Q&A Le Siobhán Agus Aisling – Thursday January 21st 2021

Watch back January’s Live Q&A with Aisling and Siobhán above!

Here are some notes and links from the Q&A:

• Irish for Families:
  • Tógaimis le Gaeilge iad Facebook group for parents who are raising their children through Irish
  • Bitesize Irish’s Gaeilge for Families 
  • Gaschaint: Irish phrases throughout the day (book)
  • Irish for Parents

• Text and audio:
  • Leighleat.com – stories with both text and audio.
  • Scéalta do pháistí le Glór na nGael – children’s books read aloud, includes both text
  • Fabhalscéalta do Leanaí – fairy tales read aloud, includes both text and audio.
  • Nuacht mhall – the weekly news read slowly. A transcript and a glossary is in the episode description. 
  • Vifax – Practice your Irish with clips from the daily news on TG4 (Irish language TV) on vifax.nuim.ie. There’s also a worksheet available for each clip, including a transcript of the audio on the last page of the pdf.

• “Best piece of advice you have received during your Irish language learning journey”:
  • Aisling:
    • My friend who is a native speaker said to see what sounds better when trying to figure out the genitive. For example, bun + cathaoir = bun na cathaoireach (bottom of the chair), bun + sráid = bun na sráide (bottom of the street).
    • Also, a lecturer once said to us you are either learning a language or losing it. And at first I thought it was very daunting but it reframes how we view fluency. We are always learning, we aren’t racing to an end point. 
  • Siobhán:
    • Listening a ton and reading a ton.
    • Forcing yourself to find the correct phrase or word for something instead of using the English term when speaking is a great way to improve your Irish if you have someone to practice your Irish with, be that in person or online, in spoken or written form.
    • There’s never any shame in looking up the dictionary which is now a thousand times easier with the online dictionaries teanglann.ie and focloir.ie.

• Cuid
  • You use cuid when the noun is in the plural e.g.: mo chuid leabhar = my books
  • Also used when the noun is in its singular form or when talking of things that are quantifiable: e.g.: do chuid Gaeilge = your Irish, ár gcuid airgid = your money, mo chuid bainne = my milk
  • the noun that follows cuid is in the genitive: airgead = money/silver, but ár gcuid airgid = your money
  • though cuid is not necessarily supposed to be used for a solid, inherent quality/property (e.g. body parts).(mo chosa = my feet) you will still often see and hear it used like this.
  • Cuid is also used to mean a share of something so do chuid Gaeilge could be translated as “your share of Irish“.

• ag cur + noun
  • ag cur fearthainne / ag cur báistí – raining
  • ag cur sneachta – snowing
  • ag cur fola – bleeding
  • ceobhrán – drizzle
    • Tá ceobhrán ann – It’s drizzly
  • Ceobháisteach – heavy drizzle
    • Tá ceobháisteach ann / Tá sé ag cur ceobháistí (possibly)- it’s drizzling heavily
  • ag cur cloichshneachta – “hailstoning”
  • ag cur flichshneachta – sleeting
  • ag cur seaca – freezing (frost forming)
    • sioc – frost (seaca is the genitive form)