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08/24/10 |
Gazette |
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The GaelMinn Gazette is a monthly e-newsletter from Gaeltacht Minnesota. The Gazette carries news of interest to local and regional students, as well as helpful items for anyone who is studying the Irish language, anywhere.To sign up, go to our subscription form here.
This e-zine is a supplement to our eight-page print newlsetter, An Gaeilgeoir, which is mailed to subscribers four times a year ($12 subscription). Go here for more information about An Gaeilgeoir, including a link to a subscription form you can mail in with your check.
Issue #63, sent out August 25, 2010
A company in Dublin, Dúrud Teoranta, has applied some support from Foras na Gaeilge to establish a new web site that will be helpful to most Irish students. The site name and URL are the same: scriobh.ie .
The purpose of this web site is to pull together a variety of tools, mostly related to dictionaries, fonts, spell checking, and the like. You can read through the site as Gaeilge, in English, or in "Gaeilge Shimplí," a kind of tooltip-assisted Irish (similar to the BEO approach).
Some sections are not fully developed, some tools don't really exist yet, but there is a lot of information conveniently packed into one spot where a student can quickly find what he or she is looking for.
And there are several documents that you would have paid for in the past, but that are now available as free services or files.
Here are some highlights of the key sections:
Irish Language Tab:
The Correction Tab has information on spellchecking and, again, using An Foclóir Beag for grammatical forms.
The Translation Tab give you links to online dictionaries, among other things. Focal.ie is probably the best of these, a very useful resource. Dineen's online version is searchable and a wonderful resource for advanced students. There is also a link to a placename dictionary, if we can call it that.
(Note that there is also a link to the English-Irish dictionary at irishdictionary.ie. While entries at this site provide a lot of information, unfortunately some of that information is not very reliable. And why waste space on listings for conditional perfect and indicative pluperfect tenses in a verb listing for Irish? Use with caution -- some great stuff here, especially to remind you of something you already know, but as a primary resource, don't count on every spelling, definition, or usage to be accurate.)
The Typefaces Tab points you to a variety of fonts if you are looking for that seanchló (old style font) look.
Under Other Projects, you'll find:
Explore the site a little so you know where to find the most useful tools for your needs. Tools vary somewhat in quality, and not every tool is useful for every student.
But you are bound to find something there that can help you with your Irish language studies, and having these items pulled together in one spot can save you a lot of time when you need writing or translation tools. Definitely worth a look!
For those interested in joining our Monday evening classes, but who have no previous experience with the Irish language, we are offering our "Introduction to Irish Gaelic" during October of 2010. The course is offered through Saint Paul Community Education.
Classes run the four Mondays of October, 7-9 p.m. Completing all four sessions allows you to continue with our Monday evening classes for as long as you like.
You must register through Community Ed, not by contacting us. Visit their web site to register online. Online registration is expected to open September 3, and it usually fills very quickly for this class.
We had a great crew of volunteers on Harriet Island in mid-August. The weather was challenging, but spirits were high, and Gaeltacht Minnesota was very well represented in conversations about learning Irish, and, of course, in giving hundreds of people lovely new Irish names for the day.
We were delighted to see some of our newer students jump in!
And we are especially grateful to Maureen, for a lot of time spent in the booth and more time outside the booth coordinating our volunteer schedule, and to Shari, a nearly constant presence in the tent. Both of these individuals provide endless good cheer to volunteers and visitors alike.
For an exceptional learning experience, in a beautiful place at the perfect time of year, set your sights on Madison, Wisconsin, the weekend of October 15-17 (Fri-Sun). The Celtic Cultural Center of Madison has long held one of the premier Irish language weekends anywhere.
Besides a first rate class experience, you get to enjoy a cool, colorful autumn weekend in a spectacular lakeside setting. And there's a discount for early registration.
Stop by the Celtic Cultural Center's Web Site for details about the weekend, and to download your registration form.
For current students, our regular weekly Monday evening classes will resume at Central on September 13.
Gaeltacht Minnesota students, if you have knowledge or experiences you would like to share in a Community Education class, let us know. Course descriptions for the winter and spring terms are due by September 15.
We've learned a few things in our Monday night classes -- from both instructors AND students.
Being a naysayer can be annoying to your conversational partners, but great practice for your Irish language abilities. Simply disagree with everything anyone else says!
Learning to use the negative forms of Irish statements and questions takes some time. First, there are particles like ní, níor, and nach to deal with, and mutations to handle.
Second, and more important, is the fact that we just don't use the negative as much as we do the affirmative. Listen to yourself speaking in your native tongue all day, and you will quickly discover that the number of statements and questions that convey what is NOT done, what is NOT the case, are only a small fraction of your daily output.
So it takes some additional effort to master those negative forms. But it is not very easy to come up with original statements in the negative.
It is much easier to negate what someone else says, or writes!
The next time you are making small talk, asking how someone is, you may you get the response, "Tá mé go maith." Immediately respond with "Níl tú go maith." When someone says s/he went someplace, "Chuaigh mé go ...", repeat that with "Ní dheachaigh tú ..." When someone states that "D'ól Pól pionta," you follow up with "Níor ól Pól pionta."
Do the same thing with your reading, not for every sentence, but for randomly selected statements in your texts or other materials. Simply try to rewrite an affirmative statement exactly as it is, except that you work that all important "not" in there, and make any necessary adjustments (mutations, etc.).
Naturally, you'll need a little tolerance from the people you are chatting with. But encourage them to be naysayers at the same time, and you will all get a lot of practice, and you can help one another with corrections to advance your learning even more quickly.
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