A chairde,
I'm hoping that you can point me in the right direction. I've been learning Irish off and on for the last 10 years. At my high point, I've probably reached something like an 'Advanced Beginner' stage, but then my studies fall off, and before I know it, I'm back to (relative) square one again. I've accumulated a lot of Irish learning materials over the years (Learning Irish, Irish On Your Own, Rosetta Stone, Búntus Cainte), but no matter what, after a few months, I lose steam.

So, I was wondering if another approach might help me out. Are there any recommended Irish language teachers who conduct online classes? I'm hoping that a little more structure (homework assignments, etc.) would keep me on the right path. My preference would be to focus on Conamara Irish, but I know that it's more important to get a good grasp of the language before getting too focused on dialectical differences.

Any recommendations? GRMA to all for your help.
-GA

http://www.gaelchultur.com/ offers classes on-line, some of which are based on Éamon Ó Dónaill's "Gaeilge Gan Stró" series.

Redwolf

I'm going to be really frank. Online classes won't help much and neither will in person classes. I used to teach English in Brazil and I've studied enough languages/tried to do study groups with others, etc. Everyone loses focus/motivation sometimes. Lots of people like the idea of learning a language more than they want to actually put in the many hours of hard work that it takes to actually learn a language. And that's perfectly OK.

What will actually help you is having a very serious think about your priorities with Irish. You need to know why you want to learn, you need to know what level is good enough for you, you need to find something that energizes you to learn more.

1. Figure what level is good enough for you. If you want to get to a really advanced level of learning you are going to need to dedicate 700 hours of learning and master close to 9000 or 10,000 words. If you only want an advanced intermediate level, you will need to commit to close to 500 hours and about 2000 - 3000 words. And when I say word I mean all of the forms associated with a dictionary's head word all equal one word - not just the root form. So bean, mná, mná, ban and an bhean, etc. all count as one word. That's a lot of work and time you are not doing something else like being with your family or improving your career.

2. Set some short and long term goals and give yourself consequences and rewards. I was in your situation before 2014. I had studied a bit back in the 90s, had a decent vocabulary, but had never really used the language. I decided in late 2013 I would either increase my level to advanced intermediate by the middle of 2014 or I would completely give up the hope of ever learning Irish. I didn't make a public declaration or anything like that. I think this is the first time I ever mentioned it publicly. For my goals I said I would complete a certain amount of work by X date and I tried my hardest to stick to it and if I accomplished the goals I rewarded myself with something. If I didn't hit the short term goals, no big deal as long as I was working hard. My long term goal is to take the TEG exam at either the B1 or B2 level in 2015. For writing and comprehension I am currently testing at an upper intermediate level but I know my verbal skills are still bad. But if I pass the B2 I've promised myself a trip to Connemara.

3. Find a topic, a show, sport or something that you enjoy that is available in Irish and start watching or reading content in it. Even if you do not initially understand everything or you have to use English subtitles it doesn't matter. You want to enjoy it and go back to it even when your motivation starts to wane. It's not a learning aid, it's just to motivate you. For me it's TG4 programs like Ros na Rún and Comhrá. And other shows I have come across like Cladaigh Chonamara. I want to understand them and I want to hear these people's stories. It brings me back every day where in the past after about 3 months I would get lazy and after about 4 months something would come up and I'd stop studying for a while and eventually a while would turn into a year.

Having a teacher can help guide your learning for things you don't like or that you find difficult but he/she will not be able to motivate you to be consistent and keep going after three months when your spouse wants to take a 2 week vacation and then you come back to work and are playing catch up for the next week and getting home late and tired. You have to find your own reason to be consistent in your studies or you'll eventually fall off the wagon again.

And you'll still fall of the wagon! Real life gets int he way but if you have really thought about why you want to learn Irish and set clear goals for yourself in the short and long term you are far more likely to get back on the wagon sooner.

Thank you both very much for your quick responses!

Redwolf - I had heard of gaelchultur.com a while back. I'll take another look at it now. (As a quick aside, I've been bouncing around IGTF and ILF over the years, and I've always been impressed at your knowledge and passion for the Irish language. Truly inspiring stuff. Keep up the great work!)

Robert - you've described exactly the issues that I (and I'm sure millions of others) have been dealing with in learning new languages. I suppose that if I really thought about it, fluency isn't a realistic goal for me. But, I would be absolutely thrilled to reach an Intermediate level of Irish. And, with a good deal of effort, that seems like an achievable goal over time.

It sounds as if you've made tremendous strides in a very short amount of time (late 2013 to mid-2014). If you don't mind me asking, what level were you at (approximately) when you resumed your studies in late 2013? And, what learning tools have you been using to achieve Upper Intermediate test results?

Go raibh míle maith agaibh!
-GA

I think fluent could be a realistic goal for you over enough time, but how do you get there? First you have to reach an intermediate level and that in and of itself is a big deal! My personal opinion about goal setting for anything that requires multiple years of consistent effort is to keep your ultimate, ideal goal out there as something you want but focus on what you need to do just to get to the next level.



Just to be perfectly honest, that level is what I consider my reading and listening comprehension. I do not feel I can communicate verbally at that level. Verbally I imagine I am somewhere at the lower intermediate level. In the 1990s I studied Irish using Learning Irish and few other resources that were commonly available like Teach Yourself and Irish on your own. I was pretty isolated as a learner. I had never engaged another learner or speaker in Irish in conversation until May of this year. I was probably back to being a beginner but I had some background knowledge of the language still. As I mentioned previously I want to take either the B1 or B2 exam http://teg.ie

Here are my preferred resources that use daily or almost:

Learning Irish
Colloquial Irish
Buntús Cainte 1, 2 ,3
Turas Teanga
Fionn Mac Cumhaill, Boscra Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin
http://www.siopagaeilge.ie/products/Lea ... 3d-103.htm

Memris
http://www.memrise.com/courses/english/irish/
Specifically I use the courses I am creating and a few others by other users as well.

TG4
http://tg4.ie/
Pota Focal
potafocal.com/Home.aspx
An Foclóir Beag
http://193.1.97.44/focloir/
Focloir.ie
http://www.focloir.ie/

I use Memrise in my down time to do additional work. I spend at least one hour a day doing active study, meaning writing exercises or repeating from the CDs from the books above, taking a YouTube clip and trying to transcribe what is being said. I'll also do at least 2 hours of passive study (listen to CDs while driving, listen to TG4 while getting ready in the morning, etc), listening to a YouTube clip while at work.

The most important thing is that I plan my active studies out on a monthly basis. For example, by the end of July I will have completed the following:
Completing the Memrise course creation that I had planned for June.
A three week review of lessons 7-20 of Learning Irish.
Completing the second book in Tadhg Mac Dhonnagain's Fionn mac Cumhail series, Bran Agus Sceolán.
Completed the work I am doing on A1,A2,B1 which is really just review of the vocab and structures in the syllabuses. (Ócáidí sóisialta, Cúlra agus áit chónaithe, An teaghlach)

Oh, and I try and get a lesson in when I can from Brendan over at StudyBase.com. His lessons are very humbling to me because I get to see exactly how inept I am verbally. But he has a few decades of Irish teaching experience and I've loved doing classes with him.

The nice thing about taking a class is sometimes it can kickstart your resolve. There is a real advantage to working with a teacher, either live or on-line...that touchpoint with a live person and the need to be prepared for each class can get you going again if things are flagging.

Redwolf

Hi G.A.

Any chance that you could hook up with a few others to chat in Irish? Are you based in Ireland or somewhere else? I think that talking to someone who is better than you is a great way to learn. I am suggesting this in addition to other ways of learning not as a substitute. It makes the language more 'real' if you have an opportunity to use it in a normal way.

_________________

Robert,

This was an excellent post, and I am sure most learners would benefit from reading it through, maybe more than once in their learning careers.

It made me realise that my goal - simply, to learn to speak Irish - was naive, ill-thought out and quite frankly, unrealistic.

I've now re-assessed my long-term goal, based on my original reason for starting, and broken it down into achievable, I think, short- to medium- term targets.

I've also defined the routes I want to take to achieve those targets. Until now I've been going along in quite a disorganised way and becoming frustrated with the lack of progress.

Already I'm seeing myself moving forward, and that in itself has been motivating.

I don't see my targets as 'set in stone'; I imagine I may need to refine them over time, and also my circumstances may change, making refining a necessity.

What has finally sealed my commitment to what I'm doing is that I've written it down. In black and white. I've pinned it to the front of one of the files I regularly use.

This method of goal-setting works for me, and would probably serve most people, particularly at times when they need motivation.

I would be interested to know how learners who don't live in or near Irish-speaking communities set their targets. Is speaking Irish a valid aim, or are reading, writing, and maybe understanding the spoken word (TV and radio, for instance), as far as you can realistically go?

Well, I don't live near an Irish-speaking community (I live in Northern California). I speak Irish. That has always been my goal.

Do I speak it perfectly? No. That's still a work in progress. But I can hold conversations in Irish, and even gave a radio interview in Irish (even if I did pepper it with about half a hundred "you knows" because I was nervous as sin!).

I'm not saying that you don't need to go the extra mile to make that happen. I've been attending immersion weekends whenever I can for...lord, it's got to be seven years now. And I've been to Ireland twice, spending first a fortnight, and later an entire month, in Gaeltacht areas.

If your goal is to speak Irish, I see no reason you can't achieve it.

Redwolf