I am a complete beginner and own "Learning Irish" and am thinking of purchasing "Teach Yourself Irish" (the most recent edition). Any advice on what is the best way to learn. I have tried "Learing Irish" but have found it very difficult and often confusing regarding grammar. To me, a solid understanding of grammar seems important and I don't want to learn just a bunch of phrases. I'm hoping someone here will be able to help.

Another question: I would really like to learn Official Standard Irish, but what are the advantages/disadvantages of Standard over one of the dialects?

"I have tried "Learing Irish" but have found it very difficult and often confusing regarding grammar."

No matter which book you choose, Irish grammar will be confusing.

I like "Be where you want to be" series.

Thank you. The Grammar IS confusing, and Learning Irish made it (for me) even harder. For example, in Lesson 2, it talks about something called the autonomus form, but what is it? The book says it means "one is" or "people are" but I've seem other books treat it as a passive (by the way, my Irish is limited to the first few lessons of "Learning Irish"). Should I just continue on with this book? "Teach Yourself Irish" SEEMS very interesting, and I am considering purchasing it, but I am very interested in any opinions on it from members here. There are virtually no reviews of it on the internet (excluding Amazon.com). Sorry for the long post.

Dia dhuit, a Mhícheáil.

I'm no fan of the modern TYI (by Ó Sé & Shiels), but some people like it. I find it haphazardly structured, and the speakers on the recordings have different dialects, so you're not consistently taught pronunciations. Perhaps a library near you has it? If so, you could try it for a couple of weeks and see how it works for you before you shell out $25 for it.

Progress in Irish does a nice job teaching grammar in bite-sized chunks (and there's an online group working its way through that book just now); PII's weak spot is conversation -- it barely touches on conversation. A good supplement to PII is Buntús Cainte which is better at teaching spoken Irish and conversation (and there's also an online group working through THAT course).

For learning common phrases, I like Language/30 Irish (CDs and booklet). And though not perfect for beginners, I love the Turas Teanga DVDs.

Learning Irish is really the only "textbook" I have come across for English speakers wanting to learn Irish. Every other resource out there, including "Teach Yorself Irish" tends to lead on the conversational approach to learning the language.

Learning Irish has many strengths that no other course can boast. The first, and perhaps its greatest boast, is the volume of audio material to support the course. Everything, and I do mean everything is spoken. The other courses out there need to step up a little here. Also, forgetting the grammar for a sec, the structure used in the course is the traditional vocab intro followed by drill repetition. The killer, is that the course was written by an academic, for academics. Not the general person learning on their own.

There is a serious need for more courses like it, but the grammar can be tamed down a bit...

One problem we run into with courses, is that people don't want to get involved with the politics of using standard vs dialect. Right now, most of the courses out there try to use the standard, but lean heavily on the dialect used by the authors....

Thank you, Cionaodh and John. I am unaware of the politics involved in standard vs. dialect, but still want to learn standard as it is what (i think) i have seen before (in songs, I am a fan of celtic music). Thanks again to all who responded.

Oh, and Cionaodh: Dia is Muire dhuit. (i think that's correct)

Be sure you know what "standard" is -- it deals with spelling & grammar, not pronunciation.

It's not a bad idea to start by studying with a course that teaches the standard spellings & grammar; you can move on to a dialect later. But every voice on the recordings that accompany a "standard" course has some sort of regional sound to it -- either from one of the Gaeltachts or else it may stand out as "non-Gaeltacht" by having influences from some Galltacht area.

If you don't presently have a need to study a particular dialect, I would suggest choosing a course based on its structure and how well it would suit your study/learning habits. Standard or no, you'll stick with it longer if you like the way it teaches you.

Bhí an ceart agat, a Mhícheáil, le d'fhreagra "Dia is Muire dhuit" (though since you're a beginner, you may also find it helpful to know that the "is" there is an abbeviation of "agus").

Thank you. I will continue to research a good Irish course.

Michael,

Are you in the United States?

The reason I ask is that I also searched the net a while ago for a good Irish "textbook" out there that was similar to the other language textbooks used here in the United States. I thought that if I couldn't find one here in the States then there should at least be one in Ireland...but to my shock there really aren't any out there.

There are textbooks, don't get me wrong...but they aren't designed for the self taught with little to no experience in Irish. Most of the good ones are completely in Irish. And the others are similar in design to the comercial resources you can find in most of the bookstores here in the US.

I came across a very nice PDF about this very topic. There are two ways you can find this...search for "Curriculum Developement and Textbook Design For North American Learners of Irish." Or go to the following address and type Irish in the search option in the window. Scroll down, it's the entry with 28%...you can't miss it.

www.multilingual-matters.net/ lcc/013/0001/lcc0130001.pdf

More and more universities are offering Irish and Celtic Studies here in the United States. With the interest in Irish language and culture growing, some groups are taking a serious look at the creation of a textbook for upper level education.

Most are still only in the discussion level because the creation of something will take a lot of time and money. Not to mention the number of obstacles it has to over come, not only by the academic world here in the US but also the entire world will look at it with a microscope. There are going to be skeptics from all sides, and by trying to please everyone, the process is only going to take longer.

All I can say is to wait patiently...this is going to be one of those things that can truly be said to be on "Irish time." :-) But it will happen in our lifetimes...

John

John, a very interesting article. I have found the same problem, that textbooks aren't designed to be used as a self-teaching tool. I had only heard of "Progress in Irish" once or twice before reading that article. Now, I'll have to look it up. Having already bought one text already ("Learning Irish"), I would look to be certain that the next course I buy will work well for me.

That's the trick...any course is good as long as you get something out of it. My personal take on most of the commercial courses out on the market is that they are all the same...

That's one of the reasons I really like "Learning Irish," just open it up and you will see that it is designed for the serious learner...I rather like the stucture of the course and as I said before the volume of audio support can't be beat. If only they would come out with CD's to replace the cassette tapes.

Irish is considered a LCTL (less commonly taught language)...so getting materials is not going to be as easy as lets say Spanish which is a MCTL (more commonly taught language). Personally, I don't see why we can't use the standard format used by most MCTL courses out there to create an Irish course. If it can be done with one language, it can be done by all languages.

I do not see anything like this coming from Ireland anytime soon...I honestly believe that if a serious upper level course and textbook comes out, it will be done by someone else.

quote:

If only they would come out with CD's to replace the cassette tapes.

A while ago, the was some postings here on freeware called Audacity, which is an easy-to-use software for copying anything, including cassettes to CD's. If you already own the cassettes, I don't think it would be a copyright violation to use Audacity to make CD's of your cassettes for your personal use.

Just an idea I thought I'd mention.

If you're interested, use this site's search tool with the word "Audacity."

Audacity

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Also, some .mp3 players have a record function. If you have one of these, you could just connect the tape player out into the .mp3 input and record like that. Those .mp3 files could be transfered to CD, or simply listened to on the player itself.

Aaron,

Thank you, but I already took the recordings and put them on my computer...I was just speaking for the the people who might be scared off by cassette tapes. I think, the cassette tape is fast becoming a thing of the past, and if the Irish language is going to be a modern language, it has to use modern mediums.

John's link without the space:
http://www.multilingual-matters.net/lcc/013/0001/lcc0130001.pdf
(a nice piece; Ihde also authored a book about Irish language studies in North America; I misrecall the title)

Learning Irish is a good course for the grammar-oriented student, and probably works well in a college setting in classes that meet very often and with a teacher who's good at offering alternative explanations/clarifications for what's in the book. Most of my students who have tried to learn Irish on their own using LI found it much too difficult, the cassettes notwithstanding. Ó Siadhail uses idiosyncratic English in places, and makes up spellings for many Irish words to suit the dialect he's teaching -- which would be fine, except the poor student will usually not find such spellings in their dictionary. The several dozen people who're presently working their way through LI online (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coisfhairrge) are beginning to feel the pain of Ó Siadhail's idiosyncracies.

Another course with a grammar-based approach (with audio) is Cúrsa Ghaeilge by the Linguaphone institute. It's not a dialect-specific course, though it seems to lean most heavily toward Munster & Connacht -- if there's any Ulster in it, I haven't seen it. The two drawbacks (i mo thuairimse) to this course are (1) that the grammar component is in a separate book and that (2) this course is VERY expensive to buy retail (I got mine at a huge discount on eBay).

A Mhícheáil, it's good that you're doing some homework before buying your next course. What you'll find, though, is that each course has strengths & weaknesses. Thus, veterans like myself wind up with many shelves of materials. Not a bad thing, per se, but expensive of space and funds.

If you decide to add Progress in Irish to your collection, I hope you'll join the 100+ people worldwide who're working through that book here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/progressinirish
Beidh fáilte romhat.

(Message edited by Cionaodh on June 08, 2006)

100+
Maith sibh!!!

I guess we should have asked this question first...

What type of course are you looking for Michael? Do you want a traditional grammar based course like "Learning Irish," or are you looking for a conversational approach to learning language. Which seems to be the way most modern courses are going towards like "Teach Yourself."

When I first heard about it...I contacted Rosetta Stone to see if they offered an Irish course. I was interested to receive a letter from them saying that at the time, no Irish course was being planned. It was considered a while back, however...the company dropped it when they started running into the whole dialect issue. Ireland demanded that they use the Standard with Munster speakers, most will agree the Standard heavily leans on Munster Irish anyway, but Rosetta Stone has a policy that makes them choose the dialect most represented by the media. Which tends to be the Connacht dialects.

The last I heard, it came down to either they make a program for each dialect or none at all...and that's what happened.

I only wish politics would stop getting involved with this language...we need to get people speaking...that's the real issue that we need to address.

John

>> The last I heard, it came down to either they make a program for each dialect or none at all...and that's what happened.
>> I only wish politics would stop getting involved with this language...

Perhaps more precisely a received view rather than a case of politics as such John.
Mar fhear Gaeilge, I find the matter of dialects in Irish only really comes up for mention in conversations in English with people who either do not have Irish as their first language, or they tried in some fiddling and unsuccessful way to learn it on some occasion in school or elsewhere, or they wish to learn it and have yet to start.
An African lady that I spoke to recently expressed an interest in learning it but mentioned how difficult it was to learn. I said that she must have received this view from some of the Irish people who don't speak it. Yes, she said, so I launched into a 30 second onslaught on their laziness, deriding their language backwardness and incapabilities as against the Poles and Lithuanians who must think that they're stupid. I was laughing and she started to smile. She actually had the same view herself, being a natural polyglot. The Anglophone world is just about as bad and as lazy as one may get, dar liom ar aon chaoi, ach b'fhéidir go bhfuil mé chomh dall céanna leo.

>> we need to get people speaking...that's the real issue that we need to address.

Sin é go díreach John - I can't disagree with that. That's the only matter to be considered. Any alternative view is what I call 'ignorance' ach ní mar sin go baileach a deirim é - but that's not exactly the way that I put it!

I (surprisingly) found an Irish dictionary: Foclóir Póca. Is this a good/useful/standard dictionary? I'm pretty sure it is, but wanted to check. Thanks again to all who have responded.

A Mhícheál -- yes, FP is standard Irish. It also features IPA phonetics on some entries, and there was a cassette available for it at one point, though it is more often sold without.

It's also available in larger print as Foclóir Scoile -- identical content, just easier to read.

They packed a lot into it . . . you'll find it useful. As far as pocket dictionaries go, these days I prefer the Oxford Irish-English, but I've got a couple of FPs as well.

Ah! Indecision! I had just about 100% decided to buy "Teach Yourself Irish" when I read this review on Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0658021257/qid=1150074069/sr=8-3/ref=pd_bbs_3/0 02-5773656-5164840?n=507846&s=books&v=glance

It's the first review, by Language Learner. If anyone here has read / used the text could they tell me if it is really as bad as this reviewer says it is?

I was being polite earlier (because some people love that book for some reason), but I agree with that reviewer wholeheartedly. Excellent summary of that very un-excellent course.

I'd love to read the review but the link insists that I sign up for $79.00 yearly. No review could be that interesting. By the way, I hated the book.

A Lucy -- That link should have simply taken you to the Amazon.com page where TYI is listed for sale. At the bottom of most such pages are reader reviews; the entirety of the "Language Learner" review is visible there (I think it's the first one).

Thank you. Guess I'd better not use it after all. And Lucy, the link works fine for me, costing nothing (and I am no member of Amazon).

TYI was the first Irish book I got, and I really wouldn't recommend it. I would have been so much better of with LI or Buntús Cáinte.

The irritating thing about FP is that whenever I try to look up verbs in it there is only the noun or adjective for that word that I want the verb of.

Beir bua

Weird- tried the link 2x yesterday - no luck. This am- fine

Riona,

I have noticed that many verbs are derived from simple nouns by appending of -naigh. all of them are 2nd declension.

críoch (an end): críochnaigh (ag críochnú)
rogha (a choice): roghnaigh (ag roghnú)

Hope this helps

A Riona, a chara,

I haven't noticed the problem you mention above with FP. I checked a few words in the Irish section and they all seem to have the verb indicated, coming after the noun.

Just wondering whether there was a change in FP. I have the 2001 printing. Is your FP an earlier version and perhaps there was a change? Maybe I haven't checked enough words; is it possible for you to give me an example of where you've seen this problem?

Go raibh maith agat.

Sure and I was wrong about that because after I checked a few words that appear as nouns and verbs I realized that they have it listed as a noun often at the top of the entry but further down they have the verb noted.
Oops, ta bron orm. Is amadan me, I should pay more attention.

A Riona, a chara,

Ní amadan thú ar chor ar bith, ach tá áthas orm go bhfuil tú na briathartha a fheicail.

Is maith liom Foclóir Poca since, like it's big sibling, Foclóir Scoile, it contains pronunciations for the Irish headwords, something you don't find in (any?) other dictionaries.

FRC

A Ríona . . . not that you're a fool, but amadán means a male fool (the worst kind!). For female fools (however few they may be), we say óinseach.

A Student o' Dictionaries, FP/FS are the only modern Irish dictionaries with phonetics (they use a modified IPA). There were several pronouncing dictionaries in the early part of the last century, my favourite being The Educational Irish-English Pronouncing Dictionary by Séamus Ó Dúirinne and Pádraig Ó Dálaigh. These early dictionaries relied on English sounds to convey the pronunciations -- an admittedly imprecise method, but which doesn't require learning an entirely new phonetic "language" as in IPA.

Go raibh maith agat a Chionaoidh (lenition correct?). I don't want to be a male fool, a female fool suffices quite fine. Thanks for correcting me. Interesting how those words are so drastically different, wondering if they designate different attributes of foolishness as well as being gender specific, like foolish in the way that men are and in the way that women are in a broad sense.

Beir bua agus beannacht

There is a another word:

óinmhid

amadán I would see as the harmless type of fool, i.e. a bit touched.

óinseach is an offensive term, and meant to be so.

Go raibh maith agat a Aonghus.

I hope Cionaodh did not mean to be unkind, I don't think he did since he is a nice sort of a person. That's really good to know those things because FP doesn't say a lick about nuance of those words, only that amadan is a fool, oinseach is a foolish woman. Its a good thing that we have really experienced people 'round here who speak the language all the time and know all these nuances and what not or else silly folk like myself would be sunk. I think I'll just refrain from calling myself a fool when I do something dumb. Its just easier that way.

Slan lit

I wouldn't use amadán or óinseach -- even in jest -- unless someone really deserved it.

My point earlier was simply to let you know that there was a female variant available.

Funny aside . . .

My first Irish teacher was a woman. She taught us amadán and told us it was only used for men, but refused to teach us the female equivalent. Needless to say, the whole class scurried to their dictionaries immediately.

quote:

There is a another word: óinmhid

I'm not sure of its status in today's Irish, but early on it was an equal-opportunity word for both sexes. Mar shampla, tá dán le Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin a thosaíonn leis na línte seo (agus is léir gur fear atá ag caint):

Ceo draíochta i gcoim oíche do sheol mé
   trí thíorthaibh mar óinmhid ar strae,
gan príomhcharaid díograis im chóngar
   is mé i gríochaibh tar m'eolas i gcéin;

http://www.fainne.org/danlann/ceo.html

Dála an scéil, bhí Peter ag caint faoi fhocail a fuair an Ghaeilge ón mBreatnais. Is féidir gur ó "ynfyd" a tháinig an ceann seo.

A Chionaoidh a chara,
I really like that story, its funny and apparently her tactics worked because you all went and learned the word she wouldn't tell you.

Beir bua

Is dóigh liom go bhfuil óinmhid den dá chinéal ann fós!

What about school textbooks? Like used ones from Irish classrooms?

Odwyer, I think Michael S. was looking for self-study coursebooks. Classroom-style books won't work well for self-study (they don't come bundled with the teacher who would customarily pronounce & explain things).

I feel that I have to defend "Learning Irish" here. I love the way it describes grammar, although I have found the book to be insufficient on its own. I have taken the habit of engulfing everything I come across, thus using different materials for learning. But "Learning Irish" gives a steady in-depth study of the grammar, and I've chosen to take advantage of that and fill out the empty holes by reading poetry on the side.

Being one's own teacher, one is very lonely, but at the same time you have more freedom. I know though, that I cannot sit still and expect fluency in Irish to rain down on my head like a Revelation. The way God poured the Holy Spirit on people so they spoke in tongues.

I wish... ;-)

Imagine that the grammar of LI is a bone. A thick bone.
You need flesh on this bone. I solve that problem, by reading. I READ all I come across. Poems, advertisements, proverbs. And I use my dictionary actively. I mo thuairimse, having a self-teaching book will never be enough for anyone. It takes a bit of ardour and passion to get around! Do I sound too romantic?

Michael, what I do with the each lesson in LI:

1) Make sure my head is clear, my stomach is full and I have enough to drink. Have a short look at the text(s). Check what I recognise of grammar that I allready know.

2) Go through grammar, single out what's most important in that particular lesson.

3) Take a short break.

4) I read the text once before I turn on the tape. (Sometimes!)

5) I listen to the text 4-7 times. Take a break when I need it. Get some fresh air. I listen carefully untill I can put the book down and play the text over again once or twice when I understand every single thing.

6) I may listen to the same text the next day or a day later and I recognise it, remember the grammar etc. Repetition is important!!

7) ...and this is important! I use as many words as I can from each lesson to create sentences of my own. Sometimes, I post them here to check if they're correct if I doubt myself. The last lesson I did was 19. I used grammar I allready knew together with what I had just learned, and wrote something like 40 sentences.

8) One clue to remembering what you've learned is to write about things that relate to you. It could be ANYTHING! What did you just see, what did your mom just tell you, what did you dream about, did someone do anything bad to you. I write about my experiences in Irish. That helps!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know you were looking for opinions on self-study books. I'm an LI-supporter, but I believe it takes more than just a book or even ten books.

In my opinion, the weekest point of the LI is not its academic transcription or insufficiently covered grammar but that it leaves the learner with no further textbook on CF Irish to procede. You can't simply take up Standard Irish as the author advises after having completed this course. It's like starting learning Ebonics and then proceding with BBC English. A sheer mish-mash.

There's only one way out: on finishing it you must go straight to the Gaeltacht :)

In the newest edition there is a list of recommended readings. I have so far purchased two of these books, one by Pádraig Ó Conaire(Scothscéalta) and the other by Máirtín Ó Cadhain(An Braon Broghach). They are both written in CF Irish. I am not able to read them yet as I have no completed all the lessons, but I've taken a good look at them both. There are other books in CF that one can purchase later. This at least SOMETHING!

Pádraiс Ó Conaire is from Ros Muc, it's not CF Irish. The authors who wrote in CF Irish are Mícheál Breathnach and, as you said already, Máirtín Ó Cadhain. Surely there must be others, those two are considered classical. Of course, it is very good to read any author from Connemara (or read in Irish at all). I for one read Máirtín Ó Díreáin now, he is from Arann. But the biggest problem with the books is that they are sometimes corrected to suit the Standard, sometimes such changes, especially minor sa + L instead of sa + Ecl., Gen. instead of Nom., make absolutely no sense for deeper dialectal things remain unaltered in the text. For example I have Ó Conaire's Anam an Easpaig in modern spelling with dialectal things preserved (Scothscéalta, 1978) and his 'an Deoraíocht' in the Irish whose authenticity I doubt greatly.

I have not read Máirtín Ó Cadhain, but he is said to be very difficult to understand for a learner. I wonder if it is true.

Tá an Cadhnach deacair fiú munar foghlaimeoir thú! Ach is fiú an trioblóid.

There was someone using the handle Celtoid here some time back who was working their way through one of Mairtín Ó Cadhains short stories. I learnt a lot by replying to their questions.

Ditto on the caution re standardisation - especially as scothscéalta is or was on the irish course for school.

Aonghus and Peter, I have no aversions towards Ó Conaire so far, not that I've read the whole thing yet.

Aonghus, you're saying that Cadhain is too difficult for a beginner like me? Well, like I said, I haven't completed LI and because of that I haven't thrown myself over Cadhain.

No. I am saying that he is hard work, but worthwhile.

Ooooooooh, ok. :-)

As opposed to his short stories, which are full of unusual vocabulary, the language of his novel Cré na Cille is really very straightforward.