Why do you hate Irish?

I teach English as a Foreign Language so have a huge interest in second language acquisition.

It's definitely the way it's taught and one problem is the fact that the teachers usually aren't very good at the language themselves. A lot of my roommates in college went to Marino and St. Pat's. Yes, they learn it but there are ways around it. I'm sure anybody who has been in the girls bathroom of Quinns in Drumcondra have heard the trading of assignments and so on.

It's also not taught in an engaging way.

That's why the languages you learn in secondary school are usually more memorable because they are taught with a view to actually acquiring the language for communicative purposes.

The grammar translation method was definitely the done thing in my primary school. Memorise this, regurgitate it whether you understand it or not.

Maybe they've changed some things now but it was just a disaster when I was at school.

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Except we can. Immersion is not place names on signs, immersion is access to media, and we have access to Spanish and French media. Much more so than Irish. What everyday Irish do children pick up outside school? I can't think of any.

Our French teacher used to tell us to watch French channels. None of us ever did. While I get what you're trying to say, we're at the top of the linguistic food chain and most kid's aren't going to learn squat on their own time.
However there were some radio shows that were in Irish in the evenings that did the top40 charts or whatever -- i listened because i liked the music. A lot of people would text in to the radio, surprisingly enough! I was in the country so there wasn't a lot of choice in radio if I wanted current music. I imagine that helped my listening skills.

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Learning Spanish and/or French improves a child's general cognition, mental development and later language acquisition. In the latter case much more so as Spanish and French are both Romance languages and can aid in the acquisition of other Romance languages far more than Irish can.

Learning any language improves general cognition. Irish has a very different structure to many European languages -- if you only learn to pick up similarish languages then you might struggle when learning a vastly different one. I was one of the better students in my French class by the way -- so I imagine I wasn't held back by doing Irish.

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

A child thought Irish really well from a young age will be at a disadvantage learning French than a child thought Spanish really well from a young age.

There is no argument for Irish immersion learning over immersion learning in a useful language.

When learning Korean I seemed to pick up different concepts quicker than my other English speaking peers. That's anecdotal of course, too narrow a sample also. Korean and Japanese follow an somewhat reverse structure of Irish/Welsh with the verbs always being last instead of first, while Arabic follows the general Verb-Subject-Object structure like Irish does.

Of course I only discovered this by going further afield. Most Irish don't try learning these languages (compared to french/german) but with every language I learn I always find myself subconsciously comparing it to Irish and not just English. How well you learn a language is always affected by prior knowledge. The languages I listed are also considered some of the most difficult of English (SVO) speakers to learn.

I'm fine with making Irish optional btw but there's plenty of parents willing to have their kids learn Irish too. You don't have to understand that - a lot don't. Most people simply want reform.

Sh1tbag OToole wrote: »

There are definitely loads of these around, wonder why though. Inferiority complex?

its long been a case that a small island like Ireland, once part of the Union, would tend to look to the UK and or the US as a role model. It in no way make one inferior , its a function of geography and history

I would suggest in my opinion that very few people " hate" irish, most simply think its irrelevant and that forms their opinion

Hate is too strong a word, I see no campaigns here to deny people access to the language that want to access it. I do see campaigns to allow those that feel its irrelevant to avoid any compulsory aspect of its teaching and I think its a fair point

The language advocates then try to paint such people as " haters"

Edit : people often say they hate the way it was taught etc , thats different to accusing them of " hating " the language

its yet another exam in Irish for no real reason. Im 41 ffs!

err , it has a reason, its just you disagree with it.

age is no barrier to exams by the way

It's a dying language that you only really need to be familiar with if you are working in certain jobs but outside of that you can have a perfectly normal life and not know a word of Irish. With the fading credibility of religion in our world I'm still surprised that our language is forced down the throat of our pupils and I'd hazard a guess that the majority of students never speak a word of it after their Leaving Cert. Despite what obnoxious reps of the Irish language would say, it really is dying and give it another generation or two and it will be irrelevant.

Nodin wrote: »

The usual reductionist "what use is it" mentality that one can expect. Must be one of the benefits of being so proud of being an "Anglophone".

English is my language, and it just so happens to be the most useful language in the world. I assume you aren't against you own first language?

Peig Sayers.

That miserable oul wan put me off it for life.

At 16 being forced to learn about her depressing life on some island off the coast, no wonder everyone around her died she probably bored all of them to death.