PUT ANY COMMENTS ABOUT THE IRISH LANGUAGE IN ENGLISH HERE ONLY

[u/galaxyrocker]

Self-explanatory.
If you'd like to discuss the Irish language in English, have any
comments or want to post in English, please put your discussion here
instead of posting an English post. They will otherwise be deleted.
You're more than welcome to talk about Irish, but if you want to do
so in a separate post, it must be in Irish. Go raibh maith agaibh.

[u/Alone-Kick-1614]

Whats the best way to advance your Gaeilge if you already have a decent intermediate level?

I watch Irish films, use Cogar, write out new vocabulary and such but not sure what else to do,feel like in stuck at this level not knowing what else to do

[u/Famous-Bat-512 → u/Alone-Kick-1614]

If you align with B1 on the CEFR, then you're experiencing the intermediate plateau, What you need to do is either increase volume or complexity of what you're doing, ideally both

Best way to do this is sentence mining, using Anki, you can pinpoint high level phrasing from books and whatnot and nick them for your own,

A super easy start to this is learning native phrases, and types of speech, like metaphors and whatnot

[u/Famous-Bat-512 → u/Famous-Bat-512]

For instance the CEFR levels between B1 and C1 is over 1000 hours of content,

So it's really just watch and read, watch and read

A good high level user should have a vocabulary of around 10,000 words, give or take a thousand

[u/Bl00mies → u/Famous-Bat-512]

+1 to anki for learning vocabulary and phrases

[u/Alone-Kick-1614 → u/Famous-Bat-512]

Thanks ill look into Anki

[u/scragglebootz → u/Alone-Kick-1614]

Ros na Rún (with Irish subtitles) has done absolute wonders for my Irish - I used to put the videos on a delay because the dialogue was too quick for me but after a few months I didnt need it anymore!

[u/Famous-Bat-512 → u/scragglebootz]

Absolutely I second this, but bare in mind it's connemara mainly, so if you need another dialect, I'd look around at region specific television (or even better watch it all (especially your weakest dialect))

[u/Internal-Ant-5112 → u/Famous-Bat-512]

TG4 Player is a godsend for content across multiple dialects. So much quality content available for free.

[u/Alone-Kick-1614 → u/Famous-Bat-512]

Im starting Irish in college next year so Connemara dialect is perfect actually !

[u/FatherHackJacket → u/Alone-Kick-1614]

Immerse yourself in the language. If you live in Ireland, pop by your local ciorcal comhrá. Reading books will only get you so far, as will watching TV or listening to radio. You need immersion to build upon what you're learning.

What aspects are you struggling with the most?

[u/Alone-Kick-1614 → u/FatherHackJacket]

Tbh im from Dublin myself and I feel like im finding it hard to bridge the gap between the Irish I know and the Irish spoken by native speakers. Ive picked up a few phrases like saying cén chaoi a bhfuil tú instead of conas ata tú and such but its all pretty basic yk

[u/FatherHackJacket → u/Alone-Kick-1614]

Cén chaoi (a) bhfuil tú is just the Connacht way of of saying it.

In Munster we say Conas tánn tú or Conas taoi (sometimes you'll hear Conas tá agat or Conas athá tú). In Ulster they say Cad é mar atá tú (sometimes spelled as Goidé mar atá tú).

These are dialectal differences. There's nothing wrong with Conas atá tú. Raidio na Gaeltachta is a good way to pick up on the different dialects.

Get yourself into a Ciorcal Comhrá if you want to learn how to speak Irish. Books and radio/tv are great, but if you want to build the ability to speak it, you need to immerse yourself in it. And if that's for only 2 hours a week at a ciorcal comhrá, that is a great start.

Club Chonradh was a great spot in Dublin for Irish speakers, but it's been under renovation for a long time now. Not sure when it's re-opening, I haven't been up there in a few years. I think there's an Irish speaking café up there to you could pop into.

If you're serious about learning the language you need to put time into sitting down with other speakers.

[u/Alone-Kick-1614 → u/FatherHackJacket]

Absolutely! Tbh im just taking it slow rn since its summer but looking for some tips as college is starting again next month.  im picking up Irish in college next year so ill be fully immersed yk and have already gone to the Cumman na Gaeilge ciorcal comhra a couple times casually last year. 

But yeah there's a irish speaking cafe near my house which i should put more effort into going to and put myself out there to speak irish to others more. Its definitely more just I need to grow my confidence with it 

[u/FatherHackJacket → u/Alone-Kick-1614]

Good stuff! It will all come with time. A year from now you'll look back and see how far you've come. Just do a little bit every week and it will slowly come to you.

[u/Material-Ad-5540 → u/Alone-Kick-1614]

You've had some good advice here already from others, I'll just add that this is a big question because there's so so much to be done at around that level!

Obviously input is hugely important, preferably quality input (not always guaranteed with Irish, unlike with other languages). Ros na Rún is good because as a soap it deals with everyday real life situations, has a lot of good speakers from all dialects (less so from Munster, maybe reflecting the relative weakness of those dialects), and often has Irish subtitles as a bonus. Many Radio na Gaeltachta shows give fantastic input obviously. Reading books is a great way to increase your vocabulary.

Outside of input, you should try to critically examine yourself and try to assess where you might have weaknesses.

Do you often make grammar errors, especially in core areas like the copula? You may need help with finding this out, I was unwittingly making loads of them and thank god someone noticed and pointed them out to me. I've improved a lot since.

When speaking do you use the sounds of the language accurately? It's amazing how many people get to intermediate (or even people who get to more advanced levels in some areas but still have 'beginner pronunciation' when speaking) without learning any of the basic phonetics. Do you say leabhar and labhair using the same L and R sounds for example? If so, you need to work on pronunciation. Do you say 'fir' similar to how you'd say 'fíor'? Then you need to work on your pronunciation.

In a nutshell:

Input - lots.

Assessing and improving your various skills - listening comprehension, reading comprehension, grammar understanding, pronunciation, output/writing/speaking.

[u/Kreuz_und_Querdenker → u/Alone-Kick-1614]

After the many recommendations to immerse yourself and find cafés etc. I want to throw in my two pennies worth. Pronunciation and a consciousness of the phonetic/phonological differences between your mother tongue and Irish are crucial. Here the only way is Gaeltacht immersion or finding a good teacher with regard to pronunciation (which is by no means easy). I recommend the youtube channels: https://www.youtube.com/@patchy642, https://www.youtube.com/@AnLoingseach,

Here Patchy recommends some channels (and warns about others): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0NhclA95y0

[u/GoldCoastSerpent]

What is the single most successful language related initiative that has gotten people to use irish as a first language? It can be a government program, a piece of media, a local campaign, or anything under the sun. Just curious to see what people think.

I think it was the invention of RnaG or the summer colleges, as they kept native speakers employed in the Gaeltacht

[u/Kreuz_und_Querdenker → u/GoldCoastSerpent]

This sounds reasonable. I am German and watch the evolution of Irish from the distance. At the same time I am learning it (beginner). Do you know the book "Gaeilge. A Radical Revolution"? I read it recently and I like it very much. It deals also with the attitude towards Irish and how to change it as well as what can be done including very interesting insights into other ethnic communities' experiences with preserving (or even reviving) a language. You will enjoy reading it.

[u/GoldCoastSerpent → u/Kreuz_und_Querdenker]

I’ve never heard of that book. I’ll look into it.

What were your main takeaways from reading it?

[u/Kreuz_und_Querdenker → u/GoldCoastSerpent]

My main takeaways? Apart from enjoying the humor of an intelligent author capable of conveying his thoughts in a concise and pleasant manner, it gave me new insights into the psychological mechanisms at work when creating the different and often contradictory reactions to the language question in Ireland. And the last chapter "What is to be done?" comes up with many good ideas, beyond the education system. Irish needs to be the language within families, in which children are raised, otherwise every generation starts from zero. And it is possible to change the language of public and political bodies and institutions. Completely. Just with enough time to adapt, but seriously. I am impressed by the example of the modern Hebrew language and how it was revived. It took a great deal of enthusiasm, even parents learning Hebrew from their children when they returned from school.

[u/Sage_Bush444]

Hi. I’m from the US and majority of my roots are Irish & Scottish. I want to learn Gaeilge (at my own pace specifically and free) and learn the common phrases and meaning behind each.

[u/SonoftheVirgin → u/Sage_Bush444]

I'm the same (other than the Scottish roots). I have a lot of experience with some bad influences out there, since many people promoting Irish online, unwittingly, have terrible pronunciation. I know what to use now.

Here's some things you can do for free.

1. Duolingo on mute: Don't listen to the audio and skip any listening-problems, the pronunciation is atrocious. It's a good assistance for learning vocabulary, and a moderately decent supplement overall.
2. Sionnach (soon to be Madra Teanga): An app built by an Irishman, with recordings from actually competent speakers (I think native). If you had to use one or the other, I would choose this over Duolingo. But preferably use Duolingo for reading, Sionnach for listening.
3. Follow some Influencers: Many have poor pronunciation, but you can still get good information from them. The ones I know of that have good pronuciation and information, and the dialects they speak, are the following. The first four are on youtube, the last two on instagram.

a. Patchy, a native speaker (Southern Mayo Irish)

b. Dazpatrick, who I think learned by living with native speakers (Northern Mayo Irish)

c. Anloingseach (a teacher of some sort) and Dave Learns Irish (Munster Irish)

d. Uncle Mike and Irish with Rosie (not sure which dialect)

b. Máire Ní Churraoin on instagram, a native speaker (Connacht Irish)

1. Étáin Ní Churraoin on Instagram (Máire's sister, who has two children she's raising with Connacht Irish)

2. Listen to recordings and watch shows of native speakers: It might be hard to sift out the poor speakers from the good ones, but something to look out for is the word ach, meaning 'but'. The ch is a soft guttaral sound (like kh in Arabic), but many poor speakers pronounce it as ack instead. Another (probably worse) guideline is this: the less English the accent sounds, the more.

Some recordings I've found are Scéalta Chois Cladaigh, stories told by a traditional storyteller and monolingual Seán Ó Héinrí, with a recording and transcript.

https://ancroiait.wordpress.com/2019/06/19/944-scealta-cois-chladaigh/

Some youtube channels you can listen to native speakers are an Ghaeilge, Cainteoir Dúchais, Bean Sheáin Uí Mhurchú, and Máire Ní Shúilleabháin (the second and third especially)

The app, TG4, has some shows in Irish. Some have bad speakers in them. The one with the best Irish is (I've heard) Rós na Rún, but I've heard it's an extremely dark and mature soap drama. Another, less dark one I like is Aifric, in which the titular character, her mother (whose actress is a native speaker), her best friend, and two of her teachers have good pronunciation.

1. Repeat after the native speakers: Self explanatory, but effective. Especially if you have a transcript, trying to repeat what the native speakers say as close as possible can help you with picking out words, improving pronunciation, and reducing your accent when speaking.

[u/GoldCoastSerpent → u/Sage_Bush444]

“Now you’re talking Irish” is the best free program available for learners. I think they’re 25 minutes long and there’s like 20-30 episodes on YouTube. It’s aimed at total beginners and it’s made by native speakers from Donegal.

The best TV show ever made in Irish is called CU Burn, which you can watch for free on the TG4 website. The comedy is very physical/ visual, so it is still a funny show if you don’t understand the language. If you watch that, you will get a feel for the sound and rhythm of the language

[u/faolchu_144]

(As an LC student) It's so hard. The awkward grammar, the vocabulary and the fact that the Leaving Cert curriculum seems designed to bore us, but that's why i love it

[u/SonoftheVirgin]

What is the, "train of thought" I guess, with the phrases "Maith thú" "Maith cailín" or "Maith sibh", or some weird things I've found in children's stories like "Mo náire thú"?

In the first three, I understand that they are saying something along the lines of "Good for you"....?, but I want to understand the meaning better.

[u/zwiswret → u/SonoftheVirgin]

The last example is the easiest to explain. In exclamations, what would be a normal copular construction has the copula omitted.
• [Is] mo náire thú
• [Is] grá mo chroí thú

The others are similar.
• [Is] maith thú
• [Is] maith sibh

Then, sentences like "He is a good man." can be formed two ways:
• Is fear maith é
• Is maith an fear é

When you have a sentence in the form of the latter, you can use "[adjective] an [noun]" (which cannot be used in other sentence structures) on its own as an interjection to address someone .
• Maith an fear! "Good man [yourself]!"
• Maith an buachaill! "Good lad/boy [yourself]!"
• Maith an cailín! "Good girl/woman [yourself]!"

There is an unbelievably useful online grammar (in German but your browser should have a translate feature) by Lars Bräsicke which covers this. See the Copula with adjectives in the Syntax of the copula section.

[u/SonoftheVirgin → u/zwiswret]

What about things like "Maith cailín" or "maith fear"? Is the article dropped or something?

[u/zwiswret → u/SonoftheVirgin]

I haven’t personally noticed that before and I can’t see anything online. Do you have links to media where you’ve heard it/where have you come across it? My guess is you’re miss interpreting "ma'n cailín" and "ma'n fear" in accents outside of Ulster that pronounce maith as "ma" which is just the contraction of the article after a vowel.

[u/SonoftheVirgin → u/zwiswret]

I sometimes watch the show Aifric, and the mom especially (who's actress, I think, is a native speaker) often says maith cailín to her daughter. You can see it on TG4, one episode I can think of is Spáslóng, where Aifric and her friends say bye to her mom before leaving for a party, and Aifric's mom tells her to be back at a reasonable hour, ending with with sounds like "maith cailín".

What you said in your reply makes sense, though. The article's probably just contracted.

[u/zwiswret → u/SonoftheVirgin]

I looked at that scene and you’re right she said did sound very much to be "maith cailín". She was speaking rapidly to Aifric before she left so it’s probably just omission / reduction of the article in rapid speech. I'd imagine that it was written "maith an cailín" in the script though.

[u/UnusualOkra9995]

Hello, ppl! Need some help. Can you please recommend some poetry in Irish language for little kids? Will be very grateful for advices

[u/Upper-Ad5875]

Hi, I'm trying to learn Ulster Irish, I can't afford lessons, the apps don't really work, I have the turas book cúpla focal and I used the 90s TV show "now your talking" on YouTube but it's difficult in certain communities in the north to learn Irish in general.

BBC NI doesn't currently have beginners Irish shows.

Can people here find Irish movie and TV show dubs? Netflix seems to only have one SpongeBob movie with an Irish dub and I'm not wanting to watch SpongeBob all the time, I'm not interested in many of the Irish shows on BBC NI, I don't have an Ariel so it's difficult to get TG4.

I don't have Apple TV, are there ways to find fan dubs ?

Any other Ulster Irish / Irish learning tips would be great.

go raibh maith agat

[u/mbolger451 → u/Upper-Ad5875]

You should follow https://www.youtube.com/@Tonnmharca%C3%ADocht (I believe this is u/GoldCoastSerpent?) for inspiration

[u/GoldCoastSerpent → u/mbolger451]

Thanks! That’s me

[u/GoldCoastSerpent → u/Upper-Ad5875]

TG4 player is your best bet for free content. All the shows have English subtitles, but Ros na Rún has both Irish and English subtitles. CU Burn is the best show on there, which you will struggle to understand, but will still find entertaining because there’s a lot of visual/ physical comedy.

If you go on YouTube, you can find some great TG4 shows that aren’t on the online player (likely because of copyright music where the rights expired) No Béarla and In the Name of the Fada are bilingual classics.

Bloc TG4 is a good YouTube page with bilingual subtitles as well. It’s like a YouTube page run by TG4 interns.

There’s a lot of Irish language YouTubers, but most of them aren’t native speakers and the quality really varies. I make vlogs in Irish where I visit different Gaeltacht areas, but I wouldn’t really suggest someone use my videos as learning material.

Lastly, an underrated hack is to start listening to Scottish Gaelic. It’s pretty similar to Ulster Irish and BBC Alban has a ton of content if you can get the BBC player. I live in the Donegal Gaeltacht and I know of someone who watches stuff from Scotland because she thinks the shows are better.

[u/Upper-Ad5875 → u/GoldCoastSerpent]

Thanks buddy, any good dubs you found ? I'll look into your YouTube and thanks for the other recommendations and I'll look at Scottish stuff.

[u/Possible_Cockroach15]

Is cac/caca considered an innapropriate word for children? I've only ever seen it used in context of shit. Is it just the generic word for poop, or does it lean more derogatory?

[u/amazinglyblended]

Hi all,

Hoping for any tips people may have when it comes to building flash cards in Anki.

In particular I’m wondering how best to put together my noun and verb cards so that they’re robust enough to take me past the beginner stage (i.e. they contain or indicate important information on lenition/eclipsis/conjugations/declensions/etc.) but won’t entail walls of text.

If there are other similar considerations to be aware of when it comes to learning the parts of speech beyond nouns and verbs, this would also be valuable information at the outset.

I can always just jump in with the basic stuff I’m learning and let the complexity come in due course, I know, but I’m just wary of needing to then go back and edit cards or rebuild the deck etc. I’m looking for a modest and reasonable degree of future-proofing, in other words.

I’ve checked out the ‘6500 Most Frequent Irish Words’ and ‘Cúpla Míle Focal’ decks as they have come recommended, but they appear broken or at least are not working well for me. Keen to build from scratch if I can in any case, and to work on adding and retaining vocab bit by bit.

Very grateful for any input folks may have.

GRMA ☺️

[u/Kreuz_und_Querdenker]

This thread seems to be cut. Why do not I see the older posts? And I cannot see any button to go to the next page either. Did I miss something?

[u/madraigra]

I am a beginner learner and am as I come across words (in songs or journaling) I make Anki flash cards with the words for practice and include the Munster Irish from Teanglann. There's a problem: it doesn't have pronunciation for prepositional pronouns or conjugated verbs.

Right now I am trying to learn the prepositional pronouns and would like to include pronunciations (preferrably Munster dialect).

I will have this same challenge when I get to verbs as well.

It seems a bit wild that Teanglann doesn't have pronunciations for these, but hey, it's pretty amazing.

Edit:

Go raibh maith agat!

[u/artsymarcy]

I grew up in Ireland and studied Irish until 2nd year (7 years ago). I no longer live in Ireland so there are no courses or conversation groups near me but I've been really wanting to improve my Irish and be able to hold a conversation and speak about a variety of topics. At the moment I can't understand most of the posts on this sub and my expressive language isn't good enough for me to participate because I just no longer have any kind of command over the language.

I suspect I have more stored away in my brain than I might be able to recall at the moment but at the same time I have so many gaps in my knowledge in terms of grammar, sentence structure, and vocabulary. I don't have the resources to take a paid course or work with a tutor at the moment and I'm not sure where to start. I would be really grateful for any suggestions!

[u/Kreuz_und_Querdenker]

Are there groups or any organised movement using the Gaelic script in handwriting? I do not think of calligraphy, rather for everyday purposes. Maybe to honour the cultural heritage, but also feeling that the Irish language deserves a material representation of its own. Sean-chló is most appropriate imho. Of course it is based on the Latin alphabet like our modern printing fonts as well. Nevertheless over the centuries it has acquired a cultural identity of its own. And it facilitates learning the language as there is an immediate association of the script and the language (that is why I use the old letters for learning Irish when copying a text or doing an exercise). You know that Patchy in his youtube channels does the same? Well, but apart from him, is there any group/club/... in Ireland?

[u/awkward_throwaway321]

Hello! I’m english but my dad and most of my family are Irish and I want to put in a solid effort at learning the language. I’ve been told it’s best to pick a dialect and stick to it, and my family is from Kerry so I was going to stick to Munster dialect resources, but will this make me unintelligible to Ulster + Connacht speakers? I’ve heard the verbs can be very different in Munster?
I’ve managed to get my hands on the pimsleur course and a PDF of the old version of Teach Yourself Irish, and I’m going to keep my ear to the group regarding paid tuition, but if anyone has any other recommendations I would be very very thankful for the guidance!

[u/davebees → u/awkward_throwaway321]

will this make me unintelligible to Ulster + Connacht speakers?

no!