so i've just discovered this....
http://www.beo.ie
and I have to say it looks like wow. hold your arrow over an underlined idiom or difficult term and you can read the translation in the bar at the bottom of the browser...pretty cool...

Yeah that is pretty cool but it's only for certain words....there is something called easy reader which is fantastic. Basically you open it and no matter what you read be it on the web or just documents you have if you don't understand something it'll give you the explanation and even the grammar belonging to the word. It is expensive enough but well worth it

Where can we get that Rebecca?

Anseo: http://www.irishforlife.com/

Tá brón orm Aonghus, bhí mé á scríobh ag an am céanna leat!!

Ná bíodh brón ort. Tarlaíonn sé. Is féidir le Cormac muinín a bheith aige as an t-eolas, ó tharla go bhfuair sé ó bheirt é!

go raibh maith agaibh ;)

A Rebecca, a chara,

I could not agree with you more that "Easy Reader" is a fantastic tool for learning and teaching Irish. As you point out, it can be used in conjunction with a number of other applications, mar shampla, web browsers, email applications, word processing programs, etc.

Click on an Irish word appearing in anyone of these application windows, and a box appears with the word's grammatical context, meaning, inflection, and links to idioms using that word. Each dictionary query is logged so you can go back to review and learn the words you do not know.

I just clicked on two words in the post Aonghus gave above. My dictionary log produced these entries, which appeared in an indented box above Aonghus' words when I clicked on them:

............. Tarlaíonn ................
1 ) Verb, Present Indicative, *, Indepedendent [ tarlaigh ] happen, occur, transpire; as vt haul, bring in.

............. muinín ................
1 ) Noun f, 2nd declension [ muinín ] confidence, dependence, faith
an mhuinín (ns), na muiníne (gs), na muiníní (np), na muiníní
SeePhrases

I could click on the SeePhrases hyperlink to get a list of idioms with muinín in it.

Now I use "Easy Reader" to do my Irish homework. We are reading short stories by Séamus Ó Grianna at present. I scan the assigned story into an Optical Character Recoginition progam, OmniPoint, to create a Microsoft Word file. Then I read the story using Easy Reader. When I am done, I copy the dictionary log into a column next to the column with the story. It is just a simple table with two columns and one row. Then I print it out and study the vocabulary to prepare for the class discussion.

However, the feature that excites me the most is the open forum, Linux approach that Pat McCormack has taken to building the Easy Reader dictionary. Let me give an example. Last week we read "An Chaora Chailte" and I ran across a word I had not yet encountered in my studies, namely fáras. I clicked on it but the Easy Reader dictionary did not have it. I found it in Ó Dónaill's foclóir as a Donegal version of the word áras, which is in the Easy Reader dictionary.

Then I updated my copy of the Easy Reader dictionary to link fáras to áras, so the next time I click on it it will appear. At the same time I updated my personal dictionary, a copy of the transaction was automatically sent to a database on the web. After the word is vetted by experts from Foras na Gaeilge, it will be included in the next update of the dictionary, so you will not have to look up fáras in Ó Dónaill when you come across it in whatever you are reading. The community of Easy Readers will thus collectively build the most comprehensive, most dialectically rich, most idiomatically exhaustive Irish-English English-Irish dictionary in existence.

BTW, it also has 'Easy Writer' and 'Easy Listener' capabilities. It has Irish spell checking, easy fada's, and séimhiú éasca sa sheanchló. It also has sound files of native speakers from the three major dialects reading exerpts from Irish literature and folklore, ach sin iad scéalta eile.

So, I would urge you join the community of Easy Readers and contribute to the cause. You will not regret it.

(Message edited by lúcas on November 11, 2004)

(Message edited by lúcas on November 11, 2004)

(Message edited by lúcas on November 11, 2004)

Oh my goodness! That sounds like the best program! Can anyone tell me how much it is because I went on the site but I couldn't figure out much? Nothing would load. Is it a sort of CD ROM sort of program you need to order or is it right there, online, always available for your use once you buy it?

$75

I just ordered it (i couldn't resist, especially since the dollar is very low now :D)

lol! 75$ in what currency, if you don't mind me asking?

US Dollars. And there is a $4.00 S&H charge inside the US.
It is a CD rom.

Natalie,

That is $75 USA dollars plus shipping. The author, Pat MacCormack, lives in Maryland USA. At current rates that's about $90 Canadian.

You can also buy it from
http://www.litriocht.com/shop/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=&products_id=127 3
for €60.00 plus shipping from Ireland.

I don't know which would be more expensive, from America or from Ireland...lol. I hope I can get it. It sounds like such a great program that I wouldn't want to miss the oppurtunity (especially while our money exchange isn't all that bad).

I actually find that it is about the same in price... the only difference being the shipping... its a bit more expensive. I just received Harry Potter agus an Orchloch along with a couple of other items from Litriocht.com and the shipping was 10.00 Euro for the first item and 5.00 Euro for each subsequent item.

Just because I was curious, I checked out the exchange and apparently Euro is worse. According to some exchange website, $75 American is $89.5278 Canadian while $75 Euro is $116.167 Canadian!! All the same, I think I know what I want for Christmas...!

Natalie,

Easy Reader has an extra added bonus you might like. It has grammar sections,like one on regular verbs. Input a verb, add a verbal particle, a mood, a tense, ... and it spits out the correct Irish form. Double click the output and it prints it out on a page. You could practice all those pesky conjugations you were wrestling with on another thread.

You made a little error in your calculations, Natalie. It should be more like

litríocht.com = €60.00 = $92.97 Canadian ±
irishforlife.com = $75.00 US = $89.50 Canadian ±

You assumed litríocht.com sold it for €75.00.

(Message edited by lúcas on November 14, 2004)

I don't know if you would have to pay more for something that came from Ireland? I know when i ordered stuff from the States (to Ireland) I had to pay an extra €60 for duty...I thought it was extremely high. Anyway, would you have to pay anything like that for ordering from Ireland?

Thank you Lúcas, I never really considered the fact that they would be different prices and that thing about the grammar section would be helpful for when I'm trying to learn how to conjugate. The sad thing is that even if it was only $75 or $60 CANADIAN, it would still be a lot of money for something I'm not sure if I'd get a lot of use out of. I mean, I'd love ot have it to help me when I'm writing and reading these posts on here but since I have no access to any real speakers or anything, it would appear to someone (i.e. my mother) that I have no real need for it even though I know I would try my best to get as much use out of it as possible! :) Perhaps someday when I'm rich and rule the world!

Natalie

I don't know where you are in Canada, but there are language groups in Toronto, Kingston and Ottawa you can hook up with for general conversation etc.

Oh, well, I live in New Brunswick but that's ok. I consider Daltaí my means for Irish communication!

ah okay... if you are ever so inclined the Montreal irish language group have amazing Irish language weekends, actually in November...people from Ontario go there as well as folks from the US.

Well thank you, I was thinking once about going to one of those weekends. Maybe sometime I'll get.