There's a cool program I've read about but can't seem to make work on my computer --- It's a self-assessment program in 13 different languages that was created by the council of europe. One of course is IRISH! I was wondering if anyone had the chance to try it out and comment on what you think of it, I'd love to hear your opinions -- it's at www.dialang.org

Grmma,
C

Ar an drochuair, níl an nasc sin ag obair ag an am seo.

Bain trial as seo:
http://www.dialang.org/irish/index.htm

Tá íomhá ar an gcéad lch nach bhfeicimse ach oiread.

Is dóigh liom gur gá flash a bheith agat don íomha sin. Níor oibrigh sí domsa ach an oiread. Tá nasc Aonghusa ag obair áfach.

I've seen that program before and I'm not impressed. Sloppy effort.

Yeah Jonas, and there are even mistakes in their homepage...


>cén leibhéal chumais

Why séimhiú? leibhéal is masculine.


>Cuireann DIALANG tacaíocht solúbtha

sholúbtha (according to Standard Grammar at least)


>do chumas léitheoireachta, éisteachta, gramadacha

the genitive of gramadach is gramadaí


>Dainmhairgis,

caol le caol, leathan le leathan: Danmhairgis



>Fionlannais,

Fionlainnis


>Fraincís,

no long i: Fraincis


>Gearmáinnise,

Gearmáinis (why two n and why genitive?)


>Ollannais,

Ollainnis


I tried that program acouple of months ago. Most of the recordings that are there have even don't been made by native speakers.
The way they use to determine your level is stupid: you have to choose, in a huge list of words, which ones exist and which ones don't.

Dear all, I see this posting has been around for a while but thought you might allow a right of reply. I manage the Dialang programme and have been interested to read your comments. Thank you very much.

Firstly, if you feel that the Irish used in the interface is incorrect, please let me have the specifics. The Irish version was made by colleagues in the University of Limerick so I can't make any comments on their accuracy.

Not all the recordings need to be made by native speakers: the point is to assess langauge competence, not teach the language. However I'd be surprised if they were so problematic: the Irish team in Limerick who collaborated on the development of the system are very professional.

And finally, the system for defining the starting level for the test may look stupid, but it does have a significant amount of research behind it, undertaken by the University of Wales. Across the half-million or so tests that have been taken, it has certainly proven an adequate indicator of competence overall. In fact it is not alone: there are two level indicators. That and the self assessment questions.

I might also add that the project developed as an initiative of the Council of Europe. I'd be happy to hear from anyone who has come across anything more efficient in determining a learner's level of competence, that is free of charge and can be accessed in so many mother tongues (or, for that matter, another programme that enables Irish speakers to test their competence in another language without going through English).

Oh yes, some people have ancountered problems making the system run. This could be because the system was off-line at the time, because of heavy usage or because an institutional network does not allow them to instal the Java software required to make the system run. If you are still having problems you can certainly contact me :

Many thanks again for your interest.

A Lughaidh a chara,

Just curious. If you try the dialang test in French how accurately does it rate you? Have you tried the Irish test all the way through, or were the sounds too off-putting for you to continue it? I'm curious to know if it puts you into the C2 boxes.

There's an article on Dialang in 'Language Testing' July 2005 (Alderson) that explains more on the methods used if you are interested.

C

" see this posting has been around for a while"

What, since yesterday? Time moves fast when your at the cutting edge....

"the University of Limerick are very professional"

It does not make even the worlds top 500 universities, so....

http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2005/ARWU2005TOP500list.htm

So they a) spoke irish, but did not care it was wrong (unprofessional), or b) none of them can speak irish, or c) like most academic environments, it is dogmatic, and the people who matter have no irish and automaticaly override their underlings on all and sundry.

Look at Edward Sapir in Language: An Introduction to the Study of Speech (1921): "...thus in modern Irish, a word like bo “ox” may under the appropriate circumstances, take the forms bho (pronounce wo) or mo (e.g., am bo “the ox,” as a subject...

I understand you cannot be accountable for the details, but good presentation should be a must; 'Gearmáinnise' is silly, for example.

Ouch indeed... I'm not sure why you are being so hostile, Robert. I have offered to take pointers on specific weaknesses in the system and will be happy to do so.

I did misread the website and thought the posting had been around since 2004 - but now see that the date of posting is at the top of the message and not in the panel on the left. Mea culpa.

To be fully accurate, the University of Limerick headed up the team of people who developed the Irish tests. The worked closely with ITE which was active at the time, and since then I have been in regular contact with Foras na Gaeilge and quite a few Irish language centres who do appreciate Dialang for what it can do. I don't claim it is perfect, nor do I think that because a University does not feature in the top 500 that means that all of its departments are below standard.

I make the offer again. Give me some help and, once we get the cash together to improve this service, I'll be able to implement the changes you think are needed.

Hostility is not really very helpful or necessary. Of course if it's so shameful, and utterly unusable, maybe the whose Irish service should be withdrawn!

Oh and PS - I meant to say above that it was developed at the initiative of the European Commission, NOT the Council of Europe

Gillian, there are a few posters here who think it is necessary to sneer when offering corrections.

There are many who will appreciate your site; but those who complain are more likely to post.

Seosamh Mac Muirí from UL used to post here, but hasn't been around for a while. I'm sure he would be able to deal with the queries.

Re the top 500:

quote:

We rank universities by several indicators of academic or research performance, including alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, highly cited researchers, articles published in Nature and Science, articles indexed in major citation indices, and the per capita academic performance of an institution.

Since UL is a recent university, they are not going to feature on a list compiled by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Such lists anyway are unlikely to assess excellence in Irish.

http://www.ul.ie/main/visitors/aboutul.shtml

Sin é an chaint a Aonghuis

Gillian,
I've been learning Irish for a few years now and must say I find programs like yours very useful and positive.

Many thanks
Somhairle

Gillian, please just ignore Robert, that's what we all do. As Nicola pointed out in another topic, he only visits this forum to be rude.

Your program is interesting but inadequate. I'm a native Swedish speaker and I found the Swedish version verging on being insulting. There are two accepted standard forms of Swedish, one centred on Sweden and one on Finland. SAOL (Svenska Akademins Ordlista) recognises words from both forms but your program doesn't. You can imagine how people speaking Brittish English would feel if told that their spelling is wrong and that they use the wrong words.

"Gillian, please just ignore Robert, that's what we all do. As Nicola pointed out in another topic, he only visits this forum to be rude"

What? I questioned the professionalism of Limerick for allowing the faux pas' to slip by. I was not attacking the poster, Gillian.

"And finally, the system for defining the starting level for the test may look stupid, but it does have a significant amount of research behind it, undertaken by the University of Wales"

If I were to critique Ms McLaughlin's involvement I would be on soft ground as I am not in possesion of the facts, other than there is an association to the project.

I did not criticise the research design as you can see others have done above. I have to deal with stats myself, and understand the difficulties in creating measures for human constructs. Here for the purposes of measure, 'reading faculty' is been measured, and the results used to guage general ability. I made no comment on the validity of the design, nor on the poster, nor her researchers integrity.

As for you Jonas, you have proved yourself to be a pompus creep. You never answer any question directly put to you, and you never contribute. Don't you dare talk down to me, standing over me queening it, and don't refer to others: if you want to remonstrate with me, say it out on your own two feet.

My purposes here are tranparent -second language aquistion and research as a psychologist. You are just miffed that I stated that the UK was a rich country, from the point of view of an absolute figure and in comparison to other European countries. You are not here in ireland to see it, but McWilliams was keeping Poland in mind, a country not talking off very well when he refered to the poor take off in Eastern Europe. It was an overgeneralisation, but I pointed out all that. He has repeadly refered to this on radio for the last 1 and a half years.

You say the program 'offends' you after chiding me, yet provide no concrete fixes for the lady who asked for assitance. You could contribute that way, and your friend Nicola too if you need moral support

Thanks to all of you for the feedback.

On the Swedish tests, this is the first time I've had feedback at this level. To date those test items have been piloted on several hundred people and 20,000 Swedish tests (out of a total 337,000 tests in all languages) have been completed on the system (mainly by Finnish Universities using them as placement tests for their students). I am not a Swedish expert, but am interested in your comments. Will certainly raise the issue with the test developers.

For downloading the software, the problems are mainly caused when an institutional network will not allow a user to instal the java necessary to run the programme. The only way round it is to speak to your system administrator and have them give you the necessary authorisation, or otherwise have them download the software for you. I can guarantee that it does work and between 2000 and 2500 tests are being taken every day at the moment.

Just for information, we are trying to find a long-term solution to maintaining the Dialang system and improving it (including correcting any linguistic errors and anomalies). We particularly hope to find a way to make the system browser-borne (so no need to download software) and to make it much more helpful to organisations. There may in the end be a commercial version for institutions and a free version (the current one) for individuals (or institutions who can't or won't pay). I hope that the communication with the website will be sorted sometime next week. Please don't hesitate to contact me by e-mail though if you want to give any feedback.

I'm a bit stung by the description "sloppy"... but understand very much a disappointment in finding that a tool like this exists but isn't perfect. I can assure you that there was nothing sloppy about the development, but it was very complex and very expensive and it was hard for the team concerned to ensure consistent quality across all languages. it is scientifically sound though, although some tests still need to have their piloting phases completed (the software needs to be replaced for that though and we have no money for such developments).

So far some 860 tests have been taken in Irish - it would be great for more people to try them out... so please don't hesitate to let other people know about the system. One of the reservations expressed about the system is that there is no demand for langauges like Irish, Icelandic and Norwegian, and therefore they should be dropped. I am not in favour of dropping any of the languages, but I'd love the have the statistics to back up my arguments.

I'll end by saying that Dialang is frequently praised for its democratic basis: all 14 langauges are treated equally in the system... and we hope that it will last for a long time to come.

Many thanks again for your interest and your feedback

Gillian

So Gillian,

Are you saying that only 860 of the 337,000 tests that have been administered in the thirteen languages were taken in Irish, is that correct?

I wonder, what is the breakdown of how many tests have been taken in each of the offered languages?

Yes, on the tests taken only 860 have been taken in Irish. Here's the breakdown for those who are interested:

DA 7,511
DE 35,531
EL 1,664
EN 172,309
ES 17,419
FI 10,390
FR 37,509
GA 867
IS 731
IT 9,953
NL 17,954
NO 2,816
PT 2,020
SV 20,474
TOTAL: 337,148

Experience shows that where there's a champion for a language, someone who lets potential users know about Dialang, the usage increases dramatically. So if anyone is in contact with langauge training providers teaching the 16+ age group, don't hesitate to pass the information on.

Cheers

Gillian

Have a look at the screen shots at

http://www/ionad.org