Sunday, June 29, 2008
Learning Irish
Fáilte! (Welcome!)
I've been working away on my Gaeilgh for about a year now, so I thought I would put up some links that I have found really handy. The problem with learning this language is that many written words don't match the pronunciation. For example 'teach' meaning house is pronounced 'cha'. So some audio sites are really useful, especially if you can download them as .mp3 files and listen to then when you have a bit of spare time. There's another small snag, there are quite big pronunciation differences between Northern Ireland, Dublin, Munster and the west of Ireland, they even use different greetings.
The BBC has the site that I have found really good, with 30 sessions of about 15 minutes each, called Giota beag (a little bit) and Giota beag eile (a little bit more). It's in Ulster Irish, so if you are Dublin you will have to forget Cad é mar atá tú? and use Conas atá tú? (How are you?)
The same BBC site has some fun games with Colin and Cumberland (his dog) which gives good repetition and some amusing graphics. Also on the BBC site is a series of listening and writing lessons called Bitesize aimed at Irish language GSCE pupils, and it includes Foundation Level and Advanced Level.
Youtube has a couple of videos that I like, from Jesjes1, you will find several more if you check this first one Hello, Please, Thanks, Goodbye.
Trinity College has some soundbites on this Interactive Irish Lessons page. While these are useful, I prefer to hear the words in a conversation.
One Minute Irish comes from www.radiolingua.com It seems to need iTunes on your computer and didn't find it on mine so I haven't taken it further.
Dennis Doyle, an Irish harpist and professor has a lot of links on his page.
Finally, for a bit of fun, here are some amusing clips on Youtube. These are not in Gaeilgh but I really like the Irish accent in English. How to Speak Norn Iron and Potatoes.
And for some good Irish music, I enjoy RadioLiveIreland with streaming music 24 hours a day. Most people will have heard and enjoyed Ronnie Drew who founded The Dubliners. He is very ill with cancer and this year a group of bands got together to make a tribute song for him that hit the tops in the Irish singles charts in March 08. You can see and hear it here on Kila's page. Also, there are a lot of free Irish and Celtic mp3 downloads available here from download.com.
In NZ here are a couple of handy sites: the Auckland Irish Society and Scéal (Irish News).
tóg go bog é! (take it easy!)
Slán!
I've been working away on my Gaeilgh for about a year now, so I thought I would put up some links that I have found really handy. The problem with learning this language is that many written words don't match the pronunciation. For example 'teach' meaning house is pronounced 'cha'. So some audio sites are really useful, especially if you can download them as .mp3 files and listen to then when you have a bit of spare time. There's another small snag, there are quite big pronunciation differences between Northern Ireland, Dublin, Munster and the west of Ireland, they even use different greetings.
The BBC has the site that I have found really good, with 30 sessions of about 15 minutes each, called Giota beag (a little bit) and Giota beag eile (a little bit more). It's in Ulster Irish, so if you are Dublin you will have to forget Cad é mar atá tú? and use Conas atá tú? (How are you?)
The same BBC site has some fun games with Colin and Cumberland (his dog) which gives good repetition and some amusing graphics. Also on the BBC site is a series of listening and writing lessons called Bitesize aimed at Irish language GSCE pupils, and it includes Foundation Level and Advanced Level.
Youtube has a couple of videos that I like, from Jesjes1, you will find several more if you check this first one Hello, Please, Thanks, Goodbye.
Trinity College has some soundbites on this Interactive Irish Lessons page. While these are useful, I prefer to hear the words in a conversation.
One Minute Irish comes from www.radiolingua.com It seems to need iTunes on your computer and didn't find it on mine so I haven't taken it further.
Dennis Doyle, an Irish harpist and professor has a lot of links on his page.
Finally, for a bit of fun, here are some amusing clips on Youtube. These are not in Gaeilgh but I really like the Irish accent in English. How to Speak Norn Iron and Potatoes.
And for some good Irish music, I enjoy RadioLiveIreland with streaming music 24 hours a day. Most people will have heard and enjoyed Ronnie Drew who founded The Dubliners. He is very ill with cancer and this year a group of bands got together to make a tribute song for him that hit the tops in the Irish singles charts in March 08. You can see and hear it here on Kila's page. Also, there are a lot of free Irish and Celtic mp3 downloads available here from download.com.
In NZ here are a couple of handy sites: the Auckland Irish Society and Scéal (Irish News).
tóg go bog é! (take it easy!)
Slán!
# posted by Doug @ 10:00 AM 
