Irish Translation Forum

whoever suggested the crosswords/puzzles ideas - thank you sooo much. I'm helping a friend learn Irish and this is the perfect thing that I needed. Míle buíochas leat!

Good little games for beginners (Ulster dialect mostly)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/co ... umberland/

czam2007 wrote:Good little games for beginners (Ulster dialect mostly)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/co ... umberland/

Love it! Thanks for the link.

brianocuinn wrote:whoever suggested the crosswords/puzzles ideas - thank you sooo much. I'm helping a friend learn Irish and this is the perfect thing that I needed. Míle buíochas leat!

another crossword link : viewposth.605104-highlight-crossword.html#605104

Thnaks for the usef tips.Can you recommend me a good online learnig course.I work for a website translation agency and really need to learn gaelic?

Well this will probably get lost in this sea of ideas but here is what I have found useful when I tried to learn other languages. It already seems pretty common to find your favorite quote, saying, or motto and translate it to another anouther language but a technique I enjoy is tranlating (on my own, then with help) different frases, letters, or poems I make myself. For one example perhaps you can write lymricks? Just a fun way to practice the language. Even if you don't know enough Irish Gaelic (like me) to write a full lymerick you can practice translating them. Most likely the translations will be more than a little rough but at least you'll expand your knowlegde and you can share your favorites with others. Poem and rythem style writting don't always sound as great when they are translated to a different language than they had at their beggining but you will learn about different rythems, grammer, and placement of words when you share your translated lymericks with others. Eventually after using this sort of entertaining method you can gather enough info to write them in Irish Gaelic, even if your writing isn't perfect, for some people the strategy really helps.

Just to add that I've found the using Irish idea to work very well with aggressive panhandlers and the people who are paid to collect petition signatures outside of supermarkets (who can be even more aggressive than the panhandlers). You don't have to know a lot...just something like "tá brón orm ach níl Béarla agam" gets the words in your mouth (and usually gets the panhandler or petition taker to back off immediately with a puzzled look on his/her face). Even a line or two of a song, said in the right voice, will work. Just smile, shrug, offer your line or two of Irish, and off you go.

Only problem is training your family to not say "What, mom? What did you say?" in English at these moments....

I take notes in my choir music in Irish as well. If I ever leave the choir, whoever gets my number is going to be sadly baffled!

Redwolf

I've found this forum to be wonderful -- one tip if you're like me, gathering info from everywhere, I use a little program called Evernote -- that syncs to multiple computers -- but it allows you to take little selections (including images) and "clips" then so you can search, tag, etc. It'll also keep note of the original source, so you can go back for more info if you need it.

I've got 255 clips of Irish from all over the web as of right now that I'll eventually learn and work through and the detail into a wiki place that I'm working on with grammar rules in Fio-speak, text translations, exercises, bible quotes, etc.

Is breá liom an teicneolaíocht.

Something I'm using in the classes I'm teaching. Folks here may find it useful.

EAR TRAINING FOR LANGUAGE LEARNERS

We often tell people here that listening to spoken Irish as often as possible is a vital part of the learning process...and that's very true. Just as a musician needs to listen frequently to a particular type of music if he is to learn to play it well, a person learning a language needs to hear that language spoken, frequently and naturally, if he is to learn to speak and understand it well.

There are two kinds of "listening" however, and both are important to the learning process.

PASSIVE LISTENING

Passive listening is what we usually advise beginners to do right from the start. It's what you're doing when you're listening to an Irish singer in the car or on your iPod, when you're listening to RnaG playing in the background as you go about your work, or when you're watching a film or a TG4 program with subtitles. You're not actually working to understand what you're hearing, but rather you're relaxing and letting it wash over you.

It may not seem like you're doing much, when you're practicing passive listening, but actually, your brain is doing a great deal. It's becoming familiar with the natural rhythm and flow of the language...with its unique sounds. Every language has its own unique "signature," and teaching your brain to recognize it and accept it through passive listening will go a long way toward helping you to understand and reproduce it down the road.

It's a little like what happens when you start listening to a different kind of music than what you're accustomed to...perhaps something from another culture, based on different scales and harmonic patterns. At first it may sound foreign...even, in some places, strange and unpleasant. The more you hear of it, however, the more familiar the natural patterns of the music starts to feel, and the more "musical" it sounds. You start to "feel" it.

ACTIVE LISTENING

Sooner or later in your learning, however, (and I advocate sooner rather than later) you need to start practicing "active listening." "Active listening" happens when you actually start to try to make sense of what you're hearing. Some books refer to it as "listening for comprehension."

To some extent, this is what you're doing when you use language tapes/CDs, or work with a computer program that has listening and speaking exercises. The problem is that, useful as these are, they're not quite enough. The speakers on instructional recordings speak very slowly and very precisely. That's good at first...after all, you need to hear the words clearly if you are to reproduce them. But at some point, you need to start working on understanding the language in its natural context...as it's spoken day-to-day.

To a beginner learning a foreign language, especially a heavily inflected one such as Irish, this can seem daunting...perhaps even impossible. When people speak naturally, they tend to speak much more quickly. They may run words together or avoid articulating word endings. They may use "slang" or dialect-specific terms, and often they don't use the "perfect" grammar you're learning in class (not to mention the fact that they'll know and use more advanced grammatical structures). And, of course, they'll have a lot more vocabulary than you do.

The trick is to start slowly. You know it's going to be some time before you'll be able to understand an entire song or TV program in Irish, so don't even try at this stage. If you're a new beginner, make yourself a list of short words you have learned...preferably words that don't take initial mutations. Some you might consider are:

Tá (is, or "yes" in answer to "an bhfuil...?")

Níl (isn't, or "no" in answer to "an bhfuil...?")

Is (is)

Ní (isn't)

Is ea ("Yes" in answer to "an...?")

Ní hea ("No" in answer to "an...?")

Agus (and)

Ach (but)

Nó (or)

Slán (goodbye)

Take your list, get comfortable, and prepare to listen to some spoken Irish. This can be a radio program, a TV program, a short film...even the interview or acting segments of the Turas Teanga DVDs, if you have them (if possible, turn off any subtitles, or if watching TG4 on your computer, choose a program that isn't typically subtitled, such as the news). Set yourself a time limit...no more than five or ten minutes at first, and see how many words from your list you hear.

As this becomes easier, you can start trying to spot set expressions phrases you know. Greetings, for example (be aware that these will fly by very quickly!), as well as "le do thoil" (please) and "go raibh maith agat," (thank you) (which will also tend to go quickly, and often be slurred together). Other common expressions to listen for include:

Cinnte (certain/certainly)

Ar ndóigh (of course)

Go díreach (exactly)

Go deimhin (definitely)

Áfach (however)

Mar sin (thus/so)

Listening to the news can be a great way to practice active listening, as certain words tend to occur over and over. For example, if you were to listen to an Irish news broadcast today, you might pick out:

Uachatarán (president)

Taoiseach (prime minister)

Éire (also Éirinn or Éireann in some contexts): Ireland

Sasana (England)

Stáit Aontaithe (United States)

An Bhruiséal (Brussels)

Bolcán (volcano)

Íoslainn (Iceland)

Cogadh (war)

Timpiste (accident/wreck)

Gardaí (Irish national police force)

The weather broadcast is another good one for practicing active listening. You can listen for such words as:

An aimsir (the weather)

An teocht (the temperature)

Te (warm/hot)

Fuar (cool/cold)

Fliuch (wet)

Tirim (dry)

Ceo (fog/mist)

Báisteach (rain)

At this stage, you'll want to be aware that these words MAY have initial mutations, so listen for the overall sound of the word without worrying too much about the initial sound. For example, if you just heard "un WASH-chakh" ("an bháisteach": the rain) that doesn't sound terribly different from "BASH-chakh" ("báisteach": rain).

It's really, really important to keep these sessions short, especially at first. This is hard work you're asking your ears and brain to do...it can be tiring and frustrating (and, if you really overdo it, boring), and you DON'T want that! Do five to ten minutes of active listening and then go back to passive listening...or take a complete "brain break" and do something else entirely. Your mind will continue to process what you've been doing, and each time you will find it a little bit easier.

This is a little like how a musician listens when he really wants to learn to play or sing a piece. Instead of just sitting back and enjoying the music, he starts listening for how the music is expressed...for chord patterns and intervals, for dynamics and ornaments. This improves his comprehension of the music, so that, ultimately, he can play it well.

If you regularly practice BOTH kinds of listening, you will be amazed at just how quickly your comprehension of the language -- and, eventually, your ability to speak it well, with a good grasp of accent and idiom -- will grow.

Redwolf

Those are really good tips!
Do you have any for pronounciation?