Gaeilge in Canada

Really interesting article here. The only shame is no one taught the author how to write Gaeilge instead of Gaelic. Anyway, good article. I wish I could get to one of these gatherings sometime but Canada is a long way away from Georgia.

Canada's Gaelic speaking community

Usborne Internet-Linked Irish For Beginners

So I am constantly looking for more Irish children's books to read. I go spend a lot of time on Ebay and Amazon just looking (if I spent that time studying I would probably know more Irish!) and each week I buy just a couple more books and I wait forever (or it seems like it) because most of them come from Ireland or the UK. I ordered two this last time and it has been several weeks but the Usborne Internet-Linked Irish for Beginners has finally come in. I thought it was just like a children's book that would teach me, maybe, a few new words. It turned out to be so much more. Every two pages is its own lesson with lots of great vocabulary words and how to use them in a few "useful" sentences. Here are the lessons:

About this book
Saying "Hello"
What is your name?
Naming things
Where do you come from?
More about you
Your family
Your home
Looking for things
What do you like?
Table talk
Your hobbies
Telling the time
Arranging things
Asking where places are
Finding your way around
Going shopping
Shopping and going to a cafe
The months and seasons
Colours and numbers
Pronunciation guide
Grammar
Answers to Puzzles
Glossary

Let's take for instance the pages for Your Home. There are 23 New Words or phrases for you to learn. You learn names for different kinds of houses and how you say that you live in them. Then you learn what each room in a normal house is called and how you say "Who is in the living room(bedroom kitchen, bathroom etc)? And how to reply to that. Then there is a little "Points to Remember" box and it tells you what words "sa" aspirates or doesn't aspirate.

The Glossary at the end is an Irish/English dictionary and for each noun tells you whether that noun is masculine or feminine.

The only down side of this book that I can see is the "Internet linked" part. You are linked to the Usborne site where you find what book you have and there is supposed to be links to help you. I had hoped it would help with pronunciation of the words I didn't know.  The book says that they are kept updated but I clicked on several of them and none of them worked anymore.

Still I think this book is definitely worth having. If I ever get done with my Duolingo tree I intend to sit down and study each lesson until I know them.

Enjoy your studying!

Songs

Yeah, I know, you didn't expect songs but songs are how a lot of children learn and it won't hurt you to learn some songs while learning Irish at the same time.
Children's songs are really good. Here is a song I am learning now: An bhFaca Tu mo Sheamuisin but if you look on the bottom of the page there are lots of songs you can learn. What have I learned from this song? Well "an bhfaca tu" means "have you seen" and apparently you can put "in" in the end of the work to add the word "little" to it. Things I hadn't yet gotten to in on my web courses or books.

Then if you want some music that is more modern you have to go to Youtube and find TG Lurgan. They are absolutely wonderful. Here is the song "Wake Me Up" 
Then if you go to this site (this can be found under the video too) you can find the lyrics in Irish and English.
Learning one of these is a little ambitious for a beginner but it can be done if you want it bad enough.

Books

Of course, books are going to help. There are several really good Irish language books out there. When you get books, however, get the CD's with them. There is nothing more frustrating that trying to learn Irish from a book without a CD. The words are just too hard to figure out from their spellings. You need the CD to get the pronunciations right. 

One of the best books I have is Teach Yourself Irish by Diarmuid O Se and Joseph Sheils. There is an incredible amount of information in the book and some short exercises as well. It is not exactly a text book and I would not use it by itself but it is great to reinforce what you are learning.

Another excellent book is Learning Irish by Micheal O Siadhail. I love how it gives vocabulary first, grammar, exercises,text to read and  sections to translate. I unfortunately, do not have the CD to this book yet which is why I haven't been using it. When I do get the CD though, I am going through it cover to cover.

Gaeilge Gan Stro is another book I bought. I bought it because I hoped it was more like a textbook I would use in school, with lessons and exercises. I came with 4 CD's and was quite expensive. It was also a real disappointment. If you want to learn Irish by memorizing sentence after sentence...this is the book for you. I hope to use it later on when I am better at Irish but right now it is not getting used at all. No grammar, no vocabulary...just memorize sentence after sentence...ugg.

Anyway, those are the Irish language books that I have. There are others and I will post about them if I get them and tell you what I think. 

You can't just stick to the language teaching books though, you need other books. My Kindle is full of Irish language...children's books. Yes children's books because you aren't going to be able to read adult books (good luck finding Irish language adult books anyway). You won't be able to read them at first. Children can't read at first and they, for the most part, know the language. You might get Google translate to help out at first but eventually you are going to start to pick up the words and know them (just like any child!).  Most of these books I find on Amazon.com. You might find some on Ebay too but most of the time I find them cheaper on Amazon. I am constantly ordering new ones. Remember simple is better at first. Some of the ones I own are: Ulchabhain Oga, Is Geal Liom Sibh Go Leir, Fiacla Mhamo, and Saili na Spotai.

The one book I have found the most usless with the Irish language is an Irish/English dictionary. I have one. I never use it. The problem with Irish is that their words take so many different forms that it is almost impossible to look at word up unless you know the basic root word and most of the time you don't. It is way easier to use Google Translate which given a sentence will most of the time get it right. It has to have the sentence most of the time though to get the words put in the right context. 

So start getting some books people. They are definitely going to help.

TG4

You can't mention Irish language without mentioning TG4 . The only Irish language television station. Without it I would not have even tried to learn Irish because if you can't hear the language spoken on a normal basis, you don't have much chance of learning it. That being said, you have to go watch the shows on TG4 on a regular basis and by that I mean...daily. I suggest that you find the shows that have English subtitles or you will just grow bored because you don't know what anyone is saying. Even with English subtitles you are still learning. You will find yourself picking out those Irish words that you know and you will hear them more and more as you progress. Small sentences will start to have meaning. This is where I am now. Some shows are better than others. I once read that I should watch the children's shows because they talk slower on them but I didn't find the children's shows to be very helpful because even though they talk slower they also talk in funny voices and it is hard to understand the words. I suggest you watch the adult shows. You get a lot more regular conversation on them and it is just easier to learn from. 

When you run out of interesting shows on TG4 look for more of their shows on Youtube. I recently found this one called No Bearla (sorry no fada).  It was an excellent show and since he talked in Irish most of the time to regular people it was great for learning, plus it was just an interesting show for someone who doesn't live in Ireland. 

Anyway, watch as much as you can, as often as you can. It is likely the only real immersion you are going to get unless you go to Ireland and visit a region where they speak mostly Irish. 

Memrise

Memrise.com is also a wonderful place to learn Irish. It also uses a quizzes type of system to help you learn. The difference is that anyone can make a course on Memrise which means they may or may not be correct. I would suggest if you find a course with an error in it on memrise that you inform them of the error and then leave the course. Irish is difficult enough without learning it wrong to begin with.
There are a lot of Irish courses to choose from on Memrise. There is even a Duolingo course which will definitely help you with Duolingo. But there are also specific courses like ones on the Days and Months in Irish (which I cannot seem to learn well from Duolingo), the weather, numbers, adjectives, question words etc. etc.
 Memrise also has courses to go along with Irish language books you may have like Learning Irish and Gaeilge Gan Stro.
Memrise also tries to encourage you to come daily with a "streak" clock. I basically ignore the thing because I have so many courses going on there that I could never keep up with them all every day.
They also have a Pro version that you can pay for which adds a few nice features. I pay $7 a month and am happy with what I get for that.
If you have the time I would suggest using Duolingo and Memrise together. You will learn a lot more. I usually stay on Duolingo as long as I can and then when I get sick of it, I go to Memrise where the learning is not quite so intense for me.

Start with the Best- Duolingo

The Pros and how it works
Basically if you want to learn any language go to Duolingo first. Duolingo has an amazing amount of languages you can learn. They have the basic ones: French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, and then they have other not so common ones: Turkish, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Welsh, Hebrew, Vietnamese....and the list goes on and they are always adding more. Irish is, of course, one of them.
The site is FREE! Yes FREE! How long it will stay that way, I don't know. Usually the online things that are free at first end up charging you after they get big and Duolingo is one of the best language learning sites there is out there so don't be surprised if it eventually  starts charging.
Anyway, what happens when you pick a course on Duolingo is that you get a "tree" which is basically a big bunch of buttons which is your language broken down into manageable categories--too many to list here. You click on one and you start your learning. Duolingo does not really have a "lesson" to it. There is a "note" portion on each section where they try to tell give you some information and you definitely want to read all the note sections. Then you click on Practice and it basically quizzes you. It might give you a sentence in Irish and you have to write it in English or vice versa. It might give you a multiple choice question or one where you listen to the Audio and have to write down what it says in English or Irish. At first you won't know anything but don't worry, it will give you them again and eventually you will know them. Yes, it is a bit frustrating at first but it works and once you get used to it, you learn at a fairly good pace. Each section can also have several sub-sections. And once you finish a whole section you can "Review" but in these reviews they aren't going to give you all the same words or sentences. They are going to get harder and sometimes they will give you things that there is just no way you could know them from the previous lessons. And it is REALLY frustrating but you will either get to know them eventually or move on. Each section has a set of little gold bars around it. You are supposed to keep the bars full. So if one goes down in a section you must review again to fill it which gives you the repetition you need to really remember the lessons.
Duolingo also has a system where you pick how much XP you want to get in a day. The most you can is 50 which means you will have to do or review at least 5 lessons. If you get to your XP number you get a "streak" day added at the top of the page. It counts your "streak" days. This is supposed to be a incentive for you to come every day and practice.
They also have "levels". After you get a certain amount of XP (I don't know how much) you move up a level which also is an incentive to keep coming and getting to a higher level. The levels only go up to 25 though, apparently after that they feel you should have finished your "tree".
Then there is the Forum. There is a link on every single quiz question where you can go to the forum and ask anything you don't understand. It is a wonderful feature and Irish has several very knowledgable people on the forum who are helpful.
On Duolingo you can do as many languages at a time as you want. I myself am doing French (which I had in school) along with my Irish but I am sure if I did too many it would get a bit confusing. There are definitely other languages I want to learn there though.

The Cons

Duolingo can sometime come up with the stupidest sentences you have ever heard of. It is likely to help you remember better but I really find it does the opposite. Yes you remember the sentence better but you never really remember the words without the stupid sentence. Paul may have put the dog in the fridge but I never could remember the word refrigerator without Paul and the dog so really it is a silly technique that doesn't work but complain all you want. They aren't changing it.

The Irish forum can be a great place to go get answers to things that are not explained in the lessons and there are definitely very smart people on the Irish forum. I like to think I am a fairly smart person myself but I am sure the people on the Irish forum all think I am an idiot. I don't know my parts of speech and parts of speech are ALL they use in their explanations. Instead of just saying the Irish word "an" and "na" they are going to say "the indefinite article", EVERY DAMN TIME! Instead of saying the Irish word "Is" they will say "the copula".  Most of the explanations you won't have the slightest clue what they told you. Most people just say "Thank you" and move on BUT not me. I have to ask them what each part of speech is and to please give me simple explanations. I don't think they understand that here in America (USA) we take 4 years of English in school and months later we have forgotten it all...let alone YEARS later.
You also cannot complain on the Irish forum. They can be real ASSES to you if you do. They don't like complaints. The service is free so you should appreciate it even when it is stupid or wrong.
They also don't like chit chat. I tend to be a bit of a chatty person and was trying to share my frustrations and experience while learning and that was not acceptable to them. Apparently the people answering questions on the forum think it is just for them and if you don't have a question you shouldn't be there. It is a shame that it can't be more open to people sharing their experiences. I have noticed that the French forum is not that way and there are LOTS of people leaving messages on it that aren't strictly questions and there is quite a bit of complaining on the French forum that no one gets nasty about.

The streaks. The streaks are definitely an incentive....at first. And then later they become a burden. The higher your streak gets the more of a burden it becomes. My suggestion is that you not pay any attention to your "streak". If you need a day off, take one, because learning Irish is HARD and sometimes you need a day or two off. It will still be there when you get back to it. Just don't take too many days off.

Closing

Really the cons aren't that big of a deal. Duolingo is still the best place to learn Irish that I have found so far. It isn't a "complete" program. There is no such thing. You won't be fluent when you finish your tree but if you compare it to learning a language in school you will have over a years worth of language...at least...and you never had to leave your computer.

Why Learn Irish?

To start this blog, I, of course, have to answer this question. Why does a middle aged woman in the U.S. want to speak Irish?

Well, it's because I'm Irish.....

Yeah, I know people from Ireland do not understand why we say we are Irish here and have never lived in Ireland. Let me try to explain. Nobody here is just American except the American Indians, the rest of us were always identified by what country we came from. As people got off that boat they were asked, "What are you?" and you were Irish or you were, Danish, Swedish..whatever and you were proud of what you were and you passed that pride down to your children and their children and that is why there are still proud Irish here today.

I don't know a lot about my father's family except little bits that he told me but he did say his family went from Ireland to Canada (Canada was cheaper) and his grandmother came with them and they learned French there but the names my great-grandmother called my father were all Irish endearments. (a chuislela mo croi is one of them). They later moved down to the US to Hartford, Conn.  My father and all of his 5 sisters all had red hair and brown eyes. 

On my mother's side there is some Irish as well. She always said she was half English, quarter Irish and quarter Scottish. She was always very pleased that her sister had a little girl with red hair and brown eyes. She said they had thought red hair and brown eyes was so unusual until she met my father. 

So I'm Irish.....but I didn't grow up with Irish traditions and ways. My father was a Catholic but my mother was an Episcopalian. She sent us to the Baptist church because it was close enough for us kids to walk to. My father never went to church. He didn't tell stories that his grandmother had told him about Ireland and he didn't speak Gaeilge except those few little endearments now and then. But I think there is something about being Irish that just never leaves you. For instance, I have loved Irish traditional Irish music from the moment I first heard it. When I started learning to play the violin it was all so that I could play Irish music. I have book after book about Ireland. Books with pictures of Ireland, books about myths and legends, and then I found my first Irish language book...and then I found websites and then I decided to learn. 

This blog is basically going to be about resources for learning the Irish language and it will follow my journey on learning it. I hope it will be helpful to others who want to learn Irish. There likely won't be lessons but there will be links to lessons, books, websites..anything that will help you immerse yourself in the language. There are a lot more resources out there for an struggling language than you would think.