Dia dhuit,

I have been exploring many different online resourses for learning Irish and there are many! I am undecided on which approach to take, so I thought that I would get some feedback from y'all.

I have seen that a lot of the instruction courses simply force you to memorize phrases and tell you their English equivalent. I guess this would be useful in a structured and predictable conversation or for use in familiar circumstances. One can't really rely on this for a solid understanding of the language.

I really do not want to go that route, though. I want to start by knowing what each word means and eventually, all of their forms. This would eventually give me clues as to the grammatically correct order in which to use the words to construct sentences.

Would it be a sensible approach to just start building a large vocabulary by studying Irish words and their *shudder* pronunciations? Not needing to fit them together at first, but learning kind of like a child does?

This would be complicated by the fact that I would not be hearing the words all day and they would not be reinforced the same way. I could just start spending all my free time with recorded Irish in the background and watching a lot of Irish television.

I am sure different parts of the brain are used for different kinds of learning so it may just be trial and error.

Sorry for the slight rambling. I am typing this right before I am going to bed so I am a bit tired.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Part of the problem with the approach you want to take is that language is more than a sum of its words. You can memorize a lot of words and not be able to put together a coherent sentence.

For example, you can't say "I like chocolate" in Irish by learning words for "I," "like," and "chocolate" and then plugging them into English syntax. You have to learn that, in Irish, you say "I like" something by literally saying "Is good with me _____." That's where repeating all those phrases comes in.

A child doesn't really learn by learning individual words, at least not in isolation. A child might start, for example, by pointing and saying "cookie!" but very soon the parent is going to require more of it: "Yes, it's a cookie. Do you want the cookie?" And all the time the child is (hopefully!) hearing examples of correct sentence structure and being rewarded for attempting them. That's hard to replicate as an adult, especially as an adult learning in relative isolation.

I'd recommend a multi-pronged approach. Get one of the self-teaching books (preferably one that includes audio) and start working with that. That will give you both grammar and pronunciation in one package.

At the same time, work on increasing vocabulary. One of the ways I encourage learners to do that is by labeling things with sticky notes (which I nicked from mhwombat!). You can label a room, for example, with words such as "balla" (wall), "bord" or "tábla" (table), "teilfís" (television) and then plug those words into the grammar you're learning.

And yes...spend some time every day listening to Irish on the radio or television (resources we're very fortunate to have these days, thanks to the internet!). That will help train your ear to hear the language.

Redwolf

I appreciate you taking the time to share those points to consider, Redwolf. Thank you.
This is going to be trial and error. Mostly error.

If you aren't big on grammar, then for a steady introduction to the language through conversations in a fairly natural progression that builds on existing vocabulary without too much grammar explanation (well actually NO grammar explanation ) I think Buntús Cainte is still the best.

The dialogues are in standardised Connemara Irish.

You can always ask about the grammar here.

Buntús Cainte is available in book form with CDs (ISBN 1-85791-065-5). http://www.litriocht.com/shop/product_i ... ts_id=3164

There is also an online version: http://talkirish.com/mp3-irish-course/ but it might be cheaper to invest in the book and the CDs and study at your own leisure.

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

I use a flash card system, i will put on a word , let say siúl - ill add the audio.
ill then add a couple example sentences/phrases with how the word can be employed in different contexts and if i can some genitive or dative versions of the word in use.


so my first card might be
siúl (shool) = 1. walking 2. a walk, a particular walking route 3. the ability to walk. 4. travel , journey. 5 going on, in progress 6. gone away

2nd
I am talking about Seán. Seán atá ar siúl agam, (with note , Ar siúl =going on, in progress.)

3rd
Where are you off to ?=Cá bhfuil do shiúl ?

4th
far away = i bhfad ar shiúl

5th
I like hillwalking = Is breá liom siúl na gcnoc

6th
A class is on every Tuesday = Bíonn rang ar siúl gach máirt

7th
What will be happening there = cad a bheadh ar siúl ann

8th
What is going on out on the road? = Cad tá ar siúl amuigh ar an mbothar?
9th
D’fhiafraigh sí dá hathair cad a bhí ar siúl.
She asked her father what was going on (happening).


if something seems complex to me i might look up the grammar and add a note to particular cards . I find it great cause it tests me and forces me to try recall things on the spot. Obviously being a learner I make mistakes and sometimes i make mistakes on my cards, but you catch them as you improve and revise.

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Bíonn rudaí maithe mall

Anyone here have any experience or thoughts on this approach?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s87Dn5Nz-cM#t=115

When I was getting my teaching credentials for teaching German and French in high school, I went to a week-long course where that type of teaching was used (along with other methods, such as teaching to music and rhythm), and it was amazingly effective. They did not use formal sign language in that particular course, but they did act out everything dramatically and used only the target language. It worked really well, but it takes a lot of repetition, and more complex ideas can take a huge amount of time to teach. I can see how sign language could help, although people who don't already know sign language will not always understand the actions. The teachers I had did much more acting to convey meaning.

A young child has all day, every day, to watch other people talk and act, so the method is very well suited to teaching at home or in the early school years, when the kids are not inhibited, their minds are still very flexible, and it can be almost like a game. An adult usually can't spend that much time on it, and one also has to deal with the inhibitions which adults have in learning, often making them afraid to respond for fear of being wrong.

The approach can be very exhausting for the teacher. If you look at what they do in the video, the usual approach is to model everything repeatedly and pretty dramatically, first with demonstrative affirmative statements ("This ball is red" / "That ball is blue") and then introducing questions ("Is this ball red?") and showing how to answer by answering one's own questions ("Yes, this ball is red" / "No, that ball is blue"). It's all done orally, with no reading (at least in the early stages), so the students learn like children. When the students have had time to absorb a lesson and are comfortable, one starts asking them the questions, starting with "yes/no" questions (or "an bhfuil/tá/níl" and "an/is/ní" questions in Irish, making things a bit more difficult). If they answer correctly, the teacher repeats what the student said ("Yes, this ball is red") as reinforcement, and if they make a mistake, the teacher ignores the error and still just reinforces the lesson by modeling the correct answer again. That helps to keep from putting the student on the spot, and to break down inhibitions. Gradually, one builds to more complex sentence structure and introduces more vocabulary. In the process, one can throw in a lot of extra terms like "Good job", "That's right" etc. without explaining them at all. The students gradually pick up on the meaning.

Some problems in using the approach with Irish are the very different sentence structure of Irish and the handling of initial consonant mutations. The sentence structure can be acted out without too much difficulty (I did it myself at the course, when we had to demonstrate what we'd learned). Lenition and eclipsis are more difficult to model, but it can be done if one is a good enough actor. I've noticed that many children's books in Irish introduce the past tense very early, so there must be studies about children being able to deal with lenition reasonably well. I think it's harder for English-speaking adults without some explanation in English and showing them the written forms (Irish adult learners will of course have experienced it in school already, even if they did not learn it very well).

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

Definitely food for thought. Thank you all for answering my questions in such detail. The time you have taken to respond in such depth in appreciated.