UniLang

Dia dhuit!

This thread is for an Irish study group. At the moment kevin, Vijay and me are going to start working through a resource or two together. The question of what dialect/textbook to use came up, and after some back and forth we've settled on learning Connacht Irish (which is a compromise between me (Munster) and kevin (Ulster) ), and for starters we're going through Colloquial Irish by Ihde, et al. Depending on how we do we might then go through Learning Irish by Ó Siadhail.

EDIT 10/29/18: Since the Connacht group kinda trailed off, me, Vijay and ceid donn are going to start on a Munster group. We'll use Teach Yourself Irish by Dillon and Ó Cróinín (the old 1960's edition, not the 1993+ edition). As groups form and end, the most current group and assignment will always be at the top of the list (groups in bold).

EDIT 1/9/19: And, perhaps as expected, the Munster group dissolved after some time. Now Vijay has convinced me to restart the Connacht group. Updates to follow.

Anyone else is free to join at any point!

(Dating format - month/day/year)

Connacht Group #2 (started 1/7/19)
Materials:
Colloquial Irish by Ihde, et al
Learning Irish by Ó Siadhail
An Chéad Chloch by Pádraic Ó Conaire [optional]


Munster Group (10/29/18 - 11/17/18 END)

Material(s):
Teach Yourself Irish (1960's edition by Dillon & Ó Cróinín)
Textbook and audio are freely available online. [The audio is also available from the same site as the book (on the same page), but is not complete.]

Check-Ins:

• Lesson 5 - Due 12/03/18
• Lesson 4 - Due 11/18/18
• Lessons 3 (review) & 4 - Due 11/11/18
• Lessons 1-3 - Due Sunday 11/05/18

Connacht Group (07/19/18 - 08/28/18 END)

Weekly Assignments (Due on Tuesdays):
Week 1 - Unit 1, Colloquial Irish
Week 2 - Unit 2, Colloquial Irish

Ba mhaith liom cruth a chur ar mo chuid Gaeilge arís agus b'fhearr dom dul ar ais ar an dtús, is dócha. Táim libh An bhfuil aon sceideal againn? Ar nós "2 ceacht gach seachtain" nó rud éigin mar sin?

Queria desenferrujar meu gaélico e acho melhor que eu recomece do início. Tô dentro Tem algum plano pra quando é que temos que completar as várias aulas? Tipo "2 aulas cada semana" ou assim?

We don't have a schedule yet, but we'll figure one out.

Probably either a lesson a week, or maybe less. Depends on what works for everyone.

Yay! Bhí súil agam go mbeadh tú linn.

Níl sceideal againn go fóill, ach tá ceann de dhíth orainn. Sílim gur féidir linn tosú níos gasta (tá eolas ag gach duine againn ar na bunrudaí) agus eirí níos moille nuair a bheidh muid ag déanamh rudaí nua.

(I think we can go faster at the start because everyone knows the basics, and get slower once we get to new things.)

That's a good point.

Let's wait for Vijay to weigh in here too though.

Colloquial seems like a pretty good choice. I've started leafing through it.

I think I'd like to try to get through at least the first four exercises by the end of the week (i.e. Monday, June 25). At the moment, at least, I'm not terribly worried about the introductory pronunciation stuff tbh.

That sounds ok to me (especially considering I'm still actively learning Munster, and I have other languages too). Let's all shot for somewhere between Exercise 4 and all of Unit 1 by Tuesday (6/26).

Monday is Seneca day for me.

I would like to join, as I always wanted to learn Irish. But I am a complete beginner and I think that you’re more advanced. I’ve looking though the first chapters of the book, and just for the pronunciation...it doesn’t seem feasible for me in just five days, but I will try and I’ll do what I can.

Well, as I've said in other study groups, these weekly "assignments" are more or less just to keep everyone moving and have some consistency.

Noöne has to feel like they have to catch up or can't go ahead. Ideally we'll settle on a pace that works for most of us.

Welcome aboard!

We're starting from the beginning and not going that fast either, so I think it can work for you.

Here's a video for you about Irish sounds and spelling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIokUII7LX0 The spelling is somewhat unusual, so it takes a while to get used to, but once you know how it works, it makes perfect sense.

Thanks! I’ll try my best

Yeah, its best to not worry much about the how's and why's of the pronunciation, and just listen as much as you can. After a while you'll make connections as to why things are spelled and pronounced like they are.

I personally don't think I have anything against going slower for Antea's sake. EDIT: This is basically what I'm doing with Tamil anyway; I'm waiting for the week to be over so we can finally start talking about the first two dialogues + exercises. I went ahead and listened to the first two dialogues, though. I think exercise #4(?) is pointless (the one where it's basically 'what was the first line of dialogue? What was the second? And the third?').

Okay, maybe I'm sort of doing a check-in a little too early, but

Oh, also, I'm so tempted to make the orthography seem easier than it is for foreign-language learners.

vijayjohn wrote:I personally don't think I have anything against going slower for Antea's sake.

I think this is the best way to go, personally. I want anyone to feel welcome to join and to go at a pace that they are comfortable with.

I'm waiting for the week to be over so we can finally start talking about the first two dialogues + exercises. I went ahead and listened to the first two dialogues, though.

I've been reading over the exercises and dialogues and will probably finish it all today myself. I'm also tempted to rewrite the dialogues into Munster (where there are differences anyway) as we go through.

I'm also listening to the audio cause I figure no matter the dialect, it's good to get as much audio as I can. I was wondering if I should just do something like kevin, and just read the Connacht Irish, but output Munster, but eh. I was going to eventually try to learn some Connacht properly anyway.

I just hope this doesn't confuse my Munster too much.
Maybe I can use the topics and grammar points in CI to pick things out of TYI to review/learn as we go.

I think exercise #4(?) is pointless (the one where it's basically 'what was the first line of dialogue? What was the second? And the third?').

I think you're thinking of exercise 1.

Okay, maybe I'm sort of doing a check-in a little too early, but

No worries.

Oh, also, I'm so tempted to make the orthography seem easier than it is for foreign-language learners.

How so?

księżycowy wrote:I just hope this doesn't confuse my Munster too much.

Ná buair do cheann leis; bainfead na coirnéil duit.

You might want to edit the original post to include the week, the assignment and the text. Like "Week 1: Unit 1, Colloquial Irish" or however you wish to do it. And then just add the assignment for subsequent weeks as the group progresses. Just to make it easier for people to find that week's assignment and follow along.

That's actually not a bad idea at all.

Go raibh maith agat, a cheid donn!


On a seperate note, exercise 5 in Unit 1 is terrible for people with no prior knowledge of a Goidelic language.

linguoboy wrote:Ná buair do cheann leis; bainfead na coirnéil duit.

Is fíor sin.

księżycowy wrote:

Oh, also, I'm so tempted to make the orthography seem easier than it is for foreign-language learners.

How so?

Something like:

"All the consonants come in pairs of usually velarized ('broad') and always palatalized ('slender') counterparts, but other than that, they're mostly pronounced just like you'd expect. <Ch> is pretty much like German. <Ph> is something like [f] like in lots of other European languages. <Bh> and <mh> are always [w], [vˠ], or [vʲ] depending on whether they're broad or slender. <Dh> and <gh> are both basically /ɣ/ ([ʝ] when palatalized). Any other consonant followed by <h> is pretty much just pronounced [h]. If you ever see any other consonant cluster, the first consonant (and the <h> after it, if applicable) tells you how to pronounce it; the second one is really just helpful for etymological purposes."

Like, this is so lazy, and there's so much wrong with it, but it's still tempting.

On a seperate note, exercise 5 in Unit 1 is terrible for people with no prior knowledge of a Goidelic language.

This is the exercise I was talking about, not #1 and not #4. At first, I agreed with you; I looked at it and was like "how am I supposed to know what all these words mean? Waat?!" But then I was like "oh, I can just look them up," and then I was like "...this whole exercise is literally just regurgitating the dialogue."

I'm thinking of someone like Antea, who is learning Irish from scratch.

I mean, you have to know to look up "tabhair" instead of "thugann".

Don't hesitate to ask for help, Antea! We're here to help!