Well, actually English hasn't been a real German language since 1066. For a start it no longer has three genders ... it is more of a hybrid.


I don't think it is unfounded at all.

Spanish grammar is possibly on par with French, but French pronunciation is harder because you never know when a liaison is going to revive a silent letter (or doesn't because of the special cases when liaison doesn't occur).

German pronunciation is not difficult but gender and case are more complicated than either French or Spanish. (You have a fifty percent chance of randonly getting the gender right when there are only two to choose from; thirty-three percent (1/3) when there are three to choose from.)

And the vocabulary of both French and Spanish converge with English as you progress, but German diverges away from English in that respect.

Irish has little in common with most other European languages. It starts off different and it stays different. And then there are the multiple layers of exceptions to exceptions.

Having dabbled in many languages, I do think Irish is more difficult than others and I'd rank it number 2 (after Japanese) amongst the ones I've seen (but I love it more for it's being unique ).

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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 wouldn't say that. Why should a real Germanic language have 3 genders? Swedish doesn't, standard Norwegian doesn't, I guess Danish doesn't, nor Dutch (I think). The 3 genders have been kept only in the most archaic Germanic languages (German, Icelandic, Faroese, some Norwegian dialects etc...)



To me, Irish is easy in comparison to Old Irish, Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, Icelandic, Basque, Semitic and Slavic languages... probably easier than German too. Modern Irish verbs are quite regular, that's what makes it easier than many languages (in many languages there are loads of irregular verbs).
Of course, if I were starting learning Irish I might have had a different opinion

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

Those language started with three genders but now have two. English has none (apart from biological gender distinctions.)


Irish irregularity is in its nouns. And of course, if you have the likes of Old Irish already you have a reference point and a head start.

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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).

Piggy-backing on some of the things said by Brendan, Spanish is unbelievably easy to learn for the English speaker because: 1) It's pretty much perfectly phonetic (NO TIME WASTED IN SCHOOL LEARNING TO SPELL), 2) So many cognates with English, 3) Only 5 vowel sounds. I learned to speak Spanish fairly well in 90 days of immersion. I was however 17 years old and I didn't hear English but maybe twice during the 90 days. (days before TV, internet, etc..in Latin America). Irish is complicated for me for many different reasons, but I think it must be easier than we learners make it. If we could be immersed in it probably we (us here on the forum) would pick up the patterns, etc and we could probably learn it in no time.

I agree there, I dont get the chance to practice my Irish often, whereas Id imagine in the states you arent short of people to talk to in Spanish. So is Irish harder than any other language or is it just because there are very few reference points or chances of immersion? Its not like there are any major languages out there you can learn that have relation or significance to Irish.

Id imagine Russian, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese etc are all harder than Irish for a native English speaker. I dont have any other languages than English and my bit of Irish so I am not sure how to compare it, I started learning Greek for a while a few years ago and despite a different alphabet didnt find that any harder than my first months in Irish. Did french and german in school too and cant remeber them being any more difficult

it has he, she and it. Some languages have really no gender and have only one pronoun for he, she and it



in Modern Irish, ok. In Old Irish it was just the same, but there were loads of irregular verbs on top of that





French has even more, since most non-Germanic words, in English, come from French.



and what about irregular verbs?

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

I think part of the problem in Irish is that many of us (me included) end up writing and reading Irish better and better. Our attentions are focused there as that is available to us and we neglect speaking it. As time goes by we're more and more uncomfortable with how little we speak so perhaps we speak it less and less. Hence we really can't say "Tá an nGhaeilge agam". What we should say is maybe "Thig liom í a scriobh agus leamh". Of course I want to be able to read and write the language, but that is very very secondary in my quest. it is of the most importance to me to speak it. I can pick up spelling as I go along in the language by reading what others more knowledgeable than me post, but I'm desperate to have conversation to grow in the language. I've been pretty faithful to have limited conversations all this scholastic year with a couple of friends. I went last week to an immersion weekend and I spoke in broken Irish most of the weekend. As you know (from conversations you and I have had) I've centered the conversations this year around a couple of basic books and it is working! It is a method that will in time expand my/our speaking. We read the stories aloud to each other alternating paragraphs and then go back changing what we read while the other translates. Then we question each other about little events in the books. I'm willing to do this with anyone who cares to, but at my level I'm just not able to carry a conversation about "politics" or whatever. When we learners speak with each other it is very important to not "over-correct". It becomes like the dog that is always flinching because it is afraid of being hit again. Correction needs to be very balanced. Object one is to try to understand what is being said and answer back intelligibly. As an example, I was conversing with a lady this past weekend (a fluent Munster speaker) and we were having a good conversation in Irish. She asked me what sort of farm I live on. I answered her "Eallach" as that is the Ulster word that I know from being in Donegal and I do not know any other word. The conversation abruptly stopped as she explained IN ENGLISH that she uses a different word because she speaks Munster Irish so on and so forth (all reverting to English). That is part of the problem. She should have just noted my word, tried to understand what I was saying and moved on with the conversation. I do not understand the propensity for most basic Irish speakers to continually correct each other. It is very destructive on some level. I think all the dialects with their own idioms also confuse and complicates the language at the learner level. Of course it makes the language "rich", but you sort of have to learn three languages at once. Right now, I'm just trying to get a basic way down to express any thought in my head, and I'm trying to understand what is being said to me by any speaker. I am trying first to just learn to spell in CO because I need to get one thing down. Many conversations (on this forum) end up heated and (in my humble opinion anyway) swirling around such statements and I may be mistaken, but such heated debates really do not seem very encouraging or inspiring for me to just learn and speak more of the language. Much time is spent arguing about a language and its future and the language is not yet even our own. (other than maybe Bríd). I always try to completely focus and learn from Bríd because I think she's the only native speaker in this forum and we're blessed to have her here. I might give Lughaidh a close second from his apparent time living in Ireland and dedication to Gaoth Dobhair Irish (if I ever want to have a conversation with Mairéad ní Mhonaigh I'll need to know a bit of that LOL). I enjoy watching the Irish on Gaelige Amháin because you can watch many speakers and note how things are expressed by them. I don't know that I've ever seen a lot of correcting going on there, but you can pick up the right way by looking closely at how people respond to you, etc. People you know to be more knowledgeable than yourself post things that you can learn from. So in summary, maybe it is not an Apathy towards Irish problem, but an environment that focuses on the wrong things (perfection being one among many). I think perfection often gets in the way of just real good. And maybe "perfect" Irish is getting in the way of everyone just having "good acceptable spoken Irish". Who knows? A great bit of our problem in learning is because there just isn't much interaction with fluent or native speakers from whom we can pick up the "right way". Anyway....that's some of my thoughts this Saturday morning. How tragic I cannot say these thoughts yet in Irish. Lá éigin! Idirlinn.... bíonn mé ag obair liom.

I think that some of the perceived “complexity” of a language (with regard to learning it) could be attributed to conflict between the way the information is presented and the way the learner processes information. I am learning Munster Irish, using TYI. But I have difficulty working through the lessons sequentially. Unless I am in a structured setting, such as a class, and thus forced to conform to someone else’s idea of “logical progression” I study things in the order in which they occur to me. If something makes me wonder about verbal nouns (my current issue) and the exercises for verbal nouns are in Lesson VI, then I am working in Lesson VI, regardless of the lessons between whatever sparked my question and Lesson VI. I understand and retain the information better if I let my mind make connections according to its own logic. Possibly that seems bizarre, or even flighty, to people who process information differently than I do, but it works for me. I’m learning. If I had to do the lessons sequentially, yes, it would be, to me, unbelievably complex, because their “logical progression” is senseless to someone who doesn’t process things “logically.” But when I take away the conflict between how it’s presented and how I process it, it’s no longer any more or less complex; it’s just a different volume of information to process than something else might be. Kind of like a jigsaw puzzle that just has more pieces.

*Edited to add that I mean "complexity" in the "difficult to understand" sense.

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Táim ag foghlaim Gaelainn na Mumhan

Tá fáilte roim nach aon cheartú!
I am a learner. Any translations offered are practice and should not be used unless confirmed.

I am guilty of talking about the language too much, mainly because I have a strong interest in it much like I have an interest in soccer and talk about it, doesnt mean I can play the game though!! If i spent more time learning instead of talking about i though Id be in a much better place.

I also want to speak the language, I dont want to read legislation, I just want to get to a level where I can have a chat about any topic. Thats a big problem for me, i get to practise reading and writing much more than speaking.

Im changing this though, I speak everyday with my fiance and am starting a course soon, then plan to do a course in the Gaeltacht this summer/ autumn to really get speaking. Jumping in and speaking with out fear of mistakes is what its about for me, and what I need to do more off to get fluent conversational Irish.

I too will be back in the Donegal Gaeltacht for 2 more immersion weeks July 14-28 and then I'll travel around only visiting Irish speaking friends in Belfast, Doire, etc. for another week till about August 3rd. There is NO SUBSTITUTION for just speaking Irish. I can progress in 3 days of intensive talking beyond what I can do in 3 months of casual study. I am looking forward to a few Skype sessions with you in the coming weeks. Let's just go real real real slow and try to understand what each other is saying. I learned with music that slow practice turns to well played music up to speed. I believe language to be similar.