hate the curriculum if not the language.

Playing devil's advocate here, but if a compromise was to be reached I think a curriculum change would be the way to go.
The problem with this is that I think you have to reach the right balance between teaching casual, conversational Irish and correctly teaching the grammar and more formal Irish for it to be effective.

Slow Show · 16-02-2011 06:09PM

jumpguy wrote: »

All the better, it opens more opportunities. If the Junior Cert exam is made more student-friendly (like, say, geography is, and geography has a huge LC take-up rate) then it will encourage kids to keep it up in LC. But, it will not be forced on them, hence no chip on the shoulder about it.

I agree with a good bit of what you said, but tbh people only do Geography either because yes, they've become interested in it, but mostly because it's ridiculously easy for the JC, whereas subjects like History and what are considered the harder sciences - Chemistry and particularly Physics - have relatively small numbers keeping it up in LC. At least that's what I've noticed anyway, so that's a bit of a null argument.

I don't really have anything else to say - Go Irish, minus the old unseen filiocht - I just felt like contradicting that, as you do.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer · 16-02-2011 06:33PM

To be honest I think the argument of 'It takes up lots of time during the LC and we'll never use it again' doesn't hold any water because I feel the same way about maths and yet nobody's going to be scrapping that anytime soon.

Davidius · 16-02-2011 07:33PM

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

To be honest I think the argument of 'It takes up lots of time during the LC and we'll never use it again' doesn't hold any water because I feel the same way about maths and yet nobody's going to be scrapping that anytime soon.

There is more of a reluctance to make maths optional because unlike Irish, maths is used and has application in quite a few professions that don't make it the focus of study.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer · 16-02-2011 11:38PM

I will personally never use Leaving Cert maths again in my life. It was a complete waste of my time.

Davidius · 17-02-2011 02:19AM

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

I will personally never use Leaving Cert maths again in my life. It was a complete waste of my time.

No doubt a lot of people will never have to rely on much of the material taught in LC maths but the point is more that there's really no comparison between Irish and Maths when it comes to potential utility. If the situation arises that one of the two needs to be dropped as a compulsory subject it'd be insane to drop maths instead of Irish.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer · 17-02-2011 02:15PM

Thats true, but I'm beginning to wonder why any of them are compulsory. English wouldnt be much use to people after school because its primarily focused around literature rather than the practical use of the langauge.

Aimsigh · 17-02-2011 11:18PM

Pygmalion wrote: »

Playing devil's advocate here, but if a compromise was to be reached I think a curriculum change would be the way to go.
The problem with this is that I think you have to reach the right balance between teaching casual, conversational Irish and correctly teaching the grammar and more formal Irish for it to be effective.

Aontaím leat.

Tá sé ann

flyswatter · 21-02-2011 11:39AM

I'm against making Irish optional. I do agree the course needs to be restructured but I believe making it optional would be suicidal for the language.

In other countries where this has happened with a native language, the language starts to fade away.

missymoo2011 · 22-02-2011 08:19PM

I may be biased but I strongly believe that Irish should be optional:rolleyes: OR the course should be rethought. Personally I am useless at Irish and i always have been, so there's a slim chance of me picking it up at this stage. I think it stems back to primary school as none of my teacher were any good at Irish. My Mam doesn't even remember me getting any Irish homework until i was in 4th class!
Now I have to suffer with consequences which is just unfair! To make that worse now I'm in the leaving cert the course hasn't improved! I have to sit through hours of Irish class and learn about a crazy woman who lives up a tree etc. Then i have to go home and learn Irish essays of by heart as I don't now a word of Irish! This is just unfair, boring and a waste of my time as I am 100% sure i will never use anything of the Irish course!
Its actually a real shame as I have always wished I could have picked up Irish from young. There is a hand full of people in my class who are decent at Irish so our teacher hasn't lost hope yet!
But I'm sure that by 5th year if someone doesn't want to learn something they just won't have a positive attitude towards it and the won't learn. Most people I have asked think Irish is a waste of time and I personally think the same about the course. When I sit down in the evening to study and do Irish homework I can't help but think to myself, this is so pointless or instead of this I could be studying a subject like biology that will be of use to me in the future!
Maybe its just me, as I'm a hopeless case when it comes to Irish but something has to be done, it can't be just left the way it is!

Sorry about the rant:o

coffeelover · 22-02-2011 11:33PM

I will personally never use Leaving Cert maths again in my life. It was a complete waste of my time.

My irish teacher spent a whole class giving out that it should be maths they were making optional not irish. I think if they make it optional then irish will become a dead language. Not many people will opt to do it. I know I will never use maths in my life either. I despise it.

I had really good irish teachers in primary school and had a good standard when I left but for the JC my irish teacher was appaling. Ended up getting a C in HL

.. So this year I decided to watch tg4 and read a lot more irish and I'm starting to like it again

I voted yes because I think it should be compulsory but the course badly needs to change!.

amacachi · 22-02-2011 11:41PM

Maybe it's just me but I think a big debate that no-one, especially the political parties, wants to go near is the issue of proper streaming of students based on ability. In primary school especially everyone has to go at the pace of the least-good kid and it doesn't really help to cultivate interest or a love of any subject in the bored kids.

Namlub · 22-02-2011 11:50PM

I don't see how streaming students would make a massive difference with the LC curriculum the way it is tbh

Pygmalion · 22-02-2011 11:55PM

amacachi wrote: »

Maybe it's just me but I think a big debate that no-one, especially the political parties, wants to go near is the issue of proper streaming of students based on ability. In primary school especially everyone has to go at the pace of the least-good kid and it doesn't really help to cultivate interest or a love of any subject in the bored kids.

How do you reckon that'd work though?

I can't really think of a way to do it that wouldn't be putting much more strain on schools (without a huge amount of benefit IMO).

amacachi · 23-02-2011 12:03AM

Namlub wrote: »

I don't see how streaming students would make a massive difference with the LC curriculum the way it is tbh

Ah, thought I said in my last post "along with a complete overhaul of the school system". Oops.

Pygmalion wrote: »

How do you reckon that'd work though?

I can't really think of a way to do it that wouldn't be putting much more strain on schools (without a huge amount of benefit IMO).

What would be needed though? It's an extra day of work each year to do it, less in the smaller schools. The benefits could be pretty big, I dunno about other schools but in mine the first few years were spent playing with toys and learning how to write and read the same 6 books for a year. The next 6 years were spent doing the same thing every year and 1st-3rd class was generally doing something on Monday and repeating it for the next 4 days. There was nothing in the JC I couldn't have understood when I was 8 and other than maths I don't think I learned anything. The LC is a joke as well with how slow everything is.
Put it like this, had there been streaming I'd have been out of school/college about 3 years ago, instead I've 2 years left, that's quite a potential saving for the taxpayer eh? :P

BabyDoll!! · 25-02-2011 02:11AM

Honestly the course is totally outdated...i go to an all Irish school so I can really understand how boring the course can be..but on the bright side people have started to realise this and more emphasis is being put on speaking the language. Hopefully the political parties will realise how important it is to try and bring the language back! I mo thuairim, chaithfidh go mbeidh Gaeilge eigeantach san Ardteist!!! :-)

im stuck! cnt tink of gud name · 25-02-2011 05:49PM

Lawliet wrote: »

I don't think it should be compulsory; forcing students to learn a badly taught subject will only make most people despise it.

Thats the problem it's badly taught. My irish is total rubbish but i would actually like to be good at it. In my town there is 3 secondary schools one all girls, one all boys and one mixed but there is over 30 small country schools surrounding and a few in the town. Everbody's standard of irish was different bbeginning secondary school depending on where you went to school. But the secondary school teachers expect everones irish to be good and don't slow down for those who irish isn't.

Mod note: Please don't use text speak on the forum. It's in the charter after all.

Insect Overlord · 25-02-2011 05:56PM

Sweet unbearable text-speak, Batman! :eek:

im stuck! cnt tink of gud name · 28-02-2011 11:08PM

Sorry

deise go deo · 01-03-2011 08:29PM

Do you hate the language or do you love it? Or do you care at all?

I love the language, Its part of who I am and there are so many benefits that go along with it. (Its a fantastic chat up line)

The Irish language thread

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