A chairde,

I've been around the past few years on other Irish learning boards and various mailing lists like GAEILGE-B and received a redirect tip to here from the fine people at IGTF.

I began learning foreign languages with German back in '76, enjoyed Spanish in high school, most seriously studied a language (Russian) at DLI and university, and started picking up others just for the fun of it.

I took up Irish in the 90s when I saw Ó Siadhail's Learning Irish at a Barnes and Noble and bought it, cassettes and all. It's been slow going as I've had no one in the area (rural Illinois) that shares the interest, though I did get the occasional bit of help in the beginning from soc.culture.irish Also, Gaeilge's a bit different from other languages I've studied and work keeps me busy. I've slowly absorbed enough grammar, vocab, and syntax so I'm able to understand some beginners material and had a few chuckles during the film The Eagle. These days I believe the Irish number system is crazier than that of Russian. At least Irish is not as difficult with its cases as Estonian. Buíochas le Dia!

I hope to keep on gleaning those fine bits of info and share my own discoveries here. ILF abú!

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I'm a beginner, so corrections and suggestions are much appreciated!
"What? First we give a month to black history, now we're blowing seven days on the Irish!"
Pierce, upon hearing about Green Week

A Yobar, a chara. Fáilte romhat anall, i bhfus, agus isteach.

I can relate to the slow absorption of Irish - I started in the 80s but only had limited contact with Irish while living in Japan.

Strangely enough, there are parallels to the Irish number system in Japanese with personal forms corresponding to duine, beirt, triúr, and contact mutations that cause the initial sound of the following word to change, though the changes are closer to Welsh in that they jump all over the place - Irish is regular by comparison.

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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).

And in Irish (apart from beirt), there is at least some kind of obvious connection between the different sets of numerals. Not like in Japanese, where they just took over the numbers from a completely different language and intermingled them with their own.



(Also, I just upgraded to Safari 5.1.1, and that poor little dog smiley out on the left is now running at about four times its usual speed … must be exhausting!)



(Oh. As I was writing that, it just suddenly stopped running altogether, mid-step. I guess it got tired.)

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Not a native speaker.

Always wait for at least three people to agree on a translation, especially if it’s for something permanent.

My translations are usually GU (Ulster Irish), unless CO (Standard Orthography) is requested.

Go raibh míle maith agat, a Bhreandáin! Tá áthas orm go bhfuil mé anseo.

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I'm a beginner, so corrections and suggestions are much appreciated!
"What? First we give a month to black history, now we're blowing seven days on the Irish!"
Pierce, upon hearing about Green Week