Exactly, that is normal language aquisition in young children.
They don't learn the "why" of it until much later.

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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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Yeah, and in the languages that are only spoken and not taught in schools (ie. most languages of the world), children never learn grammar rules, they just speak and they speak right because they speak as they have heard. Their parents don't explain to them that this form is in the genitive case or whatever, they say "that's the way one should speak" and that's all, and it works
Actually, we all learn our mothertongue and are able to speak it quite properly before we learn its grammar at school and before we learn how to write and read it, and our parents don't explain grammar to us, they say "that's" the way we say" and we ask "why?", our parents answer "because that's the way it is" And we manage to speak properly anyway (more quickly than children who are meant to learn a language at school ). A child can speak his mothertongue quite properly when he is 7. Now, most Irish young people can't say a sentence of Irish after 10 years learning Irish at school

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

I believe they should have specialised fluent Irish teachers in National school. Instead of the haphazard system that it is now, with fluent teachers and other teachers that have less Irish than the kids themselves. These dedecated teachers could service more than one one school in the area. It is at this young age that kids learn language naturally, later it becomes much harder. It is also the time to introduce another language like French.
It is possibly to revive the language if the government had the inclination to do so. Look at how good the Welsh are at promoting their language.

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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.
___________________________________________________________

I can see that specialised Irish teachers may well be the future. While I can see huge benefits, one downside is that primary teaching will be yet another job that will no longer require Irish. It seems that when they took it away as a criterion for the civil service, it damaged the language. Having said that, it would be wonderful to have the next generation taught by fluent speakers from the start. A small step would be to insist that part of the training for primary school teachers be through Irish. It is not unreasonable, surely?

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I whole heartedly agree with everything every one has posted here. I'm keeping this post short as I could ramble on for hours.
Specialised fluent Irish teachers in National school is the way forward. Bríd for president? (ochtar sa rás?) But as Bríd says the government could do a lot more for the language if it had the inclination, it knows it's not working, the tactic at the moment is trying to get schools to use Gaeilge as a lnigua franca * see frásaí na seachtaine. (Then the inspectors tell us we all have to speak Irish and all will be ok - yeah, right)
Bríd is a rock of common sense, unfortunately these days common sense is not that common.
Bríd is right, at the moment it's so haphazard, it's all over the place.

I don't want to put down all new teachers to 'the system', because that would be very unfair and untrue too Those that have Gaeilge are just fantastic. But when you ask a fairly basic question to a relatively young teacher 'as Gaeilge' you see their eyes widen and then glaze over because they don't understand what you have said, you do wonder?

Saoirse is right too, about the civil service.


Oops I forgot who said about spelling versus talking Irish. I am not good at spelling Irish, I have gotten better over the years, but 'goile' is 'come here for me'! Agus tá chuile rud togh - Every thing is fine . Correct my spelling please......I only learned my Conamara Irish by listening.

Lugaidh - I suppose in speech we all use a bit of bad/incorrect grammar, so maybe I am cool after all! (at me being cool!)
You are totally right - good Irish leads to children speaking good Irish.

At present the teaching of Irish in English medium schools is given the allotted time:-

Infant classes - 2 hours and 30 minutes a week
Ist - 6th Class - 3 hours and 30 minutes a week

Personally I don't think this is enough time to acquire a language. I wouldn't be able to acquire but a few words myself if this was the amount of time I was taught in a week.

You are also suppose "to do" frásaí na seachtaine".Then throw in the odd seanfhocal as well. In theory this is an aspiration. Most schools only pay lip service to it. Basically some schools do and some schools don't - haphazard as Bríd says. The English medium schools that really make an effort and try so hard to get conversational Irish up and running, get rapped on the knuckles because the stats for English attainments are not high enough. Sighs - you never seem to win.

Maybe this discussion is in the wrong thread, apologies to the people who run this site if it is.
But then to/towards? It's a good title for our discussion. What are we 'toward's in the future of Irish - it's not about us - because we see the value of the language and its richness. I wonder what those who don't have a love for the language think?

I don't want to or mean to offend anyone about what I have posted, it's just the way I see things at the moment. So all thoughts are more than welcome, it's only through cómhrá we get a better notion of all the issues - and there are not complicated - but then again maybe they are but tá siad go léir fite fuaite lena chéile, dar liomsa ar aon nós.

Wouldn't ye all love to see a long post! Only joking.

Tá an deireadh seachtaine ag tíocht, Buíochas le Dia

Well said Síofra !


The buck stops at the government.

and thanks for the compliment

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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.
___________________________________________________________

In languages, the concepts of correct and incorrect isn't really what most people think.
In linguistics, something is correct in a language/dialect when it is considered correct by the people who speak the language/dialect.
Which means : there are things that are wrong according to Standard English, but they are right in the English of Belfast or whatever. And vice-versa. You can't judge the correctness of a sentence by comparing it with rules that don't exist in the dialect.
Since I'm not too good at English dialects I'll give an Irish example:

"leis an bhfuinneog" is wrong in Ulster Irish. But it is right in Connachta and Munster Irish.
Native speakers don't make mistakes in their dialect, except when they splutter (when they are tired, drunk or whatever ) (or except children who don't master their dialect yet). They know what is right and what isn't in their dialect and they wouldn't make a mistake again if they say their sentence a second time.

So when you say "we all make mistakes", I guess you mean "we all use non-standard things when you speak". Which is right, and linguistically speaking, they are not mistakes, just non-standard things. And anyway a standard dialect is not a better dialect, it's just a dialect that has been chosen as the standard one simply for social or political reasons (like it is spoken by rich people or it is spoken in the area where the capital is), not because it's better.

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

I totally get what you are saying Lughaidh and I agree with it. I wonder, however, if accepting as a dialect what most people would consider as erroneous is the correct thing to do. I'm thinking of certain things that I hear in (Dublin) English that would only be said by a fairly small subset of people. 'I'll learn ye' instead of 'I'll teach you' - although this phrase is now said commonly in jest. 'I writ' instead of 'I wrote'.

There are common mistakes which the average educated person might be heard to make. Confusing 'infer' with 'imply' for example. Or saying 'I totally refute that statement' without actually refuting it! The point I'm trying to make is that native speakers don't always have to be right even if a good number of them get it 'wrong' consistently.

What often happens, of course. is that a usage that is considered incorrect, becomes accepted eventually.

I do accept that a dialect - by its nature - does not need to be compared to any official standard in order to judge the correctness/validity of any part of it. If anything it should be the other way round, with the official standard grounded in the reality (of one version?) of the spoken language.

In linguistics, it is. Now, it doesn't mean that dialects should be used in all contexts, especially when these dialects are considered as substandard by most people (but this is because of social classes, not for linguistic reasons).



Fairly small but it doesn't mean it is wrong. I guess there are more people who speak like that, than people who speak Muskerry Irish . And Muskerry Irish isn't wrong



That is meaning change and use change, that's how languages change. One day, all these mistakes may be considered as correct English by most people and it'll become the norm.



go díreach.

Often, teachers tell their pupils "don't say that, it's not good English/French/whatever". But actually they should say "don't say that here, it's not standard English (...) and you shouldn't use it in certain contexts".

The difference between English and Irish, I guess, is that when you use countryside (or suburb etc) dialects when talking English, you sound like a farmer/worker and people have prejudices about the people of the countryside/suburbs etc. In Irish, all dialects are countryside ones and all dialects are considered correct, nobody will make fun at you if you talk Dunquin Irish or Ranafast Irish or Aran Irish. We are quite lucky with that, actually (anyway if someone ever made fun at me when I speak Gaoth Dobhair Irish... )

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

That’s rather a sliding scale, though. At some point, an expression becomes so limited that it’s no longer even dialect or sociolect, but pure idiolect—and if ‘most people’ refers to pretty much every native speaker of a given language/dialect, then it makes sense to say that the form or construction being viewed by ‘most people’ as erroneous is in fact erroneous in that language/dialect.

For example, in the paternal part of my family, we tend to switch initial letters of words in some fixed expressions. Instead of the standard phrase så vidt jeg husker ‘as far as I remember’, we normally say så hudt jeg visker, which would literally translate as ‘as skinly as I erase’, though it just really doesn’t mean anything when analysed. In the idiolect of me, my father, my aunt, and my grandfather, these are perfectly allowed and normal forms (I actually use them unconsciously and would never use the standard forms unless I think about what I’m saying); but for just about every other speaker of any Danish dialect, the forms make no sense and sound very odd, though they understand what the intended meaning is. So here, it makes sense to say that these are not existing words in the Danish language or any of its dialects; they’re purely idiolectal.

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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.