Language Learning Using Media

Dia Duit.


Did anyone get a chance to attend the Festival this past week? I hope so.

The Irish are notorious for celebrating their culture and love sharing it with others. I hope you did network and find great people and even materials to connect you to a passion for Ireland here and abroad.

Since this blog is an experiential blog as well as an instructional one, I want to say that it does matter on a day to day basis what you find and are able to utilize in language study. You can also start experiencing Irish in ways you never thought you would be able to before.

This past weekend, I listened to CDs in Irish. A book was also supplied. I had originally purchased the items at Barnes and Noble. The speakers spoke rapidly, but nonetheless asked me to follow along in the text. I tried to do this in the best way possible, but I had to pause the CD and flip back a few pages each time I listened.

The first few selections introduced us to words in Irish...a random selection to get the reader acquainted with pronounciation. I was so happy to have a text to refer to in this case. The words sounded beautiful, but I wanted my eyes to see something tangible. I did recognize a few words, and they were not ones I had previously written here.

I recognized words that were currently in other languages that I had heard while growing up. Some of the languages are rarely spoken here in the USA or elsewhere.
I have a feeling that Irish survives in other languages, whether we realize it or not.

I was reading about the demise of Irish, and two of the biggest factors have been that of majority speakers of English who settled into Irish - spoken areas and that of the famine that wiped out many Irish.

Irish does have that poetic appeal that French and Italian have. So, I was interested in listening and learning it.

Basic conversation was supplied in the text, and so I followed it.

The familiar "dia dhuit" or "dia duit" was listed primarily. This time, it helped to differentiate between the way I would have pronounced it and the way the speakers pronounced it on the tape. I heard myself say it, and then I heard the speakers say it. The greetings all have to do with wishing health, goodness, and God's blessing on those with whom you are conversing.

I sampled the CDs more than actually tackled the subject matter. I wanted to get a gist for what I was in store for during the process of learning.

Unlike Spanish, I may have a tough time retaining the sounds as I do not hear it readily on a day to day basis. I have some supplementary texts as stand bys, but I think that learning it experientially will be motivation enough.

Please stay in contact here, as the readers and I may want to hear about your exploits in language study and how you are actually pursuing it.

Solitaire is a wonderful way to study a language when you are not in school or do not have time to attend a class at this time. That is something you can focus on at a later point.

Slan.