nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Child Item

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?

Find more posts tagged with

Quick Links

Comments

gormdubhgorm

shane7218 wrote: »

I hate Irish because I was forced to continue struggling with it in the leaving cert when I was trying pursue A grades in applied maths and physics. The idea that someone that is mathematically/scientifically oriented and is forced to do an exam in a useless language when they are competing for points is just ridiculous. Bonus points for people who do exams in Irish is also a joke.

But I was not mathematically inclined and I was forced to do maths. How much algebra does the average person use? More then Irish?

Shep_Dog

Dughorm wrote: »

The aim for a successful Irish language policy in the next 5-10 years, in my opinion, should be to tackle the attitude problem in threads such as these,

Ah so, people who want to have a choice in the languages they and their children speak/learn have an 'attitude problem'. No doubt to quote Captain Bligh, "the beatings will continue until morale improves".

Dughorm wrote: »

Unless as Shenshen explained, there are many parents who teach their babies and toddlers the language

Perhaps they do not want their children to speak Irish. Have you considered that choice?

Dughorm wrote: »

Who'd hate Irish then?!

Very few people hate Irish. Many people prefer to speak English, why can't the Irish lobby come to terms with this?

Iwasfrozen

Shep_Dog wrote: »

Ah so, people who want to have a choice in the languages they and their children speak/learn have an 'attitude problem'. No doubt to quote Captain Bligh, "the beatings will continue until morale improves".

Perhaps they do not want their children to speak Irish. Have you considered that choice?

Very few people hate Irish. Many people prefer to speak English, why can't the Irish lobby come to terms with this?

Well you see Irish is your native language and if you don't want to speak it you just haven't been taught it properly.

So we need to fix the curriculum (I wonder why no teacher ever thought of that before) and then everyone will want to speak Irish. Or something.

Shep_Dog

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

So we need to fix the curriculum .... Or something.

True Irish-speakers are promised a place in the Gaeltacht with 72 comely girls dancing at the crossroads.

Dughorm

smash wrote: »

My son is having trouble with it in primary school and I obviously couldn't help him but his teachers answer to his problems was "Just use google translate for your sentences"

That is absolutely outrageous - probably drawing down a salary of 40 grand and tells kids to use google translate :eek:

Dughorm

shane7218 wrote: »

I hate Irish because I was forced to continue struggling with it in the leaving cert when I was trying pursue A grades in applied maths and physics. The idea that someone that is mathematically/scientifically oriented and is forced to do an exam in a useless language when they are competing for points is just ridiculous. Bonus points for people who do exams in Irish is also a joke.

Were you studying other languages like French/German as well? How useful has English literature been to you?

I too am mathematically/scientifically oriented and in order to apply for university I did the three required language exams also, like everyone else competing for points....

Dughorm

Shep_Dog wrote: »

Ah so, people who want to have a choice in the languages they and their children speak/learn have an 'attitude problem'.

You're putting words in my mouth here - not what I said.

It is rather naive to think that there isn't an 'attitude problem' displayed by some about Irish.

Shep_Dog wrote: »

Perhaps they do not want their children to speak Irish. Have you considered that choice?

Perhaps some parents don't want their children to learn English Literature, they aren't given a choice, nor should they - it is part of a balanced and cultured education.

Shep_Dog wrote: »

Very few people hate Irish. Many people prefer to speak English, why can't the Irish lobby come to terms with this?

It is easily verified that many people prefer to speak English. How do you know that "very few people hate Irish"? Why is the word "hate" used in the question asked in the thread title? Why do we not see similar threads about other subjects?

Shep_Dog

Dughorm wrote: »

it is part of a balanced and cultured education.

The balance is wrong. The time spent on teaching Irish is excessive. It's obvious that few people want to speak Irish. English is far more important. Parents should have more control and choice. We should look to New Zealand for ideas.

Dughorm wrote: »

Why is the word "hate" used in the question asked in the thread title? Why do we not see similar threads about other subjects?

Beacuse the OP needed a straw-man argument. Irish enthusiasts need to believe people 'hate' Irish as it allows them to categorise non-Irish speakers as unreasonable haters rather than rational people who have made their own language choice.

Paramite Pie

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

I am interested in first generation Irish kids attitude to Irish.
Do they find it easy to pick up the language since they maybe already bilingual?
Is it easier to learn because there is no baggage/resentment to Irish from the parents?

I think it was in the newspapers this year that Nigerian kids were excelling in the language. I can't find the link now but I found this one saying that Eastern Europeans are leaving us in the dust learning Irish. For some reason google aint giving newspaper articles even when i type in the text. All I got was discussion forums quoting an article and the journalist's twitter.

https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-247605827.html?key=01-42160D517E1A106E150A071704694B2E224E324D3417295C30420B61651B617F137019731B7B1D6B39

A discussion and more quotes from the article can be found here;

http://www.politics.ie/forum/education-science/152252-immigrant-children-better-learning-irish.html

smash wrote: »

Even after studying it the whole way through school, I know about as much Irish as I know Latin... sweet fcuk all!

My son is having trouble with it in primary school and I obviously couldn't help him but his teachers answer to his problems was "Just use google translate for your sentences"

Absolutely horrific answer. Honestly we should allow primary teachers to admit they can't speak Irish without loosing their job. Just bring someone else in for the subject or exempt the schools who can't efficiently teach Irish from doing so at all.

People will think i'm paid to promote this site but consider duolingo for learning Irish (or french/German). It can help a lot, it's interactive like a 'game'.:D

https://www.duolingo.com/course/ga/en/Learn-Irish-Online

There are also other websites far more helpful than google.

Dughorm

Shep_Dog wrote: »

The balace is wrong. The time spent on teaching Irish is excessive. It's obvious that few people want to speak Irish. English is far more important. Parents should have more control and choice.

I don't recall the time spent on teaching Irish being excessive. It was given no additional time than English or Maths in my school.

For LC there is a great balance between mandatory and optional subjects. 6 subjects are counted for points and most people do at least 7 subjects so 3 mandatory and 4 optional is reasonable. You retain the core elements of a cultured education and can specialise as well.

Shep_Dog wrote: »

Beacuse the OP needed a straw-man argument. Irish enthusiasts need to believe people 'hate' Irish as it allows them to categorise non-Irish speakers as unreasonable haters rather than rational people who have made their own language choice.

You're putting words into my mouth again. I don't need to "categorise" anyone nor be categorised amongst "Irish enthusiasts (who) need to believe people 'hate' Irish". Why do you need to categorise people?

Shep_Dog

Dughorm wrote: »

I don't recall the time spent on teaching Irish being excessive. It was given no additional time than English or Maths in my school.

it does not deserve or require the same amount of time as English or Maths. How long does it need to acquire the 7 phrases most people will speak? Have you looked at the system in New Zealand?

Dughorm wrote: »

You're putting words into my mouth again. I don't need to "categorise" anyone nor be categorised amongst "Irish enthusiasts (who) need to believe people 'hate' Irish". Why do you need to categorise people?

I was clearly referring to the OP. You asked why the word 'hate' was used by the OP.

Dughorm

Shep_Dog wrote: »

it does not deserve or require the same amount of time as English or Maths. How long does it need to acquire the 7 phrases most people will speak?

Well 14 years of schooling doesn't seem to be enough for many!

Why stop at 7 phrases though- that would be so cruel! Imagine if we were limited to learning the first 7 phrases of Mark Anthony's speech in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And....

Shep_Dog wrote: »

Have you looked at the system in New Zealand?

No, but by all means tell me about it

Shep_Dog wrote: »

I was clearly referring to the OP. You asked why the word 'hate' was used by the OP.

Really? "Irish enthusiasts need to believe people 'hate' Irish as it allows them to categorise non-Irish speakers as unreasonable ". You said that in reply to me and I am an Irish enthusiast! - what else was I supposed to think?!!!

Rabo Karabekian

Shep_Dog wrote: »

Conradh's constitution has just one aim: to reinstate Irish as our common language. They have no interest in preserving English in any form. They talk about 'bilingualism' in their press releases but that is not a stated aim as written in their constitution.

Why would an organisation like Conradh Na Geailge want to preserve English? Do you think we will just forget English, which is considered the lingua franca of the world?

Shep_Dog wrote: »

This organisation claims to represent all Irish-language enthusiasts and receives significant amounts of government money to pursue its aim.

'Claims' being the telling word here. Have a talk with some fluent Irish speakers, I know from experience that their opinions regarding that institution are not uniform and certainly not (always) positive.

Shep_Dog wrote: »

Why do people want to bring back an isolated, monolingual, Irish-speaking Ireland?

Do you really think that in the highly unlikely situation of Conradh achieving its aims, that Ireland would immediately transcend into a monolingual and isolated country?

recipio

It is a metaphor for that fantasy world of Gaelic Ireland started before independence and driven home by DeValera and his ilk.
It is taught by coercion and wastes squillions of tax money to the detriment of European language literacy.
Let those who like it study it by all means but please give us a politician who will have the guts to abolish this useless indulgence.:rolleyes:

Shep_Dog

Dughorm wrote: »

No, but by all means tell me about it

They allow for Maori-medium teaching (full immersion), English-medium teaching of Maori as a language subject and for English-medium teaching about Maori culture with some basic phrases. Wouldn't you agree that this gives parents a good range of choices?

The latter option (Irish cultural studies and some phrases) would seem to be the most appropriate for the majority of our population. One class a week would be more than adequate. It would represent a great reform of nearly a century's-old failed policy.

Dughorm wrote: »

Really? "Irish enthusiasts need to believe people 'hate' Irish as it allows them to categorise non-Irish speakers as unreasonable ". You said that in reply to me and I am an Irish enthusiast! - what else was I supposed to think?!!!

You asked for my opinion, I gave it. So why do you think the OP used the word 'hate' when there is no evidence of any significant number of pople having hatred of the Irish language? BTW The OP has failed to respond to this challenge.

AnLonDubh

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

There are far more letters than necessary in most words.

Irish has a very shallow orthography, most words contain few redundant letters, can you give an example of two or three such words?

AnLonDubh

Wibbs wrote: »

From what I gather that can sometimes be the Irish version of the D4/Dort accent. It's a bit of an ostentation. You hear it quite a bit on TG4.

Would you or anybody happen to have a YouTube clip of this accent or somebody putting on a thicker accent in Irish than in English?

The King of Moo

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Well you see Irish is your native language and if you don't want to speak it you just haven't been taught it properly.

So we need to fix the curriculum (I wonder why no teacher ever thought of that before) and then everyone will want to speak Irish. Or something.

Do you think it's a simple matter to just "fix" the curricula for a compulsory subject taught at both primary and secondary level?
Do you have any awareness of the sheer scale of practical work involved in that, let alone the political bureaucratic wrangling necessary just to get the ball rolling on starting to think about such a change?
How do you know no teacher hasn't thought of this before?
Do you know how little it would matter if a teacher wanted to change the curriculum? They can't change it themselves and are required to follow the curriculum that exists.

And are you suggesting that overhauling the way the Irish language is taught, making it student-and-communication focused, and engaging, wouldn't have an influence on how Irish is perceived in this country?

It's not "simply" a matter of "fixing" the curriculum anyway: as a monolingual country with no impelling reason to learn second languages we generally don't have the understanding of the most effective ways to teach or learn languages.

You must disagree then, with all those people who said their frustration with anger was based on the way it was taught.

The number of self-appointed education experts here is astonishing.
All right, I'm out now, really!

Sleepy

I had no interest in learning it, saw (and still see) no use for it and, frankly, resented being forced to waste so much of my time in education learning it in order to satisfy those who'd like to see us back in Dev's Ireland of comely maidens dancing at the crossroads as priests raped children. Now that I have kids of my own, I hate seeing their time in education wasted on it too when there's so much they could be learning that they'd be more interested in and would benefit their lives so much more.

I hate that we allow those with an interest in an obscure, practically dead language to teach their children through this language, rewarding those kids with bonus points for attending schools that couldn't be better designed to discourage social inclusion. It puts kids in schools that aren't Gaescoils at a double-disadvantage: they get less individual time with their teachers due to sharing a classroom with more than it's fair share of children that have language, behavioural, societal or other learning difficulties and then rewards the kids that don't have to deal with this with a 10% mark-up in the exams which effectively determine their future career paths. It's beyond wrong imo.

I hate that we've allowed that same group declare Irish as an "official language" of our state, forcing us to waste millions on translation services (which of course we have to pay them to provide) and printing documents that will go to recycling unread. It might be "small beer" in the terms of the overall budget but try tell any parent with a child in an over-crowded class or patient in an Irish hospital that this money couldn't have been better spent elsewhere and you'll be making a liar of yourself.

Finally, what possibly makes me "hate Irish" most are those smug Irish speakers who insist that those of us that don't share their interest in it are somehow "less Irish" (as if nationalism was something to be proud of), those who get offended if we call them Irish speakers rather than "gaeilgeoirí" :rolleyes: and who display wilful levels of incredulity as to why those that don't share their interest don't want to join their ranks that can only be compared to religious fundamentalism.

Although I find it far less pleasant a language to listen to than the romance languages, I don't hate Irish itself: I hate that our society has elevated it to a position that far exceeds it's utility.

smash

Sleepy wrote: »

Finally, what possibly makes me "hate Irish" most are those smug Irish speakers who insist that those of us that don't share their interest in it are somehow "less Irish" (as if nationalism was something to be proud of), those who get offended if we call them Irish speakers rather than "gaeilgeoirí" :rolleyes: and who display wilful levels of incredulity as to why those that don't share their interest don't want to join their ranks that can only be compared to religious fundamentalism.

Like I said earlier, "an intolerable obnoxious condescending bunch".

They're just as bad to people who do try, like teachers. If a teacher doesn't get it perfectly the way they want it, they berate them for it.

Adorable

I don't hate Irish, in fact my friends (a select few of them, anyways) and I quite enjoyed learning it. What I do hate, however, is the fact that it was compulsory and also how it was taught.

The_Captain

AnLonDubh wrote: »

Irish has a very shallow orthography, most words contain few redundant letters, can you give an example of two or three such words?

Conchobhair
Meadhbh
Samhain
Phríomhfheidhmeannaigh
Comhaltas

Dughorm

Sleepy wrote: »

I hate that we've allowed that same group declare Irish as an "official language" of our state, forcing us.....

I dislike the way you're dividing Irish people into two distinct groups - it's not black and white like that. I like the Irish language and I don't consider those of non-Irish speaking heritage to be less Irish.

There is no such "group" that we've allowed declare Irish as an "official language". It's in our national constitution voted by everyone and can be changed by everyone at any time if the political will is there.

There is no them and us!

kingchess

Shep_Dog wrote: »

They allow for Maori-medium teaching (full immersion), English-medium teaching of Maori as a language subject and for English-medium teaching about Maori culture with some basic phrases. Wouldn't you agree that this gives parents a good range of choices?

The latter option (Irish cultural studies and some phrases) would seem to be the most appropriate for the majority of our population. One class a week would be more than adequate. It would represent a great reform of nearly a century's-old failed policy.

You asked for my opinion, I gave it. So why do you think the OP used the word 'hate' when there is no evidence of any significant number of pople having hatred of the Irish language? BTW The OP has failed to respond to this challenge.

Why are people from NZ learning a" dead and useless"language when they have English?.
,why put signs and Government departments in two languages?/why is it an official language when only 4% speak it??

bellylint

For me, because I am told we should love and embrace it, and there is almost an undertone that you should be ashamed to not love the language. Apathy has grown to disdain and contempt.

riclad

IT,S not small beer in terms of budget, see money spent on tg4,various irish radio stations,books being paid for ,teachers being paid to teach irish.
There must be 100,s of people working in jobs who are there because the speak irish.
All official documents being translated into irish .
Let people love the language ,like they love irish poetry,music etc
Let students choose to study or not study irish after year 1 in secondary .
some people hate it cos they feel i,m being forced to waste time on a subject that has no
practical use in the REAL world,
unless you intend to be a teach, tg4 ,radio presenter,
eg useful for maybe 1 per cent of students when they leave school .
People study french, or chemistry etc cos they feel those subjects have a real application in the real world of work or have some connection with a degree the wish to
get in third level education.

So we are spending 100,s of millions so a few people can get a job in rte,tg4
or as irish language teachers .
Let all students who wish sign a form,
i wish to study irish for the leaving cert ,
or i will study physics, maths etc instead

Sleepy

Dughorm wrote: »

I dislike the way you're dividing Irish people into two distinct groups - it's not black and white like that. I like the Irish language and I don't consider those of non-Irish speaking heritage to be less Irish.

There is no such "group" that we've allowed declare Irish as an "official language". It's in our national constitution voted by everyone and can be changed by everyone at any time if the political will is there.

There is no them and us!

You're right that it's not black and white but honestly, there's very definitely a "them": the groups that have harangued successive governments into wasting millions in attempts to foist the language upon the vast majority of the population who are, at best, apathetic about it are an extremely vocal small subset of the Irish population. I can understand why they'd be vocal about it of course since many of their jobs wouldn't exist were this waste curtailed.

The rest of us would vary from your own viewpoint of liking the language but not feeling the need to foist it upon everyone else trough "like the language but hated the way it was taught in school" through "meh, passed it at ordinary level and haven't thought about it since" and "christ, I hated that in school, wish I could have studied Latin / Philosophy / History etc. instead"

So, no, it's not black or white, but there's certainly black on the spectrum.

Shep_Dog

kingchess wrote: »

Why are people from NZ learning a" dead and useless"language when they have English?.
,why put signs and Government departments in two languages?/why is it an official language when only 4% speak it??

Bcause some New Zealanders want to speak Maori and live their lives in the Mari tradition, some just want to learn it as a 2nd language and some want to know a just a few polite phrases. Others don't care. It's a free country. This is allowed.

Unlike Ireland, NZ has no plans to make everyone speak Maori and accomodates different levels of interest in the language from 100% to zero.

I see no legal or constitutional reason why our educational system could not take a flexible approach to Irish.

LordSutch

Shep_Dog wrote: »

I see no legal or constitutional reason why our educational system could not take a flexible approach to Irish.

A more flexible approach was suggested >>>
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/fine-gaels-proposal-to-make-the-irish-language-optional-at-school-is-rejected-see-poll-116221609-237369721.html

But the idea wasn't even allowed to get off the ground

gormdubhgorm

There are definitely distinct camps on this subject:

1) people who are embarrassed by Irish and see it as useless the Anti-Irish Zealot.

2) people who are proud of their language and cannot understand why others do not speak it fluently.

3) people like myself ( the silent majority) who liked Irish is proud of it but lost it through lack of use. Maybe this is the category that should try and speak Irish every day and avoid the extremists on both sides?