NiallBeag wrote:
My honest advice is simple: do not try to learn Irish using only Duolingo -- it just doesn't work.
This is just one of many grammar points that Duolingo gives absolutely no information on, and expects learners to do the impossible and intuit it from context and examples. I'm currently using Duolingo for Welsh, and even though I speak Scottish Gaelic pretty well, understand a reasonable bit of Irish and have even studied Welsh before at university, there's lots of times where I'm just completely lost in the dark about grammar.
Duolingo was set up by a team of computer scientists, not language teachers.
I agree about Duolingo. Just because it is there does not mean that it is the best or even a good way to learn a language like Irish.
I used Duolingo for a couple years to learn Irish with very little success. A couple months ago I gave up Duolingo and started working through Progress In Irish. I am making far better progress. To be fair Máiréad Ní Ghráda's course isn't designed for self-learners and I have lost count of the number of times I wished I had a teacher to ask about a grammatical point. I have to spend quite a lot of time looking stuff up on online grammar guides (nualeargais.ie, for example, through wayback machine now unfortunately), online dictionaries (teanglann.ie, for example) and pronunciation guides like abair.tcd.ie/ga/synthesis and fuaimeanna.ie. I use forvo.com a bit but as it doesn't tell you where in Ireland the speakers come from it is less useful to a learner like me. I combine this with using Anki a free flashcard program for recall testing and spaced repetition.
Well Bríd Eilís on Forvo is a native speaker of Connemara Irish.
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