Learning Irish: An Introductory Self-Tutor

One of the reasons I ordered this book was that it was pictured with CDs. The narrative mentioned cassette tapes - either way I would have been happy, but I got neither. This is a difficult language to learn - having learned some while a child living in Ireland - and to hear it is essential I think.

This is great for those learning Irish, there’s even a pronunciation chart for the alphabet and some letter combinations. I will say this book does sometimes have some older words that may not be used commonly anymore and their may be some more modern alternatives.

If your intention is to learn the language and not just how to throw out "help-me-I-need-directions" phrases, this is the way to go. Make sure you get the set with the tapes. Irish pronunciation is absolutely unconscionable. Fathomless, I tell you! Why on earth put all those letters in the middle or end of the word if you just already know you're not going to bother pronouncing them?? I digress. This book has one downfall. It teaches a little bit parts to whole. One lesson will tell you the vocabulary word "say" as in "they say." Many lessons later you learn "say" as in "I say." Rather than learning conjugation, you learn the word. HOWEVER, you do eventually learn conjugation (oh, dear, do you ever!), and you kinda hafta know some already conjugated words to make sentences more interesting than "there is a dog." Irish grammar is freakish, even more so than the strange at-the-end-of-the-sentence-is-a-verb German. Sometimes to express an action you use the English "to be" (Ta). This book walks you through it all. I do every lesson, copy the vocab to cards, practice the cards all the time, and listen to the blasted cassettes every time I'm in the car. So, every now and then, I take my husband's car....Anyways, it's really quite intense. Do not enter into this lightly! This is a language in dire straits. You can become a speaker and help to keep it alive.

Irish, the ancient language of Ireland, is still a living language and spoken as the native tongue on the western seabord of Ireland; it is a language extremely rich in culture and literature. Today a revival is taking place in Ireland, and more and more people outside the traditional Irish-speaking areas are once again learning the tongue of their ancestors. The same revival is also taking place abroad - many Irish speakers can be found outside Ireland. My grandmother, who was a native speaker, emigrated from Co. Cork while still young, but she never forgot her language. I learned quite a bit from her, and have had a burning interested in Irish since then.When it comes to learning Irish, there is no other book that could match this brilliant book by Ó Siadhail. Indeed, I doubt there is any language course in any other language that equals it. It starts of from the absolute beginnings and take the learner through 36 extensive lessons. After having completed these lessons the learner should be quite confident in speaking an Irish ranging far beyond just daily topics. Every chapter consists of four parts: a vocabulary, thorough grammar explanations, a text and excersises. The structure is perfectly logic, always building on what the learner already knows. The course advances quite fast, but never makes any sudden leaps. Thus, the learner never feels that he suddenly finds himself in troubbles due to not understanding the words or the grammar. The language taught in the course is natural spoken Irish, so the learner will be perfectly accustomed to hearing natural and idiomatic Irish.In fact, even for a fluent Irish speaker this course is a catch, since it is so extensive as to be considered one of the best descriptions of the Irish dialect of Conamara. Thus, even after completing the book, the learner can come bakc to it again and again.I definitely recommend this wonderful book to everyone who wishes to learn this wonderful language

Three years ago I decided to learn Irish, and in the next two years I bought three different courses. The first two were simply useless, (that's the obvious reason for my buying new courses) you could learn some phrases, but not construct sentences yourself.Learning Irish, on the other hand, is an excellent book, which gives you a thorough vocabulary and grammatical knowledge. It consists of 36 lessons, all containing vocabularies, grammar instructions, texts and excercises. The cassets which accompany the course are recorded by native speakers, and gives you the exact pronouciation of the Irish spoken in Connemara and the Aran Islands.Learning Irish is a very demanding course, but when you have completed it, you will be able to communicate confidently in Irish. (This is the only Irish language course of which I would say so). The different topics in the lessons make sure that you will be able to cope with all kinds of situation in Irish, and will take you far deeper into the Irish Culture than just a basic knowledge.I went to live in Ireland for two months after completing this course, and I spent a good part of that time in na Gaeltachtaí, the Irish-speaking areas, and I didn't have to use English even once. My nextdoor neighbour was a native Irish-speaker, and the Irish he spoke is exactly the same as is used in this course.If you are really serious about learning Irish, this course is for you.(P.S. Do NOT buy only the casettes, they are only intended to help with your pronounciation!)

Date: Sunday, February 06, 2000As someone who had started before on various other courses, I found LEARNING IRISH simply excellent. You get the feeling from the beginning that the author is building your confidence while introducing you step by step to the Irish language. The boxed-off tables in the initial lessons are particularly useful. The build up of the vocabulary and the gradual introduction of the two verbs 'to be' and the handling of the noun are all outstanding. The texts attached to each lesson give it a life and context which is most helpful.This is a course with no gimmicks. It's demanding but it works. The cassettes which accompany the book are clear and natural and I found them very helpful. I recommend LEARNING IRISH heartily to anyone who wishes to learn the Irish Language.

Mícheál Ó Siadhail's "Learning Irish" is, quite simply, the text book we all started with who are now entering the Irish-speaking life. It teaches a living dialect of the labguage, instead of maintaining the fiction of the existence of a standard language outside the pulpits of official scribes. It also jettisons boldly those features of the standard grammar which are not alive anymore in spoken Irish. This is, of course, a mixed blessing. On the one hand it makes the learners more friendly towards native spoken Irish - no more written-language pedants with a hideous accent trying to tell the natives how they should speak Irish. On the other hand, reading literature after this course may require some readjustments to the more complex morphology of the written language. However, the book duly highlights the most difficult and idiomatic features of Irish grammar, instead of leaving the learner with a developed "what's it in English" syndrome, as too many textbooks do, thus producing intermediate learners with a better-than-native grasp of the genitive, but with no idea at all of the distinction between the two verbs "to be". Ó Siadhail firmly tells us about the most idiomatic parts of Irish, equipping us very well to meet the reality of the Gaeltacht.