Wanderlust support group 5

[kevin]

Irish...

Cad chuige nach ndéanfá é?

[Luís]

Irish...

Cad chuige nach ndéanfá é?

Google Translate tells me that whole sentence means "why not"

Anyway, we'll see. I'll probably travel to Ireland later this year and if that happens I'd like to learn the basics (at least to be able to figure out how places on a map are pronounced)

Irish...

É que eu te traumatizei...?

Não, claro que não...

[linguoboy]

Irish...

Cad chuige nach ndéanfá é?

Google Translate tells me that whole sentence means "why not"

More literally: Why wouldn't you do it?

Anyway, we'll see. I'll probably travel to Ireland later this year and if that happens I'd like to learn the basics (at least to be able to figure out how places on a map are pronounced)

It's a deep orthography, so if you're going to invest that much effort, might as well learn the grammar, too!

[Luís]

It's official, I'm going to Ireland this year.

So, what books would you recommend for someone interested in dabbling into Irish?

[Luís]

My Irish wanderlust is making me wanderlust for Welsh...

[linguoboy]

So, what books would you recommend for someone interested in dabbling into Irish?

I'm surprised there's been no response.

Avoid Motherfoclóir. It sounds like it will be a fun little read for dabblers but it's awful: just lists and lists of words out of context and tedious reminiscences from someone who I suspect isn't even a particularly competent speaker.

Ó Siadhail's Speaking Irish still has a lot to recommend it but also a fair bit that makes it hard to use. He teaches one particular dialect, which he speaks natively, and respells some--but not all!--words to match. His phonemic transcriptions are a bit hard to make sense of unless you've read his Modern Irish (which I highly recommend).

There are a lot of newer works that I haven't looked at, let alone tried to use, which is why I was hoping someone else might jump in to answer this question. Most all of them have four stars or more on Amazon so I guess you can't go too far wrong?

My Irish wanderlust is making me wanderlust for Welsh...

Welsh was the first language I seriously tried to teach myself--and I came to it after bouncing off Irish pretty hard. Gareth King's works are excellent. His Colloquial Welsh is well-organised and a fun book to use.

[kevin]

So, what books would you recommend for someone interested in dabbling into Irish?

I'm surprised there's been no response.

I saw it on the phone and decided to reply later when I'm at a computer. Of course, I forgot.

But I wouldn't have much more to say than you because I never really used a textbook myself. I've recommended Buntús na Gaeilge before just because it's officially available for free on the internet and it looked reasonable enough to me. If you're planning to buy a physical book anyway, this probably doesn't matter, but especially for just dabbling not everyone may want to spend that money.

[linguoboy]

If you're planning to buy a physical book anyway, this probably doesn't matter, but especially for just dabbling not everyone may want to spend that money.

Yeah, for dabbling I would recommend websites and videos. But I'm not really sure how Luis approaches languages.

[Luís]

Most all of them have four stars or more on Amazon so I guess you can't go too far wrong?

Well, from what I've seen most of them don't use IPA (or anything similar), which is a big deal for a language like Irish, where pronunciation is not exactly the most obvious thing (at least for a beginner)

Ó Siadhail's Speaking Irish still has a lot to recommend it but also a fair bit that makes it hard to use. He teaches one particular dialect, which he speaks natively, and respells some--but not all!-words to match.

I came across a copy once and thought it looked pretty good. I had no idea he changed the spelling to fit his dialect, though. Anyway, from what I understood, "standard Irish" is only really a thing when it comes to the written language and you need to choose a dialect when speaking.

I got my hands on a copy of Irish, by Aidan Doyle and it looks promising. It's only 100 pages long (just an overview of the language) and there's IPA all over

Yeah, for dabbling I would recommend websites and videos. But I'm not really sure how Luis approaches languages

I tend to prefer books, but I'm open to other stuff too

If you're planning to buy a physical book anyway, this probably doesn't matter, but especially for just dabbling not everyone may want to spend that money.

I collect language learning books, so I'm always open to buying some more

Gareth King's works are excellent. His Colloquial Welsh is well-organised and a fun book to use.

I have an older copy of Teach Yourself Welsh but I get the impression they're too focused on teaching literary Welsh. I'll have a look at Colloquial Welsh (Hugo Welsh in Three Months doesn't look bad either)

[księżycowy]

I still swear by the older version of Teach Yourself Irish (which uses a modified version of IPA in the glossary at the back, and "phonetics" in the vocabulary lists in the lessons) for Munster. It largely depends on what dialect you're leaning towards though.

For Connacht, I also recommend Colloquial Irish as a supplement for Learning Irish. (On a side note, I'm pleased to see that Colloquial Irish 2 has finally been published.)

[Luís]

It largely depends on what dialect you're leaning towards though.

I have no idea...

Which dialect has the most speakers?

[księżycowy]

Not sure. If I were to guess, probably Connacht. I'm sure Linguoboy or kevin could give a sure answer.

[linguoboy]

Not sure. If I were to guess, probably Connacht. I'm sure Linguoboy or kevin could give a sure answer.

Native speakers? Connemara (a subdivision of Connacht). But most speakers are non-native and most speak a mix, as Ciarán's described in his past posts. Their pronunciation tends to follow spelling and spelling mostly follows Connacht.

[linguoboy]

Ó Siadhail's Speaking Irish still has a lot to recommend it but also a fair bit that makes it hard to use. He teaches one particular dialect, which he speaks natively, and respells some--but not all!-words to match.

I came across a copy once and thought it looked pretty good. I had no idea he changed the spelling to fit his dialect, though.

Not consistently. There's an extensive appendix where he describes what changes he did and didn't make.

Anyway, from what I understood, "standard Irish" is only really a thing when it comes to the written language and you need to choose a dialect when speaking.

It sorta depends what your goals are. Most students are just trying to get a passing grade and--unless they're in or a near a Gaeltacht--don't have the luxury of receiving instruction exclusively from speakers of a particular dialect. If you want to consume much media (spoken or written), you're going to need a passive working knowledge of all the major dialects anyhow.

I got my hands on a copy of Irish, by Aidan Doyle and it looks promising. It's only 100 pages long (just an overview of the language) and there's IPA all over

Looks good! I don't know Doyle's work but the Lincom guides tend to be very good scholarly introductions for an academic audience.

I tend to prefer books, but I'm open to other stuff too

If you're learning mostly from books then pronunciation isn't going to be of major importance anyway.

Gareth King's works are excellent. His Colloquial Welsh is well-organised and a fun book to use.

I have an older copy of Teach Yourself Welsh but I get the impression they're too focused on teaching literary Welsh. I'll have a look at Colloquial Welsh (Hugo Welsh in Three Months doesn't look bad either)

Yeah, I have that edition, too, and it's straight-up Literary Welsh (Cymraeg llenyddol). I look at for amusement; for more than that, I have an actual reference work for the literary register, Thorne's Comprehensive Welsh grammar. (He does make some reference to the colloquial language, too, but it's not his strong point.)

[księżycowy]

All of this talk of Irish is making me want to ask, has anyone had a chance to leaf through the new Routledge grammar for Irish (Modern Irish: A Comprehesive Grammar by Stenson). The review on Amazon makes me wonder.

[linguoboy]

All of this talk of Irish is making me want to ask, has anyone had a chance to leaf through the new Routledge grammar for Irish (Modern Irish: A Comprehesive Grammar by Stenson). The review on Amazon makes me wonder.

Damn, that was pretty rough. She's gotten nothing but praise for her Basic Irish, but maybe she's better at teaching grammar than explaining it.

[księżycowy]

That's why I was like, "is this review full of shit, or....?"

[linguoboy]

That's why I was like, "is this review full of shit, or....?"

I did a quick search for published reviews and didn't turn anything up. (I got booted off Gaeilge Amháin so I don't know if there's been any discussion there.)

[kevin]

I haven't seen much of it yet, but what I've seen is both interesting stuff and errors. My impression is probably biased because those two are the things that would come up in a discussion and the expected things wouldn't. At least it seems to be true that the book is poorly edited.

As for the actual content, as interesting as the information is, I'm not sure how much it can be trusted. One basic thing I was shown is that it says that "sa" lenites in "Ulser [sic], Munster, Achill" and it gives "sa Fhrainc" as an example. As far as I know, this is "sa bhFrainc" in many, if not all, Munster dialects, so this information is at best misleadingly incomplete.

It's a shame because it seems to contain some details that I aren't covered much in other places. But what use is it when you don't know how accurate and complete the information is?

[księżycowy]

Rather a shame. Hopefully Stenson gets some proper feedback and can correct the errors and editing in a second edition.