Why do you hate Irish?

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 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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.