For the last month or so, I have been concentrating on Scottish Gaelic--mainly because there are native/fluent speakers in my area and a bit more interest from the locals.

First of all, it's remarkable how similar the languages are. There are tons of shared words, sometimes with slightly different spelling or pronunciation. For instance:
Ulster Irish: Cad é mar atá tú?
Gaelic: Ciamar a tha thu?

The sound of the Gaelic language, to my ears, is similar to Ulster Irish. So, everything I've learned from Irish has applied nicely to Gaelic with minimal changes.

However... I seem to be making much more progress in Gaelic than in Irish. That really baffled me at first. I thought that it was perhaps I had a "head start" with Irish. But, that's only part of it. My conclusion is that the text I'm using now is far superior (for my learning style) to any I could find for Irish.

I started with Irish a couple of years back using "Irish on Your Own." It was an okay book... but I was just learning sentences, which I would then forget in a week. And it's very hard for me to just think in sentences without knowing how and why the pieces fit together a certain way. I tried a few other books with limited success. Then I started working through "Learning Irish." I will admit that this is a good comprehensive book... but, what I found maddening about it is that it did not have enough explanation/examples for a given topic. And then it did not have nearly enough exercises to firm the concepts up and get the student (me) to use them enough to remember them. And there was way too much vocabulary per chapter. It made me feel as if I was getting nowhere.

The book I use for Gaelic is the Teach Yourself. Not the newest one, but the old one by Mackinnon. For me, it's perfect. It starts with the building blocks of the language and goes from there. It's taken in small logical chunks. It's very grammar based and vocabulary based. It lets you know exactly what you should be memorizing and studying. And there are TONS of exercises to promote use and memorization. This is the way a language book (in my opinion) should be.
I searched for two years for an Irish book that was set up like this Gaelic book. I couldn't find one that was even close. Too bad. If I would have found one when I started Irish, I may have been much closer to fluency by now. There are plenty of them in Spanish (Spanish Grammar by Prado - the perfect language book), French, etc... but not Irish.

I have read a lot about "old fashioned" language books vs. the newer stuff. My brain seems to pick thing up better the "old fashioned" way... a logical step-by-step build up of concepts, vocabulary, grammar and dialog. It seems that the new books just dump a bunch of stuff in your lap... you don't know what is expected or what to actually study. There is very little oranganized material. They give you dialogs that you have to try to understand without knowing any vocabulary. I figure it out and then end up just forgetting most of it as quickly as I learn it. There are very few exercises to help you use, reinforce and remember it. This is the approach that most newer language books take. For me (and those who have a similar learning style), it just doesn't work that well.

I think books and presentation methods make all the difference in the world. I really wish I could find an Irish language book as well-done as the Teach Yourself - Mackinnon Gaelic book (it was first printed in 1971).
It's exciting to feel progress for a change.

For those of you familiar with older books about the Irish language... were there any that took this approach? I guess it could be explained as being similar to Learning Irish, but with many more exercises and more thoroughly explained topics in smaller "chunks."

Am I dreaming?

(The new Teach Yourself Irish Grammar looks promising, but doesn't have dialog or vocabulary)

Have you ever seen the old, circa 1961 Myles Dillon Teach Yourself Irish? There's currently a yahoogroup working through this book:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TYIMunster/

Also, many people who like your approach tend to use Progress in Irish (which is a solid old-timey grammar course) in conjunction with a course like Buntús Cainte, which focuses on conversation.

A Chris -

I feel your pain.

Today's learning materials for Irish are not only ill-structured for learners, they're also difficult to teach from, as they usually lack exercises to assign for homework.

There has been a trend in language-learning materials in the past few decades toward what's called the "communicative approach", and that's what you're seeing in courses like Now You're Talking (a.k.a. Irish on Your Own), the newer TYI by Ó Sé & Shiels, Turas Teanga and the like.

The communicative approach works for some people -- but the younger the better (i mo thuairim). Most of us with old brains don't acquire languages the way we could when we were young. So for us, the step-by-step approach with explanations and exercises is the best way.

If the "old fashioned" approach works better for you, Nicole's suggestions are spot on. Progress in Irish or First Steps in Irish will give you "standard" Irish in nice step-by step lessons with exercises. The older (out of print) TYI by Dillon & Ó Cróinín is good for learning Munster Irish; if you want Connacht or Ulster Irish, I could check my out-of-print book collection & make a recommendation for you -- none of the in-print books for the dialects use the "old fashioned" grammar-based approach, unfortunately.

The sound of the Gaelic language, to my ears, is similar to Ulster Irish.

I don't agree with you; I speak Ulster Irish and I know fairly well Scottish Gaelic. Gaelic has many unvoiced consonants, aspirated ones, more guttural sounds, while Ulster Irish is much sweeter to the ear.

I don't think Chris' observation should be taken so literally. The fact is that to the common ear Scotts Gaelic sounds a lot like Gaeilge Uladh. For that matter the Belfast accent (English) sounds a lot like a Scottsman (speaking English) Familiarity with one makes the other fall comfortably on the ear, and I find it easier to learn Ulster Irish for that reason. The operative word here is familiarity. I might also say I like the sound of it because it reminds me of "home."

***The sound of the Gaelic language, to my ears, is similar to Ulster Irish.

I don't agree with you; I speak Ulster Irish and I know fairly well Scottish Gaelic. Gaelic has many unvoiced consonants, aspirated ones, more guttural sounds, while Ulster Irish is much sweeter to the ear.***
------------------------------------------------------

Yes... no offense! What I meant was what Pádraig mentioned. Of the three main dialects of Irish, my favorite (and the one I concentrated on most) is Ulster Irish. And yes, my favorite dialect of English is that of Ulster and of Scotland. I recently discovered the "Scots" language (or dialect of English, depending on your viewpoint), and I fell in love with it right away. It seems that the same dialect or basic sounds are used in Scotland for English, Scots and Gaelic. I may be way off base, but that's sort of the way it sounds to my ears.

So when I made the Comment about Ulster Irish and Gaelic sounding similar, I meant out of the dialects of Irish, Ulster sounds most like Gaelic to me. There are certainly differences. I love the sound of Ulster Irish most. And since studying Gaelic, I've grown to love it's sound as well.

By the way, thanks for the tips on the books. I will start researching these right away!

The Scotti tribe left modern day ulster around 1500 years ago.. They gave SCOTland it's name and brought the language and more or less ulster dialect with them.. And Scots Gaelic is what one has today!

Be careful when you talk about a Scots dialect of English. If you mean english with a Scots accent, that's one thing. In other words, english words pronounced with that thick Scottish burr. However, there is a true english language dialect in Scotland called Doric. It is a dialect, not another language such as Gaidhlig.

Foo ya deen? How are you doing?

Nae bad. Not bad.

Dya kin the loonies there? Do you know those boys there?

I work with a lady from Aberdeen who introduced me to it. I find it very interesting in that much of the dialect remains visible in the rural colloquialisms of my local area. I doubt it qualifies as a language of it's own because the root vocabulary is english. However, it has enough of it's own unique words that it could be nearly unintelligible to most people.

I'm sure our resident linguists can shed some light on the dialect versus language aspect.

Away wi ye, ye bandy leggéd wee monkey!

It's a braw bricht moonlicht nicht tonicht, ye ken?

Well, here's one opinion on the matter.

http://scotsyett.com/

Go to the "Whit's Scots," then "Mither Tung"

I actually bought a Scot's language book a couple of months ago. After looking through the book and listening to the CD, personally, I would consider it another language. But opinions seem to vary.

I can listen to the dialog on the CD and pick most of it out after a couple of listens, but some of my friends may as well be listening to Chinese.

(Message edited by Chris_C on January 03, 2006)

I find it very interesting in that much of the dialect remains visible in the rural colloquialisms of my local area.

-------------------------------------------------------

James,
That is interesting. I've noticed the same thing in my area--especially in the southern part of my state (Utah). Not the accent of course, but the distinctly non-proper-English words and phrases. I recall my grandparents using many of those colloquialisms as well.

http://scotsyett.com/

I'm sorry to see interest in this thread flagging, but by way of possible resurrection, I'd like to point out what I noticed in the above link. To begin: the fact that the material at the site is translated from Scots to English for you makes it an easy read. Moreover, I was struck by the fact that the major differences appear to be with vocabulary and that the grammatical structure is the same.

One article at the site implies the following ratio/proportion:

Scots & English are to Old English
as
Scots Gaelic and Gaeilge are to Old Irish.

Interesting.

The more Gaelic I study, the more amazed I am at how close it is to Irish.



In my opinion, this is quite true:

Scots & English are to Old English
as
Scots Gaelic and Gaeilge are to Old Irish.

Maybe the Scots is a bit closer to English than Irish is to Gaelic. But, it seems not much.

Back to Learning Styles/Books, I am floundering.

I have the new Teach Yourself, which claims to be teaching "Standard Irish," but the speakers on the CD are inconsistent with one another in their pronunciation, and the teaching style is oriented toward rapid phrases and conversation, without much grammar up front. (I love grammar.)

Then I have the book to Ó Siadhail's "Learning Irish" (the tapes are buried in boxes somewhere) from the late 80's, which, I guess, is Connaught dialect. That has a nice balance between grammar, explanation and conversation, but back when I had the tapes, I remember being really daunted by the amazing quantity of unpronounced letters in that dialect. I quit over the phrase "oíche mhaith" which was pronounced "ee wah." I reasoned that I'd never be able to unpack all the missing letters from the spoken language.

But, now I am getting brave again, and I need a better text. And a class. And a dialect, I guess.

Thanks for all the textbook suggestions in this thread, but can anyone comment on dialects? Is "standard Irish" a joke? Is there one dialect more useful than others? Any dialect that prepares you better for learning the others? Any dialect with a broader original literature?

"I remember being really daunted by the amazing quantity of unpronounced letters in that dialect. I quit over the phrase "oíche mhaith" which was pronounced "ee wah." "

It is actually very sesible and logical, but just takes time to become comfortabel with it. A seperate symbol could have been sued, but is not and becasue fo the broad/slender arangemnt, the curretn system is efficient, as regard brevity of symbols (even if length increases)

""standard Irish" a joke? Is there one dialect more useful than others? Any dialect that prepares you better for learning the others?"

Classical irish is better for learning cases as they are easily spotted by having distince dative, accusitive (altho this is not always differentiated form the nominative).

I think a goot way to learn for cases is to add them back in for the sake of learning and take them back out again. However, I dont know mich about adjectives in the accustive case, so any such enterprise is a long way off.

I find Donegal easist to understand (at least among older speakers who have less of a twang), but no dialect shoudl be dishonoured by been though less of. the standard has most learnign material, but if the language is alien to you, any of them will seem hard

I've struggled with the variations in dialect also, but I think one gets to the point that when hearing "ee wah" and "ee-cha wah" they both represent "good night." Some of the pronunciation differences might be compared to the way English is spoken, at least in the US. For example, I might say "I'm GOIN' to the store" or "I'm GOING to the store." Both are easily understood by a native speaker, but I could imagine the confusion a learner of English may have initially with the differences in the two. I have a similar confusion between the dialects, but over time I become aware that although two words (or phrases) may be different in pronunciation, they both mean the same thing.

Just my two cents.

Fortunately down here in Australia we don't have these liguistic problems.
Everyone knows that "I'm going to the store" is pronounced in proper English as " 'M goen t'th'stawrr"

About learning styles and teaching methods and books...

Please let me use this opportunity to also out myself as a supporter of the old-styled grammar-and-vocab method. I have no patience with those fancy-pantsy, bright-coloured modern books with beatiful smiling people on the cover who promise to teach you this or that language in three weeks. If there are any people out there at all who actually manage to learn a language from those, good for them, but I opt out. Give me Progress in Irish anytime: small, green, totally unsexy but powerful as hell!

To be fair, the communicative approach does have some merit but it only works for me as a supplement, as an excuse for practice, and as a way of becoming familiar with the minor irregularities of casual conversation which grammar books typically fail to pick up. I have all the respect in the world for language in actual use in real-world contexts, but I found it a bad place to begin. It's where I got to, not where I started from.

Let's face it, learning a language is hard work. Pretending it isn't won't make it easier, it'll just make it even harder.

(Message edited by mbm on January 19, 2006)

Extremely well said, Mbm. Perfect.

I have to laugh at the term "immersion" as used by language book publishers such as Teach Yourself. There is no such thing as immersion from a book.
They can certainly give you a paragraph with no explanation, which takes you half the day to look up word by word in a dictionary--and then you just as quickly forget the whole thing.
But, to be truly an "immersion" program, you have to be in a place where you are surrounded by speakers of the language and where you cannot be understood until you learn how to speak that language. That happened to me in Peru. It's the best way to learn the language fast.
But you cannot get that from an hour a day in a book. It's the most inefficient method I can think of.

In absence of living in the foreign speaking country, a step by step approach is far more likely to progress the learner. No, you won't be able to speak overnight, but at least you are making progress in an efficient way.

I like to compare the "modern approach" taken by most language books to giving a pre-algebra student a multivariate calculus or differential equations text. How do you think the student would do? What do you think his/her state of mind would be after the first couple of pages?
Mine would be "forget it." That's how I feel when I open a "modern approach" language book. It's putting the cart before the horse--learning to run before you can walk.
I sometimes get the response, "But, that's how we learned to speak as a two-year-old." True enough... but are you a two year old now? If not, your learning patterns and cognitive abilities have changed--at least I hope they have!

I must agree that the older methods seem to work best, at least that's what I find. I have two of the Teach Yourself Series--IRISH--Dillon/O'Croinin and GAELIC--Mac Kinnon. As well I have O'Siadhail and the Linguaphone/Gael Linn course plus a few others.

Still can't speak Irish, beyond enough to get me into embarassing situations, but I have reached the stage of being able to read quite erroneous meanings into simple passages in Irish. I guess tht's some progress.

Duach.

Duach - "Tús maith leath na hoibre"
A good start is half the battle!

Domhnall, while I'm not correcting you, may I suggest that you provide people with a literal translation alongside the figurative translation.

While "tús maith leath na hoibre" can translate accurately as "a good start is half the battle", it is misleading to learners as they may presume that "oibre" means "battle". So you could say:

Figurative: A good start is half the battle
Literal: A good start is half of the work

Similary, if you tell people that "níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin" means "there's no place like home", they may make false presumptions about what the individual words mean, so it's advisable to explain it:

Figurative: There's no place like home
Literal: There is no fireplace like your own fireplace.

"I quit over the phrase "oíche mhaith" which was pronounced "ee wah." I reasoned that I'd never be able to unpack all the missing letters from the spoken language.

But, now I am getting brave again.."

I was also overwhelmed by the tapes at first, but I started putting the readings onto a portable player and listening, listening, listening.. then repeating and repeating.. and then looking at the text again. I'm only on lesson 14 in Ó Siadhail but I'm always surprised at how what seemed so hard a few weeks ago now seems much easier; I do wish there were more exercises for it. I'd be interested in hearing how others have worked with this dense but wonderful book.

I'm finding the conversational orientation of the new edition of "Teach Yourself.." to be a nice complement to Ó Siadhail.

-Curt

I get your point but the chap is only a beginner and over filling his head will do him no good. One meaning is enough and the one which would be more suitable to Béarladóirí is the one i tend to use.

I think even if someone is "only a beginner", a literal translation along with the translation is very helpful. Literal translations are a way to get directly to the language you are learning and look at it from your own perspective.
Since answering a question here can be beneficial to many (and not just the asker), I find Fear_na_mbróg's suggestion very good. Those who don't want to get their head "over-filled" can just ignore the literal translation.

Especially with Irish, there's an abundance of areas where the literal translation differs from the figurative translation.

Tá áthas air.
Fig.: He is happy.
Lit.: Happiness is on him.

The only place where I would not suggest literal translation is with prepositions. Prepositions are, from my own experience, the hardest to translate. There isn't a one-for-one relationship with prepositions between languages. What I mean by this is that, while it's relatively simple to give a translation of a noun or an adjective, e.g. "dog = madra", "good = maith"; you can't simplify it as much with prepositions, e.g. by saying "with = le". The Irish for "with" may be "le" most of the time, but you should try to separate different languages' prepositions from each other.

Here's a sample sentence:

Caith sé an liathroid leis an mbuachaill.

Fig.: He threw the ball at the boy.

By any stretch of the imagination, this doesn't translate literally as:

He threw the ball with the boy.

"le" just simply doesn't mean "with" in this connotation. (Did I use that word right?)

Even if you look at the preposition which is used in English, i.e. "at", its meaning is far from its usual meaning, i.e. "John is at the shop".

Outside of that, it can be very helpful to give people literal translates. Examples:

Baineadh geit asam.
Fig.: I was startled.
Lit.: A shock was extracted out of me. (or "reaped", or "drawn").

Good point about the prepositions. Here's a question.
Caith sé an liathroid leis an mbuachaill. He threw the ball with/at the boy.
?? Caith sé an liathroid air an mbuachaill. He threw the ball at/on the boy. (hit the boy...) ???

In responce to one of the obove messages. There actualy is a Teach Yourself Irish book. I've been using it for years. if you would like to search for it the ISBN # is 0-07-143447-X the auther is Diarmuid Ó Sé and Joseph Sheils. Its availible with two CD's i hope this info is helpful to you.

Domhnall,
I have one perspective for you: if you had no Irish at all, would a direct translation alone of 'ag cur báiste' be on its own helpful? Knowing that it osensibly means and its usage and what it is directly, can be helpful. It might allow generalisations too -ag cur sneachta etc.

If anyone doubts /ba:s't'@/, I have heard it from the mouth of a native

Tá sé ag cur báistí

Fig.: It's raining.
Lit.: It is putting rain.

The Irish word "báisteach" means "rain". Here, we see it in its genitive case "báistí". It's in the genitive because it's after a verbal noun.

Similarly, the Irish word for "snow" is "sneachta", and we have:

Tá sé ag cur sneachta

Tá sé ag cur báistí

Fig.: It's raining.
Lit.: It is putting rain.

The Irish word "báisteach" means "rain". Here, we see it in its genitive case "báistí". It's in the genitive because it's after a verbal noun.

Similarly, the Irish word for "snow" is "sneachta", and we have:

Tá sé ag cur sneachta

altho, come to think of it, it might have been during sandhi. I know it is báisti in the standard, but I recall it been pronouced like I said.

However, i hvae a recording where 'fox' is madai ruadh /madi: ru@/, from an extinct northern dialect, where I take it, the some sort of 'madai' dative displaced the null form (or was just pronounced that way), so keeping them seperate is important lest one make up a mathered dialect