Learning Irish(Gaelic) - Any native speakers here?

Good evening gents. As you may surmise from my sig line, most of my family has a pretty strong Irish lineage. I have wanted to learn Irish for a long time. Everyone else learns Spanish, French, German, etc. and there is nothing wrong with that. I just wanted to learn something from the old country and something to hand down to the kids if possible. I picked up the Pimsleur Quick and Simple Irish four CD set the other day and got right into it. This is fun. I've already picked up number of phrases and words. A few light bulbs have been turned on in my head about words which are used when speaking about yourself vs someone else. I like the way Pimsleur lets you hear native speakers. The spelling structure is completely foreign to English structure and you would have ZERO idea of how a word is pronounced versus how it looks as it is spelled! I have searched out a few Irish/English translations on the web, just to make sure I was hearing the consonant sound of a word properly. The Pimsleur is geared toward a Munster dialect. Is this markedly different than say, Ulster or Connacht? Now look, I don't intend to try to become an Irish linguist. However, I certainly don't want to learn a good bit of the language only to find it nearly useless if I want to strike up a good conversation with a native.

Has anyone else here used the Pimsleur approach? I remember one gent mentioning it but cannot seem to remember if he liked it or not. Any other alternatives if this one does not work out? Another thing that I think helps is an approach a seventh grade science teacher urged us to use. This was in the 70's when there was much talk of the U.S. going to metric measurements. He repeatedly told us to never think of an equivalent measure between the Imperial measurements and the metric. He told us if we are working with metric, think of it AS metric and not; "this translates to this in fractional measurements". I am trying to use the same approach with language. I am not trying to think in my head what an exact translation of certain words or phrases are. The first one that jumped out at me was "tuigim". It literally means "understand" or more accurately "I understand" since the I is implied with this type of word. It is actually simpler in ways than English. At least it seems so! This may change as things progress. Anyroad, what I did with this word and others was simply put it in my mind that when the speaker asked me if I understand, my response was tuigim, not "lets see, I understand so that means tuigim". Does that make any sense at all? I hope I am not way off base here. It has been DECADES since I really studied a foreign language. Wish me luck and give any pointers you care to.

Regards, Todd

Without reading your entire post, consider this a bump.

Here's what I've gathered since I used to be interesting in learing Gaelic.

1. Yes, it's freakin' hard. It's not a romance language. no latin-sounding roots or anything.

2. I'm pretty sure all Irish people have mandatory Gaelic lessons in school to some degree. Find an Irish person who teaches anything at your local college. They will be able to point you in the right direction. @ our local Indiana-Purdue branch, there's a woman named Caoime (or something). It's pronounced "KEE-vuh". go figure. She is in charge of the Irish festival there.

Todd,

My girlfriend is Vietnamese, and I've tried to pick up the language using Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone, and a textbook written by the Vietnamese Language instructor at Harvard, with DVD's for pronuciation.

All the methods are conditionally okay. The strength of the Pimsleur method is hearing native speakers using proper phrasing, and more importantly, cadence. I think the hardest part of learning a new language is speaking at the speed a native speaker would, and Pimsleur gives you that beat. The drawback is that by imitating the speech you hear, you find you speak at the same tone as the person you are listening to; you have to make a concious effort to speak at your tone. It's a little sobering to hear yourself saying something with a woman's pitch (Pimsleur features male and female speakers on all language series). Also, you're learning stock phrases; asking directions, seeing if you want something to eat, where is this street... these are fine, but it doesn't make you proficient in the language. Essentially, you're a parrot repeating a phrase, and you're expecting a somewhat predictable response. It can also be a somewhat monolithic. You mentioned that it uses the Munster dialect. The Vietnamese program uses the North Vietnamese dialect, which doesn't always work out for you, as I found out to my own embarrassment when talking to South Vietnamese parents!

NOTHING beats talking to a native speaker, and more importantly, a sympathetic native speaker who wants to help you learn. I get some giggles from my girlfriend's family if I don't hit the tones just right, and that can be discouraging.

Hard work helps. I've watched my girlfriend's sister and sister-in-law teach themselves English and they are constantly looking up words and typing them into an electronic Vietnamese/English handheld dictionary. They're getting very good at it and it won't be long before they'll be surprising me with their skills.

Don

ah the language of saints & scholars

Dia duit, a Todd!

Well, I'm not a native speaker as such - I didn't speak 'an Gaeilge' at home, but like most Irish people, I was taught a certain amount of it in school. I grew up in Galway, which is beside the Connemara Gaelteacht, so would speak some Irish from time to time.

It's quite some time since (years?!) I had a conversation in Irish - I live in Dublin - but I think that's the best way to practise it, if you can find someone to talk to! You could also listen to Irish spoken on Radio na Gaelteacht:

http://www.rte.ie/radio/index.html
http://www.rte.ie/rnag/

I wouldn't worry about the dialect thing too much, it's a minor aspect at this point, there is more in common than different.

Go n-éirigh an bóthar leat!

Here's a video of what happened to a young man who wanted to speak Irish:

My Name is Yu Ming (Part One)

My Name is Yu Ming (Part Two)

Black Adder said:

NOTHING beats talking to a native speaker, and more importantly, a sympathetic native speaker who wants to help you learn. I get some giggles from my girlfriend's family if I don't hit the tones just right, and that can be discouraging.

Hard work helps. I've watched my girlfriend's sister and sister-in-law teach themselves English and they are constantly looking up words and typing them into an electronic Vietnamese/English handheld dictionary. They're getting very good at it and it won't be long before they'll be surprising me with their skills.

Click to expand...

Another valuable tool for learning new languages is a SHORT WAVE RADIO ... many foreign stations offer language lessons on a regular basis. Also, you can listen to news broadcasts from that country to help practice vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. And it adds to the depth and scope of your learning in that it goes deeper than canned phrases for the hotel, restaurant, taxicab and museum gift-shop.

See www.ccrane.com as a good starting point to buy a radio.

Dilseach augus gra. Accents missing and all is my rougly translated Family motto.
Faith and Love.

That's the extent of my gaeilc knowledge. Good luck!

deadly video top notch

Here's another great one by Daniel O'Hara; here's what happened to a man that doesn't want to speak Irish:
http://www.atom.com/funny_videos/fluent_dysphasia/

I'm half from Eire and I don't speak it at all... I listen to lots of Gaelic folk music but usually my understanding of the words is slim at best. Good luck.

Mickdaman said:

Dia duit, a Todd!

Well, I'm not a native speaker as such - I didn't speak 'an Gaeilge' at home, but like most Irish people, I was taught a certain amount of it in school. I grew up in Galway, which is beside the Connemara Gaelteacht, so would speak some Irish from time to time.

It's quite some time since (years?!) I had a conversation in Irish - I live in Dublin - but I think that's the best way to practise it, if you can find someone to talk to! You could also listen to Irish spoken on Radio na Gaelteacht:

http://www.rte.ie/radio/index.html
http://www.rte.ie/rnag/

I wouldn't worry about the dialect thing too much, it's a minor aspect at this point, there is more in common than different.

Go n-éirigh an bóthar leat!

Click to expand...

Dia s'meire dhuit, Charles. Conas taan tu? Tuigim beagan Gaeillinne, ach ni muron. I hope I just told you that I return your greeting, asked how you are, and said I understand a little Irish but not much. Sorry about the lack of fadas.

Thank you for the response. I suspected there was no real substantive difference between the different dialects but thought I should make sure. Great idea about the Irish radio. And thanks to dpm for mentioning short wave in general. I have very nice, Sangaen ATS 803 that gets fantastic reception. It would be a GREAT help to have on air help. Just listening to the native speakers on the Pimsleur cds made a huge difference.

Another thing I agree with is the tonal qualities of language. It became immediately apparent while listening to the Irish woman and the Irish man on the discs that at times, it sounded like they were saying entirely different words. I quickly came to realise I should make myself sound more like him at all times. During the lessons they have you listen to the speaker and repeat. That is fine and how you get a basic understanding of how the words are spoken. After I learn the words, instead of repeating them, I answer the speaker with the proper(I hope) response. It makes understanding the flow of conversation easier. Again, thanks for all the responses fellas. I really like this language and hope I can keep focused on learning and using it. Luckily I have a colleague at work who is just as Celtic minded as I am and we are going to start speaking Irish to each other at work when possible to help the learning process.

Regards, Todd

Maith an fear, Todd!

Now, I believe in times of old, if we met along a road somewhere, I would have replied to your greeting with, "Dia agus Muire agus Pádraig dhuit", and we could keep going on and on adding a new saint each greeting! I get my fada's by holding 'alt' and pressing the vowel I want, agus sin é!

Here's a link I found to a very famous poem by Antoine Ó Raiftéirí:

http://www.gael-image.com/doras/ceachtanna/ceacht1-lch3.html

You can try this too...

Oh what fun that's been at work... remote silent install rules!

SepticTank said:

You can try this too...

Oh what fun that's been at work... remote silent install rules!

Click to expand...

B'fhéidir go mbeadh do míleáiste éagsúil.
(YMMV)

I wish you well in your quest. I spent 40 mins every school day for twelve years trying to learn Irish... hated every moment of it! IMO it's a dead language and the State continues to ram it down the throats of our youth! This time could be better spent...
If you ever get close to mastering the tongue, read a book called Peg Sayers!

If you find a definitive online resource about learning gaelic please PM me or post it, as part of the 4 proud provinces myself I think I should probably know more about this language.

Not sure as I don't really speak it but this site seems pretty in depth-

http://www.erinsweb.com/gaelic100.html

Perhaps our Irish speaking roomies could take a quick look and see if it fits.

I've delved a bit into several language but never really took the time to learn any.

IMO, you think Irish is hard try Welsh

dpm802 said:

Here's a video of what happened to a young man who wanted to speak Irish:

My Name is Yu Ming (Part One)

My Name is Yu Ming (Part Two)

Click to expand...

That was a fantastic film.

I can barely order a Guinness.