IRISH LANGUAGE Q&A

Q&A le Siobhán Agus Gabrielle – Friday 19 June, 7pm

Shownotes

June’s Live Q&A with Gabrielle and Siobhán took place on Friday 19 June at 7pm (Irish time). Watch it above!

Irish is what’s called a VSO, which stands for Verb, Subject, Object. A simple example of this is the sentence Rinne Máire arán. Máire made bread, or literally, made Máire bread. Other languages with the same basic word order are Arabic, classical Hebrew, and Hawaiian, to name but a few. 

The Relative Clause (an clásal coibhneasta), can also be quite tricky to get the hang of. This refers to more complex sentence structures, such as An bord ar a bhfuil an leabhar = the table on which the book is.

1. An Foclóir Póca (Paperback)

“Foclóir Póca” means “Pocket Dictionary”. It’s quite a good little dictionary and does both directions of English-Irish and Irish-English. It also has over 30,000 words and examples and a handy grammar section at the back, including a concise grammar guide and verb conjugations. If you’re looking to get a dictionary for learning to speak Irish, this one is a very reasonable investment.

2. De Bhaldraithe (Paperback)

A classic English to Irish Gaelic dictionary (the headwords are in English). The latest editions we’ve seen are in paperback. Also available to use for free online at teanglann.com.

3. Ó Dónaill (Paperback And Hardback)

A classic Irish Gaelic to English dictionary (the headwords are in Irish). Also available to use for free online at teanglann.com.

The above are available on Litriocht.com, as well as on other online stores. Also available in most good Irish bookshops.

P.S. What did you learn from this Q&A? Leave a comment below!

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5 thoughts on “Q&A le Siobhán Agus Gabrielle – Friday 19 June, 7pm”

  1. James W. Mulligan

    Overall Duolingo is a good introduction to a language, however, the audio can become difficult (Irish), e.g.: Tá an t-ádh orm. As the natural speaker may slur the article, “an” [phoneme -“a”], to the untrained ear this sounds like “Ta ta om.” The student can easily become frustrated. In addition, asking a question is difficult. Why can’t I say, “Táim an t-ádh.” or “Tá an t-ádh mé.” And is there a big difference if the article is omitted? These questions can only be asked after a lesson has been completed. If a student stops for each question, it would take forever to complete a lesson.

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