On thinking what Sgm was asking about on learning tips, can you point out, as a lingusit and learner, what you did to increase your knowledge so fast? Unless I'm mistaken you are relitivly new

Something that may count into this category...

Is there some kind of statistic as to how many vocabulary you need to understand a text/conversation without too much difficulties? - I heard that e.g. in Chinese you need about 10.000 signs to understand the daily newspaper ... not quite the same, I know, just so you know what I mean.

Robert,
I heard that the method they use with the Before you know it-programme is quite useful (it has a name but it's off my mind now...): it means you have a deck of cards with vocabulary on it (e.g. side 1: seomra; side 2: room) in a box devided into up to 5 spaces. You go through every card - those words you know, you put into the next space, those you don't, remain where they are (or, in the second running, return into the first space) ... to make a long story short: it plays with repetition - the words in the first space are supposed to be gone through over and over again so that you will eventually keep them in mind.

It works with other languages - I've seen it for French, Spanish, Latin etc. but you can do it yourself (I did). It's time-consuming but it helps as far as pure vocabulary learning is concerned.

Just my 2 cents ... :-)

>>I heard that e.g. in Chinese you need about 10.000 signs to understand the daily newspaper ...

What nonsense is this?
With 1,000 you can read modern Chinese (though you won't understand everything)
The average for literate people is 3,000/4,000
Well-educated people may know 5,000
The people who know 10,000 caracters, if they exist, must be extremely rare.

>>Unless I'm mistaken you are relitivly new

I've been participating to this forum for about a year.
But I've been "studying" Irish for like 2 and a half years...

>> can you point out, as a lingusit and learner, what you did to increase your knowledge so fast?

Shamefully, I've been increasing my knowledge very, very slowly...

The thing is that the subject of my "Maîtise" (1st year of Master) was on Irish syntax (the verbal system), the subject of my "DEA" (2d year of Master) was on Irish syntax (the relative clauses), and this is the 1st year of my PhD and my subject is "Irish syntax".
So, because this is what I am studying (and because I am good at it...), I may be less confused than others when I see a sentence in Irish, and also more at ease to explain the structures.

Apart from that, I lack everything (lexicon, accent...practice basically).
I can't do much about the accent from where I am, but I am planning on increasing my lexicon quite soon, by simply reading: forcing yourself to understand what is written using the dictionary and your head is something that works (at least for me).

(Message edited by Max on February 11, 2006)

quote:

What nonsense is this?

Gabh mo leithscéal! As I said, I've just heard - I'm no expert there... :-)
Thanks for the varification.

....practice basically
Is é go cinnte. Bhí mé ag iarracht a foghlaim ó trí bhliain mhaith ó sin agus bíonn mé fós an-abalta leis na 'basics'. Especially the iregular verbs. Ní hoe de bharr leis go bhfuil siad 'so difficult'. Níl iad. Ach bíonn sé de bharr a neamh-úsaid iad agam go maith agus i gconaí.
Just like learning to play a musical instrument. Practice, practice, practice........