A cháirde,
I want to say something about what I have been reading on the Antimoon forum as the Antimoon Language Learning Method at
http://www.antimoon.com/how/howtolearn.htm. The Antimoon forum was set up by English language learners who learned good English and decided to spread their method, and there are 2 forums, one for English and one for all other languages, but I could not find a forum for Gaoluinn.
There are 6 items in their language learning method. I am going to replace English by Gaoluinn and outline the method.
1. Motivation: become a person who likes to learn Gaoluinn. Why do you need to learn Gaoluinn? Change your life. Do crazy things, like talking to yourself i nGaoluinn or spend your evenings reading the dictionary. And you have to enjoy doing that and do it regularly. If you don't enjoy doing that, you lack motivation. Do these things:
* read a book i nGaoluinn for an hour every day, analyzing the grammar and looking up words.
* listen to an audiobook i nGaoluinn, pausing it frequently to copy the pronunciation.
* spend an afternoon practising slender r
* carefully write an e-mail message i nGaoluinn, using a dictionary or a Web search every 20 seconds to make sure every word is correct, and taking 5 minutes to write one sentence.
* think about an Irish sentence you've read. Try to put it in in the negative and the interrogative. Ring those changes. Check your results.
* walk down the street and build simple Irish sentences in your head (talking to yourself i nGaoluinn about the things you see around you)
If you don't enjoy doing those things, you lack motivation, and if you are going to learn Irish well, you're going to have to become that type of person who enjoys doing the things listed above.
How can you improve your motivation?
* Imagine yourself in the future fluent i nGaoluinn, visiting the Gaeltacht and chatting away, and watching RnG all the time.
* Aim high: even if you can read simple articles, aim for an **impressive** knowledge of Gaoluinn.
* Remember there is a lot you don't know. Try to find your weaknesses and work on the things you find hardest. If the copula is difficult for you, work on that.
* Use Gaoluinn as much as possible. Try to use Irish-language sites for information. Make it a language you use to access information. Do you use the Irish-language Wikipedia?
* Talk to people about Irish. Make it sound interesting: hey, I learned 50 Irish words today, do you know what the Irish for X is?
* Find a friend who is learning Irish.
* Spend some money on learning Irish (OK, we have all done this!)
* Remember learning Irish requires action. Don't put it off.
Motivation is point 1. I will post the other points later.
