Hey ho! Here's some good news for the Irish Learners/Tolkien fans out there. After like seven years, the Irish translation for The Hobbit is finished! It's due to come out on the 25th of this month. Rejoice! (and there was much rejoicing)

You see:
http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/collectors-hold-the-key-to-success-of-irish-hobbit-3054205.html

http://www.evertype.com/books/hobad.html

That will be interesting.

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
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I can't wait! I've been anticipating this since someone posted the first paragraph back at the old place in the very first year I started learning Irish!

Redwolf

Cool!

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That's cool

but I never managed to read Lord of the Rings completely (not even one of the books) because I'm too busy and to lazy to sit and read the same book everyday... I'm hopeless (although I loved the movies)

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

My daughter's the same way. She loves to read, but doesn't like to get bogged down in the same book day after day.

I'm kind of the opposite. I usually have several books going at once: One on the dining table that I read when I'm eating lunch, one in front of the TV that I read during commercials, one next to my bed that I read before going to bed, etc. I don't get bored because what I'm reading depends on where I am when the urge to read strikes me.

The sad thing with the LOTR movies is they changed the story significantly in the second movie...gratuitous changes that weren't required to edit the story for film. That really saddened me, as I was thrilled with the first movie. Sounds like the same thing is happening with The Hobbit movie...they're definitely talking about bringing in characters from Lord of the Rings that actually never appeared in The Hobbit (Legolas, for example).

Redwolf

yeah, I heard that from other people, but maybe, the best thing to do, was to read the book after having seen the films, so that you aren't disappointed when you see them.
Maybe I'm not unbiased about the films since I really love them, but I think the only criticism that can be made to these films, is that they don't correspond exactly to the book... Apart from that...
But anyway if they had wanted to tell in the film everything that happens in the book, the film would be 20 hours long

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

It wasn't that they left things out (that's to be expected in editing a story for film)...rather, they added a completely different story line (that whole bit where Aragorn disappears off the cliff and has that near-death experience in which he dreams about Arwen was added for some reason...it didn't exist in the book at all. Also the whole thing with his horse having belonged to Eowyn's brother...that was manufactured out of whole cloth). And they completely changed the nature of some of the characters...Faramir springs immediately to mind (he's a weak, vindictive figure in the movie who initially blames the hobbits for his brother's death and plans to use them to ingratiate himself with his father, whereas he was a heroic figure from the beginning in the book). Gratuitious changes, as I said...not things that needed to happen to make the story work for film.

Redwolf

When I start a book I get right into it and can't put it down till I have finished. And if it is good I crave more. (That may be part of why I like prolific writers like Anne McAffrey or Terry Pratchett.)

The Hobbitt prompted me to learn runes and the LOTR to look at Anglo-Saxon (Old English) (all of the human character names and place names are actually formed from Anglo-Saxon root words.)

Though the languages themselves are different from Welsh and Irish, Tolkien based the differences between the two main Elvish languages on scenario parallel to the p-Celtic vs q-Celtic one.


That is my philosophy for all movies made from books. If I see a really good film, it often prompts me to read the book.

In doing so, you may enter a completely new world to find out what the author really meant you to see (though some say a movie can influence your perception of characters as well).

If a movie gets made based on a book I like, I never expect it to be as good as the book. I think of it as a different but slightly-similar story.

But then again, history itself is a whole lot of different accounts by different people ...

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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 wish Anne McCaffery were still writing. Her son is no where near the writer she is...I actually left the last Pern book unfinished because I couldn't keep the characters straight and found the single point of view style he uses rather dull. I'd read (and pretty much have) anything by Anne McCaffery or Mercedes Lackey (and have even gotten into some genres that originally didn't appeal to me, such as urban fantasy, thanks to them).

Speaking of books being made into movies, by the way, I'm dying to see "The Hunger Games." That book was a real page-turner...I bought it on the recommendation of a bookseller who knew I enjoy young adult fiction and read it cover-to-cover in about an hour an a half, it was that gripping.

A book I have in Irish that I've never been able to get into in either language is Artemis Fowl. That said, though, I've enjoyed quite a few young adult novels in Irish...it's a very approachable genre for learners.

Redwolf