A chairde,

A few weeks ago I authored this thread:
http://www.daltai.com/discus/messages/20/42721.html
in which I enquired if anyone on this board knew about a new course of beginners' Irish called Spoken World: Irish (http://tinyurl.com/cp5kl2). Alas, no one did, though there was some interesting banter about the cover art.

So I took it upon myself to order a copy. For those worried about the cover, the kilts have been replaced by a charming snap of (kiltless) rams in a field.

Since it seems I'm now the only one here who's mad enough to order a course no one's heard of before, I'll offer a quick description of it and a few observations about its usefulness to learners.

Spoken World: Irish features a 267-page softcover course book and 6 audio CDs. The book and CDs come in a nice plastic case that closes snugly, and the CDs are housed in sleeves suspended from two metal rings in the plastic cover's left side. This is a vast improvement upon how many other courses treat their CDs. (In particular, I call to mind Colloquial Irish, whose case utterly fails to hold onto its CDs no matter how carefully one inserts them.)

The book has a nice feel to it, but is printed on paper that can be counted on to yellow noticeably within a decade.

The course features 15 comprehensive lessons which do an admirable job of balancing conversational bits, reading and grammar. There is a short section of written exercises at the end of each lesson.

Three of the audio CDs are meant to be used along with the book; a further three are meant to be used alone for practise in listening/comprehension as well as for repeating phrases after they've been spoken.

The coursebook is written in standard Irish. The audio CDs feature speakers who recite the standard Irish with traces Munster & Connacht pronunciations. The speakers are clear and easy to understand -- but if they are native speakers, they hide it well.

Now some observations.

Spoken World: Irish may work well for a large segment of beginner students in the overseas market, and can be used for self-study or with a teacher. Its strengths include balanced lesson material and easy-to-follow audio material. A person who completes this course would have a solid foundation in standard Irish -- albeit at a beginner's level.

Its weaknesses include a lack of variety in the speakers (so the learner will be unprepared for "real world" Irish) and a lack of any meaningful demonstration of dialectical differences. I was also disappointed that the final three CDs (the ones used by themselves) don't increase the pace of the audio at all, so there's really no extra challenge except testing comprehension & pronunciation. Finally, I find myself wishing there were more written exercises after each lesson -- the learner abroad often values reading/writing Irish as much as conversation skills.

Evaluated amongst the many courses available to beginners, I'd place Spoken World: Irish somewhere in the middle. The price is fair, and it's neither the best nor worst course I've ever seen.