More time has passed. I've been absent these past months from ILF but there's been no pause here in the constant singing and the nightly stories in Irish (and translating them first for myself).
We now have a
Ciorcal Comhrá in Brussels.
On one hand, my son's Irish is improving nicely and he understands a lot now. His progress and his interest are constant. On the other hand, I see his vocabulary in other languages booming and my Irish just isn't rich enough to copy that pace in Irish.
He doesn't say much in Irish, but that's because I'm not pushing him. I have to learn to pronounce the language myself before I can tell him how to speak. But I think this is a problem will solve itself quite quickly once I'm confident in my own pronunciation, which is only a matter of time.
Someone told me that when multilingual kids get to around seven, they start imposing their own language preferences, and I've kinda seen this in other families alright, so I've got three-and-a-half years to convince him it's in his interest to use Irish with me
We haven't gotten any new CDs; we pretty much had everything available already. Among the new books, the nicest ones are:
* The six monster books in the series
Cófra Lán Arrachtaí*
Páid agus an Scoil*
Ulchabháin Óga* The 16 books in the Glac Sos series from O'Brien Press
Two books that stand out for being good value are
*
Síscéalta Traidisiúnta (124 pages - back cover says €15 but I think I got it cheap in Chapters, ground floor)
*
Bran agus a Chairde ag Spraoi (77 pages with lots of text on each page - I think it was €15)
* (The two
Seán agus Coisí books were also good value, and I think the mini stories are great, but they haven't been a hit with my son yet. In due time...)
The most advanced book we read is
Séan agus an Gas Pónaire. This is from a series of books written by Máiréad Ní Ghráda, published by
An Gúm. I like the level and a translator recommended this series for the quality of the Irish, but it remains to be seen if the other stories in this series will be as much of a hit with a boy (Rapunzel, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast etc.).
I got three bilingual books for kids from the Fadó Irish Legend Series (there're six books in the series). Haven't had time to read them myself but I'm expecting they'll be good.
My shopping list for Christmas is Taghd's box set
Fionn Mac Cumhaill (4 Leabhar + CD) (see my other thread about my new pronunciation plan), and another book or two from the above mention Máiréad Ní Ghráda series.
I was hoping to get some board games or card games but the only ones in Siopa Leabhar were for classroom use (e.g. big box with twelve identical sets of cards). What I'll probably do is buy non-Irish games and make a vocabulary list. Something like the game "Guess Who?" would be a great way to start a kid speaking Irish. Other suggestions very welcome!
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Pages I made:
(These are unfortunately offline for the near future, but they'll be back!)