Hello All,

I can translate a decent amount of stuff from Irish to English (and vice versa). However, I find that most of the time I can't take meaning from a passage in Irish unless this "little voice in my head" repeats it back in English. If I consciously make an effort to quiet that little English-speaking voice I will struggle to get the meaning of something in Irish, even if it's relatively simple.

For those of you out there that are fluent in Irish (or any other tongue that isn't your native one) and have the ability to think in Irish, is there anything I can do to improve my ability to think in Irish? Or should I just keep turning off that voice and the Irish will come eventually?

Does anyone else out there struggle with this?!

Regards,

Searlas

I think nearly everybody has this problem during the process of learning a new language. Two things that help, in my experience:

1) Read a LOT of the language you're learning.

2) Read out loud. For some reason, for me, this seems particularly helpful with Irish.

Hope this helps,

--Al Evans

A Shearlais, a chara,

I have some ideas for you in addition to Al's very worthy suggestions...

Do you have a chance to go to a Daltai na Gaeilge weekend, or similar intensive program? I've always found those programs helped me to start to think in Irish, and they had a lasting effect on my level of Irish.

Do what you can to start to live your life through Irish. Make up your grocery list in Irish.
Walk down the street and describe what you're seeing/doing in Irish.

Get some tapes/CDs in Irish and play them a lot: listen to them passively... let them wash over you while you're doing household chores, dishes, etc.
The Buntús Cainte tapes are excellent: not a word of English on 'em.

I'm sure other regulars on this site will have some more ideas for you.

You're on the way to fluency. It's a long journey, but an enjoyable one.

Le meas, Paul

Friends,

Thank you so much for your suggestions. I'll definitely give those a try. It's good to know that I'm not alone in this struggle!

Regards,

Searlas

Depending on the context, I often think in another language than Swedish. Writing this post, I think in English - if I'm thinking through what I'm going to say to my Croatian colleague next door, I usually think in Croatian. When I speak or write Irish I naturally think in Irish. On the other hand, when I first learn a language I always think in Swedish - getting to think in a new language is of course a process. The best way to do it is to immerse yourself as fully as you can in that language. I guess those of us who don't have English as our native language have an advantage in this respect - if I go to Ireland and try to immerse myself totally in Irish, there is no risk of suddenly starting to talk Swedish...

Of course, I never think in English unless I'm using the language at that very moment - the language of my thoughts (except the situations such as those outlined above) is definitely Swedish. Baochas le Dia :-)

Immersion, Immersion, Immersion. That's the key to "thinking" in a language.

When I was running around Central and South America with little if any english language interaction, I would find myself dreaming in Spanish and thinking in Spanish. When I would come back to the States, I would actually find myself hearing people speak in english and I would be translating it into Spanish in my head. I would also catch myself answering in Spanish!

Immersion is the key. Find a way to get as totally immersed as you can. Paul's recommendations are spot on. RnaG is streaming across my computer this very moment. On long rides home from work I let the Buntús Cainte tapes just play over and over again. Get comfortable with the rhythm and the feel of the language. The vocabulary will come in good time.

Above all...have fun. When it becomes work, stop. Take a break (an hour, a day, a week...whatever) and then come back to it when it's fun again.

Le meas,

James

Just to emphasise that - immersion immersion immersion is the key!

I "immersed" myself in Irish this time last year by studying it at degree level in University. All my classes are in Irish, my friends talk Irish and in the house we talk Irish. And within a year I have gone from having hardly any of the teanga to being able to understand, speak, think and sometimes dream in Irish to near fluency.

It will come with time. Patience and hard work will pay off I guarantee it! :o)

Again, thanks to you all for the great advice. If I only come away with one thought from this thread, it'll be "immersion". :-)

Regards,

Searlas

Diversion
Submersion
Version
Coercion

I agree that immersing yourself in the language is the key. But for some in some areas of the world it is difficult to do that. How would you suggest finding some way to immerse yourself then?
In the southern US there isn't much and if anyone has heard of anything I would really like to know about it.
Go raibh maith agaibh.
Cáit.

I think the idea of dreaming in Irish is a good one! When I was learning french I spent so much of my day IMMERSED in the language that I even started to dream in that language. I wasn't fluent in it yet but somehow, in that little dream chamber of my brain, I was able to have my tiny french conversations while I slept!

I also thinking the listening, reading and writing is a good way. If you are always listening to RnaG (I've gave it shot, I only got 3 words every 3 hours, but I tried!) or tapes or whatever than you will constantly hear it. If you take the time to read anything you have in Irish (or spend the time you come home on here like I do) than that would be helpful! And of course, if you try writing things down, its good too! In my opinion I don't think that any of this stuff is going to make you extremely bilingual quickly (or else I would be right now) but it helps! I write my homework in Irish...they may be only one word at a time (...chemistry...question...work...) but its helpful for vocabulary!

And lastly I think that if you make yourself think in Irish than that will help it become more naturally. Start talking to yourself and instead of doing it in English, do it in Irish.

As for what Cáit said about being in other places...I definitely think that's the hard thing! It's very hard to find any one who can even know that Ireland had a first language other than English over here on the other side of the ocean! I only wish I could find someone to actually speak with in Irish...

A Cháit,

The immersion weekends sponsored by this site are a great alternative. They aren't far from us (remember, I'm just a bit north east of you by about 2 to 3 hours). Pennsylvania is within an easy day's drive and New York isn't much farther. I'll most likely be attending the February immersion weekend in Esopus, NY. My guess is that it'll be a solid 8 to 10 hours, but it'll be worth it!

Also, don't overestimate the cost of a trip to Ireland. My wife and I were able to get round trip air, rental car and 5 nights B&B for less than 2,000 US. That was 2 people, mind you. Of course, once we hit the crystal factory in Galway that price tag went WAY up...but that's a different story.

My point is that if you travel "off season" and are willing to use the Youth Hostels or B&B's you can get out fairly inexpensively.

It's definitely "do-able!"

Technical question-Is there a way to record material from Real Audio files..ie would it be possible to record programs from RnaG ...and then put them on an mp3 player? or CD player?

Diarmo, i was just thinking the exact same thing! It would be a great way to listen to Gaeilge while ur at work or out of the house. But i fear because of it's format and for copyright reasons that you cant actually download the streams from RnaG. :( ( i hope im wrong by the way!)

I fairly sure somebody posted a way to do this a couple of years ago. If it is for personal use, I'm sure that counts as fair use. Have a look at real.com website, it may say something there.

Anything that's outputed from or inputed to your computer can be intercepted, both physcially and ...(trying to think of a computer word for "psychologically", hmmm... softwarely!).

When you've got some sound playing through you speakers, open an application like Goldwave and just set it to record your speakers' output (well actually, your sound output device's output)

Go to this page:

http://www.rte.ie/rnag/eist.html

Click on the type of program you want. Right Click on FTP, select 'save target as'(or use a download manger) and the program will download to your hard drive as a .ra file which is playable using real player.


If you want to convert it to mp3 to here:

http://www.riverpast.com/en/support/tutorials/convert/ra/mp3.php

some people might have noted that RnaG is now intergrated with the RTÉ main website; this is part of a recent RTÉ branding decision, which included renaming Network 2 RTÉ 2 and putting RTÉ before anything they do. Apparently a lot of people didn't realise how much RTÉ are involved in.

There is a free program called Streambox Ripper which will convert RA files to mp3, which you can then burn to a cd and listen to in your car, stereo or whatever. I downloaded it a while back, and it was without adware or spyware,its free, & it is available for download at:
...And I just went to streambox.com {http://www.streambox.com/Products/ripper_index.asp ) and found out its no longer available. Maybe they tried to sell it and failed.
I am redoing my website... If everyone would like, I'll see if I can't locate the original download file on my cds and I'll make it available for a bit.
April

The comments about immersion reminded me of a comment quoted in a recent book about the situation of American Indian languages (Searching for Bright City?)

The situation of native languages here in the U.S. is often much worse than that of Irish, including from the point of view of learning opportunities. One Native American who learned his heritage language without access to many books or speakers said this: You can give yourself an immersion course in the language. By this he meant mostly thinking in the language, whether silently or aloud. There's no reason why you can't converse with yourself.

That in turn reminded me of a noted linguist who had exactly that experience while learning an American Indian language. He had no one to converse with. One day he sat down on a rock and some idle thoughts came into his head in Navaho. He realized he could think or talk to himself in the language and started doing so on a more conscious, systematic way.

I started thinking in Irish riding on the subway, making simple comments about other people, oftening starting with "ta." Then I progressed to more complicated things. I think in Irish off and on during the day, when I am reading or writing Irish or with Irish-speaking people.

A very different experience was spending a week with a friend in Quebec. I could have easily kept to English but for the fact that my friend spoke very good French and almost never shut up. After a while, I realized it was easier to think in French. I didn't have to translate the answers to his questions.

Immersion, internalizing the language, is what will make reading it easier.

Foghlaim tú Gaeilge go furast agus gan stró (learning Gaelic easily and without Sturm und Drang):

Is fearr bá na "immersion".

Hopefully I grasped the kernel of bá correctly.

Foghlaim tú Gaeilge go furast agus gan stró (learning Gaelic easily and without Sturm und Drang):

Is fearr bá na "immersion".

Hopefully I grasped he kernel of bá correctly.

"Sean na Gallgeoir", what are you trying to express there?

"Foghlaim tú...", there's no such tense.
Past: D'fhoghlaim tú
Present: Foghlaimíonn tú
Future: Foghlaimeoidh tú

"go furast" should be "go furasta"

Is dóigh liom gur agent provacateur "Sean na Gallgeoir". Ní fheadfadh aon foghlaimeoir dáríre a leithéid de phraiseach a chumadh.

Agus níl fhios aige cad is brí le "Sturm und Drang" ach oiread.

Bá air!

Go bhfaighe sé bás!

That in turn reminded me of a noted linguist who had exactly that experience while learning an American Indian language. He had no one to converse with. One day he sat down on a rock and some idle thoughts came into his head in Navaho. He realized he could think or talk to himself in the language and started doing so on a more conscious, systematic way.

That is the opposite of immersion - I'd even venture to call it corruption. Nothing wrong in speaking to yourself in a foreign language, but who's going to correct the mistakes you make? By the way, with houndreds of thousands native speakers of Navaho still speaking the language, this linguist could have tried speaking to some of them... :-)

Jonas,

I am new here, so forgive me for jumping into the fray. However, Seosamh said the linguist was learning "an" American Indian language. Navaho is just one of many American Indian languages. Some are similar to each other, some are not. And of course, some are now lost as no one speaks them anymore.

However, I agree with you about "who's going to correct the mistakes you make?" There are no Gaelic classes here, and I have been trying to teach myself, but with little luck so far. For all I know, when introducing myself, I could be saying my mother was a chicken. :-) I'm saving my money for an immersion weekend somewhere next year though. :-)

Robin

Robin, a chara,
Tá an céart ag Jonas.
Navajo (Diné) is the Indian language with the largest number of native speakers north of Mexico.
There are well in excess of a hundred thousand native speakers of the language. And there is a useful degree of mutual comprehension in some fields with a number of related Athapaskan (Na-Dene) languages.
Le meas,
Chris

Robin,

Fáilte! I noticed that you live in Nebraska. I don't know where in NE you are, but if you're in the east you might look at the activities of Gaeltacht Minnesota, http://www.gaelminn.org. They have an Irish workshop in Winona MN every summer and a couple of workshops in the twin cities during the rest of the year. There's also a group in Madison WI that puts on the odd workshop too.

As for teaching yourself, if you get a good book with tapes, a dictionary, listen to RnaG over the internet, frequent this board and most of all, study hard, you'll do OK. There are a fair number of people here that are more-or-less self-taught. It's not the ideal situation, but you make due with what you've got.

Lastly... Since the linguist was thinking thoughts in Navajo, I think Jonas was safe in assuming that the particular language this linguist was learning was indeed Navajo. I myself am partial to Lakota. :-)

Again, welcome and best of luck to you with learning Irish!

Your midwestern neighbor,

Searlas

Aboriginal languages in Canada facing extinction: conference

Sun Oct 24, 4:36 PM ET

EILIS QUINN

SAINT-SAUVEUR, Que. (CP) - Many of Canada's aboriginal languages could face extinction in as little as a generation unless government gets involved, said some participants Sunday at a conference held to discuss the problem.



"We have to preserve and above all revitalize (these languages)," said Thanissa Laine, a co-ordinator for the second Conference on Aboriginal Languages. "There is no law protecting endangered languages in Canada but there are (laws) for animals that are becoming extinct."


Of Canada's 50 aboriginal languages, 47 face extinction within one or two generations. And though Cree, Ojibwa and Inuktitut have enough speakers to survive another four or five generations they too will die out unless action is taken, said Lise Bastien, director of the board of education for Quebec's First Nations.


About 150 participants from Canada and the United States gathered for the three-day conference to discuss endangered languages and how to preserve them.


Bastien said some communities have had short-term success by teaching all or a portion of elementary education in an aboriginal language or having elders participate in social or community activities with children so the language is transmitted naturally.


However, long-term progress won't be made until government gets involved, she said.


"Language is very important for the cultural blossoming of aboriginal communities," she said. "It would take a financial commitment and an official recognition of the languages (by the government).


"They should be supported by permanent policies."


Laine said it is a struggle maintaining such languages in the face of a "dominant culture of globalization and assimilation," although she added she remains optimistic.


"People are more sensitized now than they were one or even two generations ago," she said. "That's my positive side but it's an enormous job."


Other participants said Canada's culture of multiculturalism and bilingualism will make it easier for its aboriginal languages to survive in the long-term than in other countries.


"We appreciate (here) the importance of language," said Arpi Hamalian, a Canadian on a UNESCO (news - web sites) committee and an education professor at Concordia University.


"Canada is at the forefront of trying to bring about a convention on cultural diversity at the United Nations (news - web sites) level. Cultural diversity at its heart also protects linguistic diversity.


The first Conference on Aboriginal Languages was held in 1998 Quebec City.


Saint-Sauveur is about 50 kilometres northwest of Montreal.


The conference ends Tuesday.

Searlas,

(With apologies to Jonas) - now you know I have a tendency to skim posts instead of reading them thoroughly! My first post and I've outed myself already! LOL! I do apologize. I'd think of an excuse, but then it would start a pattern of having to do it every time I make the same mistake, and eventually, the excuses get ridiculous.

Yes, I am in Eastern Nebraska - Omaha actually. Thanks for the info on Gaeltacht Minnesota.

I am getting ready to order tapes, having played with some tapes that are available through the library. I am personally overwhelmed by the numerous ways a person can say "how are you?". Sometimes I just give up and put everything away, but by the next day, my curiosity gets the better of me and I grab another tape and listen to it as I drive. What tapes/books do you all recommend? Someone suggested the Buntús Cainte - is that the best way to start?

Robin,

There are a fair number of book/tape combinations for learning Irish available. The whole topic of which books are better for what has been discussed here quite frequently. If I were you I'd query these forums (Search is on the main menu) for all the words "book" "learn", and "Irish". I think you'll find quite a few posting relating to this very subject.

Regards,

Searlas

Robin, a chara!

Absolutely now need to apologise - I make mistakes like that myself all the time :-)

Welcome to the list, tá súil agam go mbainfir ana-shult as! When I started learning Irish - in a small town in Finland - I had absolutely no-one to talk to. Fortunately, I've been staying for months in different Gaeltachtaí in Ireland since then - and been corrected hundreds of time by my best friends untill I reach the level I have today (= fairly fluent. Without the benefit of constantly speaking Irish, hearing Irish and being corrected in Irish it would have been impossible.

It's pretty sad to say that 47 out of 50 native languages face extinction. I wonder, if you put the whole world and all of its languages into perception, how many would be considered on the verge of an extinction in the next couple hundred years (or half a century...or whatever number sounds good).

So in my boredom, I went on a fact finding mission:

If we were to use 300 of the most common languages in our Parliament we would reach 95% of the world's population. English is second only to Chinese in Mother Tongue Languages (most likely because of the immense population of China). English is then first for the Official Languages of Countries, the second being Chinese (for some weird reason). Irish, as I'm sure you guessed, didn't make it in the listings of either of those two categories of the top 20. Most of the ones common in both lists were the regular ones like French, Spanish and German and the others seemed to be places that had large populations from what I can tell.

The Ethnologue lists 6,809 living languages in the year 2000 with 32% pertaining to Asia, 30% to Africa and 19% to the Pacific. 15% was dedicated to the Americas and a small 3% is Europe. Many of the 6,000-odd "living" languages cited in Ethnologue are endangered or nearly extinct and any language with 10 000 speakers or less is considered extremely vulnerable. Roughly half the languages in the world are not being taught to children and therefore it is estimated that within a century, only 1 000 languages will remain.

According to this website which lists languages in order of their present state, Irish Gaelic is considered an endangered language with Scottish Gaelic and Welsh following along behind:

http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/europe_index.html#state

*Any facts I got were from websites and are therefore open to discussion.

*Any facts I got were from websites and are therefore open to discussion.

Excellent! :-)

English is second only to Chinese in Mother Tongue Languages (most likely because of the immense population of China)

No-one doubts for a moment that Chinese is the largest language in the world, but after that opinions differ. Spanish, English and Hindi are all about the same size - with Spanish growing at a much faster pace than the rest. Most statistics I've seen put Spanish as the second largest language. Some, but fewer, put English while still fewer claims it's Hindi. I'd definitely bet my money on Spanish being larger than English, and the difference growing larger all the time.

Jonas,

I give up! I've only been studying Irish for a couple weeks, and I tried to look up what you said, but it's not making sense to me. Take pity on me please and translate? :-)

Certainly :-)

"Welcome to the list, tá súil agam go mbainfir ana-shult as!" = I hope you'll enjoy it a lot!

Jonas,

Thank you for replying. Actually I did hope someone would say something because I wasn't sure about the list I had found. I don't know if this is what you were implying but I think what the title of the category meant (Mother Tongue Languages) might been referred to the amount of people. Therefore there are a lot of people in China.

I think that's one of the biggest problems with languages. It's hard to tell which language is the most important, the most diverse, the most whatever in the world. Some places have a large population but the actual language isn't well known in other parts of the world. I wonder if theres a better way to put all the languages in the world into perspective.

Oh and by the way, since it was mentioned way up above (I think), I would like to know about the Buntús Cainte tapes. What are they exactly? Are they just another "teach yourself Irish" method?

Natalie,

The Buntús Cainte tapes are a simpe read it, hear it, repeat it method of learing Irish. There is no grammar taught at all. You absorb the grammar just by using various phrases in different situations. I find them to be a fairly relaxing and non-demanding way of working with the language.

I'll put them in on my way to and from work. That gives me 45 minutes of Irish "immersion" each way. I like them quite a bit. Others, I'm sure, have different feelings.

Le meas,

James