One of the nice things about the children's channel at TG4 is that, while they're not usually subtitled, they're usually short, and use fairly simple language, which makes them great for listening practice. This is one I've been recommending to students, as they can usually start to pick up simple terms for various foods and cooking techniques fairly quickly.

I would have loved this show when I was a kid...I've always been mad for cooking shows (and even as a grownup, I usually have my TV parked on The Food Network!)

Bia Linn

http://www.tg4.tv/play.php?pid=40336171 ... Bia%20Linn

Redwolf

Question about something that comes up in the first minute of that link. They talk about coiníní eating 'cairéidí'. I have always thought that plural of 'cairéad' was 'cairéid'. Is 'cairéidí' a dialect thing or is it incorrect?

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Its dialectal, I would think most living dialects would say cairéidí nowadays or possibly since forever. Weak plurals, where the word ends in a palatalised consonant (usually of the 1st declension) are beginning to fade in the living language. This is especially true of words that entered the language late i.e. clár > cláracha (Munster), > clárachaí (In Ulster and Connacht, I think) > cláir (standard); pictiúr > pi(o)ctiuirí (All dialects, I think, definitely for Munster) > pictiúir (standard).

Connacht Irish is fond of adding the plural suffix -í to everything, which often means a double plural ending is given in -achaí, -annaí

ubh, has lots of endings even found within the same dialect; uibheachaí, uibheacha, uibhe, uibheanna, uibheannaí,

In Munster Irish, fear has an alternative ending, taken from the dead or as good as dead, dative plural in fearaibh.

There's lots of variation in how the plural is formed in Irish (because Irish originally had about 13 different declensions that eventually collapsed into each other and meshed together), and therefore you'll naturally get a lot of variation in the spoken language.

So, which plural ending is correct?

Depends who you ask! The inclusive answer is they're all correct. Official answer, only cairéid or uibheacha are correct. But, I wouldn't have the nose to say that to Amhlaoibh Ó Loinsigh, Pádraic Ó Conaire etc...

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Please wait for corrections/ more input from other forum members before acting on advice

for the explanation. I had the same question in other topic viewforum.php?f=28
It was

And now understand that every book can be founded in different dialects, but I hope that it will not be a problem to learn Irish with these books. Finally, the words' roofs are the same, and the only worst that can happened that I will be known in other dialects)

From the original Teach Yourself Irish:
pp. IX and X – "The formation of the plural of nouns is sometimes free in the spoken language, and anomalous forms occur. In West Munster the plural of abha “river” may occur as aibhnte or aibhní, but aibhne is the established form, and will be accepted by native speakers: léine “shirt” may occur in the plural in conversation as léinteacha or léinte but léinte is the established form and has been preferred."

p. 103 – "In the spoken language, plurals in -íocha are often heard, where -acha has been added to -í, so that you have a double plural: crannaíocha “trees”, beside crainn, crainnte. Many nouns have alternative plural forms: áiteanna and áiteacha are both common as plural of áit “place”. In general it may be said that plural forms in Irish are much freer than in English. As plural of óráid “speech”, óráidí, óráideanna, óráideacha, óráidíocha would all be understood, and none of them would be shocking to a native speaker."

Go raibh maith agat for the Bia Linn link, Redwolf, I was just thinking I should find something just like that to acclimatize me to the sound of the language, though so far the extent of my relevant vocabulary is Ithim bia.

Is there a way to search the TG4 site for all children's programming and nothing else?

http://tg4.tv/

Sa chúinne clé, brú 'roghnaigh catagóir', roghnaigh 'Cúla4'; sin na cláir do pháistí.

In the left-hand corner, click 'select category', choose 'Cúla4'; that's the list of programmes for children.

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Thanks! What does "cúla" mean? It keeps appearing when I search around for (very, very) easy kid stuff to read, but google couldn't translate it for me.

As my contribution to other beginners who find this thread, check out the "readlang" plugin
readlang.com
When you enable it, you can click on any word on the page and see its translation (done via google translate magic).

I've been using it on this site:
http://www.resources.teachnet.ie/clane/2008/index.html
I'm on the naíonáin material for sure!

Oops, it seems like I'm still too newbie to edit.

http://readlang.com/
If you like flashcards, it automatically makes a flashcard when you click on a word. Any words you don't want to learn, you can delete its flashcard with a click. It does a spaced repetition algorithm, though not a very adaptable one, and honestly I don't visit often enough for the SRS to do its magic anyway. But it's fun to play with!

I've always assumed it was a slangy way of saying "cool" in Irish, but I'm not certain (and I've always been a bit curious about this myself). If anyone out there knows for sure, please tell us!

Often children's shows aren't the best for absolute beginners because, without the subtitles (most of the children's shows aren't subtitled), it can be hard for an adult to sustain the concentration necessary to get much out of them. The reason I recommended "Bia Linn" in particular is that it uses a lot of words that beginners learn right up front (words for different types of food, for body parts, and for such commonplace things as eating utensils, are often among the first nouns beginners encounter), so you can play "spot the vocabulary word).

BTW, another good "listening practice" show is the daily news and weather, again because weather terms are among the first learned by beginners. When my students start learning weather terms, I'll often watch the archived news on TG4, jot down the terms that I know the students will recognize (for example "grian/grianmhar," "ceo/ceomhar," etc.) and give them that list with a link to the show for "homework." Their goal is to check/tick off each of those words as they hear them in the broadcast. Then, in the next class, we'll look at what was missed and why that might be (the words were inflected, for example). That's something you can do at home as well: Get a list of weather terms and see how many you can spot on the weather broadcast.

You might also want to watch some of the more adult-oriented shows from time to time, so you can engage with the show while still beginning to acquire vocabulary and usage. You might not think that watching subtitled shows would help, but you'd be surprised. As your comprehension grows, you'll often find that you're not really following the subtitles much...only glancing at them when someone says something you don't quite get. TG4 has quite a range...from documentaries and talk shows to prime time dramas and soap operas.

Redwolf