Night of boozing Oíche diúgaireachta Drunk Ar meisce Moronic Uascánta
I realise that my spoken Gaeilge is about 20 years out of date at this point, but that looks like a very dubious translation. Now if was a night of drinking like Englishmen, it might be true, but for most of us Oíche caint, ceol agus craic, agus cúpla piont mór dubha, is probably more accurate.
I was force-fed the language at school for 12 years, and as a result I've got cupla focail (a few words) and can sort of manage a little bit of conversation, but I wouldn't call myself a particularly good speaker. I think there's something wrong with how I was taught the language; I studied French for five years and have a far better command of it that I ever had of Irish.
I'm not so sure if teaching methods make a difference, or if different people are simply better at certain languages than others. I tried French and German (miserable, discouraging experiences). My Latin was passable, but only after repeating level I twice. Spanish? After a mere two semesters of Spanish I was dreaming in it, reading books in it, watching movies... Something about it seemed natural to me. Logically and emotionally it just always made sense. [shrug] Of course, I can barely understand it anymore; "use it or lose it" etc.
I was thinking I'd try Italian next, but that will have to wait until I'm able to reclaim more of my life. These days, I barely have time for the basics.
When I was in school, Irish was taught in our schools in the same way English was, and looking at my niece's and nephew's textbooks a decade ago, it seems to have remained the same.
You start at the age of four and the starting assumption is that Irish, like English, is a language that you have acquired some vocabulary and grammar in, and the school's job is to develop that.
Other languages are taught as second tongues: in the initial stages, the basics are explained (e.g. gendered nouns) and the English meaning of words is given.
(It was not until I was 14 that I realised Irish nouns took genders, and that was by sheer accident. I still recall my confusion at the age of five with the same Irish word for dress (gúna) and gun (guna), because it had never been explained to me that the letters ú and u were not the same.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
I realise that my spoken Gaeilge is about 20 years out of date at this point, but that looks like a very dubious translation. Now if was a night of drinking like Englishmen, it might be true, but for most of us Oíche caint, ceol agus craic, agus cúpla piont mór dubha, is probably more accurate.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
I was thinking I'd try Italian next, but that will have to wait until I'm able to reclaim more of my life. These days, I barely have time for the basics.
no subject
You start at the age of four and the starting assumption is that Irish, like English, is a language that you have acquired some vocabulary and grammar in, and the school's job is to develop that.
Other languages are taught as second tongues: in the initial stages, the basics are explained (e.g. gendered nouns) and the English meaning of words is given.
(It was not until I was 14 that I realised Irish nouns took genders, and that was by sheer accident. I still recall my confusion at the age of five with the same Irish word for dress (gúna) and gun (guna), because it had never been explained to me that the letters ú and u were not the same.)
no subject