sooooooo

gaeltacht weekend

yeah

I was somewhat disappointed - not in the program, mind you, but in myself. I've been away from formal classes so long, and I have no one to talk to. I'm okay in writing, I have lots of grammar, but my vocabulary and aural skills are so poor that I'm finding it difficult to understand and communicate with even those studying just a year or two (I've been at it eight).

I've resolved to do with my Gaeilge what I decided to do with my piping recently, and that is to go back to square one (or maybe square two) and try to "do it right."

I'm going to avail myself of the stuff being run at brookdale during the summer, provided Lúcas is still going to be doing it come June. (I also heard that there was someone else running workshops once a week, but I don't know whom).

But one of the things I want to do is go back to Buntús Cainte. I never actually did past lesson 8 in class. At the weekend I heard tell of a couple students who earned fainní óir using only vols1-3 of Buntús (and regular interaction with speakers, of course). I have never seen the pages of vols2-3, but I have the whole set on order.

I'm wondering if anyone can tell me how extensive vol3 gets by the end, and whether or not fluency sounds reasonable with BC1-3 being the only textbook (and interaction with fluent speakers).

Buntus 3 has cool grammar constructions that you can copy into real life sentences. There's one sequence that's funny that goes 'look how lovely my hair is and look how dirty your hands are' for example. Now You're Talking has more realistic phrases and they help you communicate at a weekend with things you need to know and things people will ask you. If you can get your hands on the copy of the progress in irish tape that someone made, and hunrdreds have copied -- just reading out the progress pages, that would also be helpful. I would drive for hours to the various weekends listening to those tapes and it really helped me. By the time I got to the weekend, I was ready to talk and when I hesitated, trying to think of the word or construction I needed, those taped words came rolling off the pages into my head. Also taping the classes or lectures really helps -- more than r na g because if you are there, present listening or if you know the person who is speaking it seems easier somehow. Then each time you listen again you catch more of what you missed. I never opened the books, though, just learned by listening, unfortunately!

I just ordered the whole book/cd set myself.

How about buntús cainte -the pornography years

Cáit has now cashed in on the global growth industry and opened up a porn shop.

No more talk about cóta báinín and sugar, no sir!