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Why do you hate Irish?

LeinsterDub

Given the other thread it was surprising to the level of hatred for Irish. Having been over in Wales recently the English speakers would generally be apathetic to Welsh. No one seemed to hate it. Why do people hate a language so much?

Cen faith mar is fuair a lán daoine Gaeilge?

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Del.Monte

tayto lover wrote: »

I have no problems with the language itself, it's a lovely language and our own.
I have a big problem with the teacher who beat me and scared the life out of me in Primary school when I made a mistake. They made me fear that hour of Irish.

It's sad to think that I learned more Irish outside school than I did in it.

Herein lies another of my gripes with the teaching of Irish - it is not our language, it is the language of the majority community inflicted on the minority communities along with new immigrants. While many in minority communities have forgotten their roots, or choose to keep their heads down so as not to cause offence, it does not make it any less of a fact.

I resented every hour spent learning Irish, and was fortunate not to have to do it at primary school or take it in the Leaving Cert. Now I resent my children having to waste time on it when they could be learning something useful. I rubber stamp their Irish homework and there's no question of me being involved with it in any way whatsoever.

Irish placenames and their origins are interesting but that sort of stuff can be taught in Geography class - that's where I learnt about the topic. The teaching of Irish as a language should be optional.

ToddyDoody

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Given the other thread it was surprising to the level of hatred for Irish. Having been over in Wales recently the English speakers would generally be apathetic to Welsh. No one seemed to hate it. Why do people hate a language so much?

Cen faith mar is fuair a lán daoine Gaeilge?

op's name is LeinsterDub.

Nuff said

[Deleted User]

I think it all depends on the teacher but as far as i can remember about learning Irish, me and me class mates always thought of it as some kind of army training assault course, ducking and diving kind of thing if you know what i mean, but one thing we did learn, when Mothers got angry they really got angry, teachers learned a lot from Mothers.

Ferris_Bueller

Huntergonzo wrote: »

Terrible idea, how exactly would parents help their children with homework if it was all in Irish? Please you your head rather than your heart. And what gain is there from learning a language that so few people speak anyway?, why not learn Spanish or French for example, millions of people worldwide speak those languages (and don't bother with the history of why, we're living here and now).

Neither of my parents were particularly good at Irish when I started primary school. My mam is now fluent and my dad is well capable of holding a conversation at least. They never had major issues helping me with my homework that I can remember. You'd be surprised how much the parents themselves would pick up by helping their children with their homework. Fair enough at secondary school level things might get a bit more difficult but at primary level a childs homework isn't exactly rocket science.

You could say that about a lot of subjects. Why learn History, Geography, Religion, Science etc if you never plan on using them? Hypothetically if all primary schools were to become Gaelscoils there wouldn't be so little speaking it in 30 years time. It doesn't take away from other areas of learning.

Ferris_Bueller

Del.Monte wrote: »

Herein lies another of my gripes with the teaching of Irish - it is not our language, it is the language of the majority community inflicted on the minority communities along with new immigrants. While many in minority communities have forgotten their roots, or choose to keep their heads down so as not to cause offence, it does not make it any less of a fact.

I resented every hour spent learning Irish, and was fortunate not to have to do it at primary school or take it in the Leaving Cert. Now I resent my children having to waste time on it when they could be learning something useful. I rubber stamp their Irish homework and there's no question of me being involved with it in any way whatsoever.

Irish placenames and their origins are interesting but that sort of stuff can be taught in Geography class - that's where I learnt about the topic. The teaching of Irish as a language should be optional.

How can the Irish language not be our language? Who's language is it then? Perhaps you aren't Irish yourself which in that case maybe it isn't your language, but I would presume the majority of posters on here are Irish. If you moved to the Netherlands to raise your children you would expect them to learn Dutch, same with Sweden and Swedish and the same with Denmark and Danish. I use these countries because the majority of people have English, yet they also have their own language as well.

colossus-x

This idea of who you are based on your nationality is just so ridiculous.

Over the last decades we've all learned that the world is a smaller place than we though it was.

When you look at what is going on in the middle east and with Muslims having an affinity for each other, I have to ask myself why are people so parochial?

The OP question thinks of himself of an 'Irish Person'. Why would you want to say that about yourself and your character, when you are much more than that?

I find that mentality so debilitating for yourself and the world as a whole.

Ditto for other Muslims who only have an affinity for other Muslims and no one else.

It's nuts.

The King of Moo

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Ok there are a couple of things going on here. You're misrepresenting my points and disguising it in a big wall of text so I'm going to break up your post to get to the point.

Irish is more different to the Romance languages than English is, especially in grammar. It's true that Irish did pick up a lot of its vocabulary from French [not Spanish] but to a lesser degree than English and the Irish grammar is completely different.

Are you somehow suggesting that because there are more differences between English and Irish a child is going to have measurably improved benefits from learning Irish over French? I'm going to need some source on that one bud..

I never said it was immersion, you did and I used the same term to highlight the inconsistencies in your argument. How many children are going to actively seek out and watch Spongebob square pants or Dora the explorer on TG4? Quite frankly the fact parents do have to consciously put effort into finding Spanish or French media makes it more likely the child will watch the media. They're going to see it as a chore regardless and will only be done with parental pressure.

Children cannot absorb Irish, or any other language, through hearing the odd word on TG4. That's utter nonsense. Could you learn Spanish from watching Isabel?

Pleace names in themselves do not teach a child any Irish beyond how to say the unused name of aplace in Irish (a redundant skill considering the place more than likely already has a name in English which is actually used)

Why would any parent waste their time teaching their child a dying language if it wasn't on the leaving cert. But that's beside the point, parents would often be in a better position to help their children with French or Spanish than Irish.

Different situation altogether, these children probably come from homes with fluent English speaking parents who know how important speaking English is for their child's career and encourage them to learn the language, often even financing trips to English speaking countries like Ireland to help them improve.

English is the world's linga franca, it can't be compared to some dying language spoken by a couple thousand people at best.

Nonsensical hyperbole again. We don't need to change signs or businesses to French, these already don't impact a person's ability to learn a language and French media is already widely available in Ireland. Much more so than Irish media.

Of course teacher's are never going to teach subjects through French but they're never going to teach subjects through Irish in mainstream schools anyway so that doesn't really matter.

Any more nonsensical hyperbole you want to throw out and attribute to me? Throw enough **** and some might stick after all.

Ok, I'm on my telephone so I won't multiquote, but I'll try to space things out.

The differences between languages aren't hugely important in terms of later language learning, but learning a language different from your own prepares you for learning other languages with their own differences.
In a vacuum it wouldn't really make a difference, in terms of later language learning, whether a child learned Irish or French.
But we don't live in a vacuum, so a child learning Irish properly in Ireland will have an advantage over one learning French as they'll have far more opportunities to encounter and passively pick up the language.

Not many children are going to seek out Spongebob as Gaeilge and that's exactly my point. A big element of immersion for children is incidentally encountering the language. If they or their parents have to seek it out it ruins it as the children are conscious of it as a learning exercise. What you want is children passively encountering the language. And they won't learn a language only by seeing road signs and flicking through channels, but it will consolidate language forms they've learned in school.
And don't knock the amount of Irish one can pick up from various signs, notices etc. It can help teach and consolidate vocabulary and grammar. A sign with a plural word can help consolidate plural forms, to give a simple, obvious example.

You can't get that kind of passive learning of French in Ireland because it doesn't have the same public presence Irish has here.
And to reiterate: you can watch French cartoons with your enfants on YouTube, but that draws attention to the act of learning which renders the exercise much less effective.
I say this with confidence because I can see the benefit in my French abilité from hearing French TV in the background, and because I have a lot of experience teaching a language to children and teenagers.

Belgian children watching Hollywood blockbusters in English with Flemish and French subtitles are not special cases at all. For a lot of them that's simply how American films are shown in big cities in Belgium (some smaller towns might have just the Dutch or French dubs due to being mainly monolingual, but I haven't been to the cinema too often in Belgium, just a few times).If they want to see The Avengers or The Minions soon after its release, they go to the cinema and there it is in English with subtitles. They're not going there to learn English but they're going to pick some words up automatically and consolidate some of what they've learned. Similarly kids all over Europe listen to music in English and pick up some words even though they're not trying to.

It would be very hard to do that with a language other than Irish in Ireland.

There are plenty of mainstream schools that teach all subjects through Irish. It's odd you say that there aren't.

Look, it's sad that you have such a grudge against Irish that you want to go to the expense of replace it in primary schools with a language which they'll rarely experience outside of the classroom and which in the long run won't benefit their second-language acquisition (in case I haven't made it clear enough - children need to passively encounter a language in the real world to learn it well and you can't do that with French in Ireland).

It would be cheaper to improve the way Irish teachers are trained, focusing on engagement, grammar explanation, eliciting, speaking practice and exploitation of existing extracurricular Irish resources. Children would then be mostly fluent after primary school and would learn other European languages much more quickly than if they'd learned those languages from a younger age without a natural context to put them in.

I don't say all of this because of an emotional attachment. It's based on my professional experience and knowledge, and I firmly believe that if Irish children were taught Irish really well in primary school, we could lead the way in terms of language learning at secondary level. Learning a second language from 4-5 years of age is such an amazing opportunity for linguistic and general academic development that it's a shame that it's largely squandered here.

colossus-x

The King of Moo wrote: »

Ok, I'm on my telephone so I won't multiquote, but I'll try to space things out.
. Learning a second language from 4-5 years of age is such an amazing opportunity for linguistic and general academic development that it's a shame that it's largely squandered here.

Well that all sounds lovely. But it never was that for me. I had Irish forced down my throat from going to school from the ages of 3 to 12.

I hardly know a word of Irish.

It all went over my head.

Why? Even at a young age I knew it was completely worthless to me.

I knew even at a very very young age that French was important.

Such a waste to suck up a young persons appetite to learn a new language and then waste it on teaching them Irish. God it makes me angry.

Shep_Dog

Ferris_Bueller wrote: »

How can the Irish language not be our language? Who's language is it then?

It is not our language because we have decided to speak English and this has become our national language. Arguing that Irish is our national language and we must speak it is a denial of reality.

Irish is the language of a small number of traditionalists who refuse to accept the choice of the people of Ireland to use English as our national language.

LeinsterDub

ToddyDoody wrote: »

op's name is LeinsterDub.

Nuff said

More needs to be said because that post means nothing. What is it you think my username is implying about Irish?

Qualitymark

Del.Monte wrote: »

Herein lies another of my gripes with the teaching of Irish - it is not our language, it is the language of the majority community inflicted on the minority communities.

What does this mean?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Qualitymark wrote: »

What does this mean?

It might be the lanagauge somoene else relates to, but it is not the langauge all of us relate to, so the possessive pronoun "our" is inaccurate. There are something like 4.5 million Iirish peple, and unless every one of them feel an afinitiy to the langauge, the use of "our" is innaccurate.

It also refers to "our" culture or "our" heritatge. How the hell can someone say exactly what my culture is or is not without ever meeting me...?

The King of Moo

colossus-x wrote: »

Well that all sounds lovely. But it never was that for me. I had Irish forced down my throat from going to school from the ages of 3 to 12.

I hardly know a word of Irish.

It all went over my head.

Why? Even at a young age I knew it was completely worthless to me.

I knew even at a very very young age that French was important.

Such a waste to suck up a young persons appetite to learn a new language and then waste it on teaching them Irish. God it makes me angry.

As I said, the opportunity is largely squandered because of the system, which is the way it is because English-speaking countries don't have a strong impetus to learn other languages, so we don't tend to teach them so well, regardless of how good individual teachers are.

It's unfortunate that you didn't like the compulsory nature of Irish, and perhaps the particular way you were taught it, but the fact remains that if you had been taught Irish well at primary level and then learned only French at secondary level, you'd have better French than if you'd learned French from the beginning of primary school.

Rubberchikken

don't hate it but hate the crap teachers who weren't interested in teaching all the class just those that interested them the most.

what i don't like today is the militant attitude some 'can speak irish' but in ' this world have to speak english' people have towards anyone who professes to be less than interested in irish as a language.

mickstupp

The King of Moo wrote: »

...but the fact remains that if you had been taught Irish well at primary level and then learned only French at secondary level, you'd have better French than if you'd learned French from the beginning of primary school.

That's not actually a fact.

Del.Monte

Qualitymark wrote: »

What does this mean?

Are you being deliberately obtuse? Surely, if you bothered to read my post you would have understood what I meant?

Ireland consists of people from many different backgrounds - never more so - and the Irish language is the national language of those who are descended from 'genuine' natives (if there is such a thing). How is the Irish language the national language of the descendants of Norman, Planter, Cromwellian or Williamite stock? I know that it's not PC to hold this view but it's doesn't invalidate it.

The King of Moo

mickstupp wrote: »

That's not actually a fact.

Where does your knowledge of teaching languages to young learners come from? It's literally my day job.

If one child learns a language that they encounter often in a real world (Irish in this country) and another learns one without a public presence, and both children are of similar ability, the first child will be better at their language and are learning other languages later.

mickstupp

The King of Moo wrote: »

Where does your knowledge of teaching languages to young learners come from? It's literally my day job.

You weren't talking about teaching languages, you were talking about learning them. They're very different things. It may be your day job to teach, but that doesn't mean you have a single clue about the psychology of language development. Just to put my hands up, neither do I. I certainly don't have a PhD in child psychology or whatever would be relevant. All I can say is what it was like for me.

What you're suggesting is that my being taught Irish for however many years, aided my quick uptake of French, Latin and Greek, to the extent that after a single year of each of those languages I knew and understood more than after thirteen years of Irish. Your suggestion doesn't make sense. If I had been given a deep grounding in Irish grammar, then yes, I'd agree. I can say I'd agree because my grounding in Greek grammar helped me learn Latin extremely quickly. Highly structured languages help you learn other languages.

But I was not taught Irish grammar. I was given pages of text and expected to know what was going on. End. Of. Story. I wasn't taught about moods and cases and various types of conditionals. I was barely taught about tenses and verb endings. If I had been taught those things, then I would agree with you, because I would've had a solid grammatical base to help me with other languages.

What you're effectively suggesting, at least in my case, is that despite not retaining 20 words of Irish, and zero Irish grammar since I was never taught it... is that that experience of having random inexplicable crap thrown at me somehow magically helped me learn other things. But then... if it had helped me learn other languages, I should've gotten better at Irish too, because I should've understood what was going on. But I didn't.

After my experiences with other languages, I can certainly say that if I was taught Latin or ancient Greek alongside Irish, I'd have far far better Irish than I ever would have going through the Irish school system.

But all that's just my opinion. I'm not claiming to understand the psychology of childhood language acquisition.

Coles

I think some people hate the Irish language because it reminds them of their own failure to learn the language. They tend to blame others for this, but really they need to look a bit closer at themselves.

I wouldn't necessarily say that these people are less intelligent (although there is a obvious correlation if you look across the academic grades), but many of the people who couldn't learn Irish failed because they wallowed in a bad attitude passed on by their parents and peers. A subclass with a culture of failure?

Huntergonzo

Ferris_Bueller wrote: »

Neither of my parents were particularly good at Irish when I started primary school. My mam is now fluent and my dad is well capable of holding a conversation at least. They never had major issues helping me with my homework that I can remember. You'd be surprised how much the parents themselves would pick up by helping their children with their homework. Fair enough at secondary school level things might get a bit more difficult but at primary level a childs homework isn't exactly rocket science.

But as it stands there is no language barrier and there is no logical benefits to introducing one. I understand that you personally like Irish, which is fine, I have no problem with that, but you're allowing your personal preference to come in the way of common sense.

Ferris_Bueller wrote: »

You could say that about a lot of subjects. Why learn History, Geography, Religion, Science etc if you never plan on using them? Hypothetically if all primary schools were to become Gaelscoils there wouldn't be so little speaking it in 30 years time. It doesn't take away from other areas of learning.

People may have an interest in those subjects and I would argue that they have more practical use than Irish because they teach us about the world we live in. Personally I liked history, geography and science, I had zero interest in religion and the way it's taught is a national disgrace (but that's another days work). But the thing is those aren't core subjects, you can eventually drop them and I think there should be more options anyway but you can't drop Irish, it's there right the way through and that raises contempt if you ask me.

It's also interesting how people react when you criticize Irish, so for example if I say 'I hate history', nobody would really care (even though Irish history is apart of history) but if I say 'I hate Irish', plenty of people won't like it, why the difference, why the emotional attachment to a language?

Finally, again why not have the option to learn another language like Spanish or French from an early age instead of Irish? they have far more practical use.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

The King of Moo wrote: »

Where does your knowledge of teaching languages to young learners come from? It's literally my day job.

If one child learns a language that they encounter often in a real world (Irish in this country) and another learns one without a public presence, and both children are of similar ability, the first child will be better at their language and are learning other languages later.

If "being taught well" you mean encountering it in the real world, then maybe - but that outlet is not available to most Irish kids. I'd also argue on the baiss that French is taught as a means of communication, Irish is not.

Being taught well is not enough: you have instill an enjoyment for it as well as an outlet outside of the school environment. Kids are usually very practical people: if they don't see the need for something, they will question it.

Dirty Dingus McGee

colossus-x wrote: »

This idea of who you are based on your nationality is just so ridiculous.

Over the last decades we've all learned that the world is a smaller place than we though it was.

When you look at what is going on in the middle east and with Muslims having an affinity for each other, I have to ask myself why are people so parochial?

The OP question thinks of himself of an 'Irish Person'. Why would you want to say that about yourself and your character, when you are much more than that?

I find that mentality so debilitating for yourself and the world as a whole.

Ditto for other Muslims who only have an affinity for other Muslims and no one else.

It's nuts.

There is nothing wrong with having a sense of where you are from and it doesn't automatically have to coincide with some xenophobic view of the world.

If anything this country's lack of pride in it itself is a part of the reason why it is so badly run and has so many problems, every one wants to look after themselves rather than having some pride in the country and seeing the bigger picture for everyone living here.

Coles

Huntergonzo wrote: »

It's also interesting how people react when you criticize Irish, so for example if I say 'I hate history', nobody would really care (even though Irish history is apart of history) but if I say 'I hate Irish', plenty of people won't like it, why the difference, why the emotional attachment to a language?

If you said that you hated History or Geography most people would dismiss you as being an immature schoolchild or an adult with a learning disability. I think the same is true about people who say they 'hate Irish'.

Iwasfrozen

Coles wrote: »

If you said that you hated History or Geography most people would dismiss you as being an immature schoolchild or an adult with a learning disability. I think the same is true about people who say they 'hate Irish'.

Has anyone said they hate Irish?

Coles

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Has anyone said they hate Irish?

Have you read the thread title?

Huntergonzo

Coles wrote: »

If you said that you hated History or Geography most people would dismiss you as being an immature schoolchild or an adult with a learning disability. I think the same is true about people who say they 'hate Irish'.

Ha you see, didn't take long for somebody to get upset. "Most people" is a huge presumption on your behalf btw, how do you know how "most people" on this Island would react???

So anyway what you're telling me is you've never met anybody who wasn't "an immature schoolchild or an adult with a learning disability" say the words, 'I hate x (enter subject)", can't say I believe you Coles, I think you're lying to me!

Iwasfrozen

Coles wrote: »

Have you read the thread title?

Yes. Now can you answer my question please?

Wibbs

Coles wrote: »

I think some people hate the Irish language because it reminds them of their own failure to learn the language. They tend to blame others for this, but really they need to look a bit closer at themselves.

I wouldn't necessarily say that these people are less intelligent (although there is a obvious correlation if you look across the academic grades), but many of the people who couldn't learn Irish failed because they wallowed in a bad attitude passed on by their parents and peers. A subclass with a culture of failure?

So what you're suggesting is the vast majority of Irish people are less intelligent? You must be, considering the vast majority of Irish people can't speak Irish anywhere close to fluency. Nah, just the same old same old from the Gaelgoiri pulling, or attempting to pull some elitist guff. Common among your little Irelanders and it doesn't help the language one little bit.

For me, I certainly don't "hate" the language. It's just simply not relevant to me. It was only relevant in my schooling(where I got so so marks in it). After that it became about as relevant as Swahili, a collection of words on the reverse side of government forms is about my only encountering of it.

Orangebrigade

Coles wrote: »

I think some people hate the Irish language because it reminds them of their own failure to learn the language. They tend to blame others for this, but really they need to look a bit closer at themselves.

I wouldn't necessarily say that these people are less intelligent (although there is a obvious correlation if you look across the academic grades), but many of the people who couldn't learn Irish failed because they wallowed in a bad attitude passed on by their parents and peers. A subclass with a culture of failure?

Or they didn't buy into the Gaelic propaganda to brainwash them into being proper Irish and being told this is what you must learn and follow.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

There is nothing wrong with having a sense of where you are from and it doesn't automatically have to coincide with some xenophobic view of the world.

Never said it did...?

If anything this country's lack of pride in it itself is a part of the reason why it is so badly run and has so many problems, every one wants to look after themselves rather than having some pride in the country and seeing the bigger picture for everyone living here.

A country is not an emotive organism, to be pedantic. But again, this doesn't contrdict anything I said. the use of "our" can not and should not apply to everyone.

Coles wrote: »

Have you read the thread title?

Title is a loaded question. And badly loaded, at that.