Hi all,

My name is Matt. I'm an American, and I'm a medical student in Chicago. I'm a 3rd generation American (on both sides of the family), but my mother's side is from Ireland (Co. Cork, her mom's side as well). My grandparents have always been proud of their heritage, so recently I have been reading about Irish history. Naturally, I came across how the Irish language has gone through ups and downs, and the changes that all languages experience over time. But I feel compelled to learn at least some Irish, especially after watching the series "No Bearla". However, the motivation for this feeling, oddly, stems from the year I spent in China. I was there for a year on a scholarship to study Chinese language, and all the time people there asked me questions like "what is American culture?", "what does it mean to be American?". Such seemingly simple questions yet I never had a good answer. After some thought, I guess for me being an American means to have an immense sense of freedom - mainly because an American is free to define themselves in whichever way she or he chooses. This I felt was in stark contrast to the Chinese experience, where even today a person is very much defined by where they are from and who their ancestors are/were.

Logically, the next question that crossed my mind was "who am I?". I can't say I have a complete answer, but I can say that I part of who I am and how I got here started in Ireland. If I'm to understand more about my heritage and who I am, I should at least learn something about the lens that my ancestors saw the world through.

So now we're here, and onto the more practical matters, where do I start? Given that I'm a student and already quite busy, I don't mind buying books and reading but it's practice that makes a language come to life (4000 Chinese characters didn't learn themselves)! What I would really like is to set up some kind of an email exchange, with expectations of correspondence of about once a week. Also, since I know Chinese is a hot language right now, I would have no problem teaching what I know about Chinese to someone willing to learn. I know historically that Chicago has a large Irish community, anyone know of classes there? I'm in the downtown area, perhaps during the summer I'll have some time to take a class.

-Matt

Bail ó Dhia orthu siúd ar cuimhin leo mé (agus orthu siúd nach cuimhin) ó fhóram eile nach n-ainmneoidh mé. Beidh mé an-ghnóthach le cúrsa atá mé a dhéanamh faoi láthair agus mar sin ní bheidh mé anseo rómhinic ach buailfidh mé isteach chugaibh corruair.

Greetings to those who know me (and to those who don't) from another forum I won't name. I'll be busy with a course I'm doing at the moment so I won't be here too often but I will call in the odd time.

Tadhg an mhargaidh

Dia dhuit a chara agus fáilte romhat - Bonjour et bienvenue au forum. Vous habitez où? Si vous regardez plus haut ici vous verrez que j'ai déjà donné les références pour des livres et méthodes etc en ce qui concerne l'apprentissage de l'irlandais pour les francophones.
Franc