Gaeilge

Would be about 80% fluent.

Was average enough the first few years at school then spent a few summers in the Gaeltacht and learned to love the language.

My niece and nephew are both in Irish schools and whilst their Dad is fluent ,my sister wouldnt have a word.Dont know what the policy is exactly,seems to be swept under the carpet a bit and not talked about.Was told before that its to keep foreign kids out.This sounds like a bit of a conspiracy theory idea but its not when you think about it.When i was growing up The Irish school in my town was the smallest school in the town,one room,only opened in the 80's.Now its the biggest school in town  by far and everyone i know has kids in it or is planning on sending them there.

My old school which was considered posh at the time now has students from all over the world with varying degrees of English all in the one class thus creating a very difficult learning environment and in many cases leaving the students at a disadvantage when they hit for secondary school.


Edited by kimbap - 03 Jan 2014 at 2:11pm

The problem is that we're made to learn stories and comprehensions, something that isn't done when learning French. 

I'm maybe 50% fluent but improving gradually and at my own comfortable pace. I practice speaking Irish every chance I get and have been doing this for the last year or so. I don't get tied up with writing and grammer. I just speak what I know and never worry about mistakes. It's really amazing the stuff that comes back to you also.

I use TG4 a lot and there is the Gael Taca café in Sullivans Quay in Cork. I also spend two or three hours a week in the library learning new words and phrases from dictionaries that I might use later in the Gael Taca.

One thing I used to find really helpful was the sport as gaeilge section that used to come out every Thursday (I think) with the Star. It had it's own new vocabulary sections and some very well written articles. I would love to know if this will be continued. Maybe some of the guys on the forum would know as I know that some of the lads work there. But either way the main thing for me is to practice the cupla focail every chance I get both at home with the family and outside on the street.

Edited by Trapcandoit - 04 Jan 2014 at 9:51pm

When in college I did my work placement in the local irish school. Wasnt my choice as I'm far from fluent but had no other choice. 1st few weeks were tough had kids of 5/6 speaking better irish than me. Over the weeks I found my own level of the language increasing but would still like to improve it more. There were children from foreign families in the school I was in but would imagine they were born here and they had a great grasp of the language

The Huntacha wrote: Agree with both planning and corkery's points. I good enough at it in school but took the dim view a lot of us had of "Sure why do I need to know that" and "I'll never have to use it again". It's only as you get older that you have an appreciation for it, after all it's part of our culture etc and to call myself Irish and not be able to speak it sickens me. It's taught very bad in the schools though and hopefully it gets revised. Learning about King Lir and all those other stories in Irish is a waste of time when most students struggle to hold a conversation.

Edited by kopkid - 05 Jan 2014 at 12:32pm

kopkid wrote: Revised primary curriculum in 1999. Can't speak for second level education but I'd say the reason there is an expectancy to learn stories for the LC is that by the time pupils reach that stage they will have had 11/12 years of learning the language so I'd imagine being able to hold a conservation is the minimum requirement. That's not me trying to be a smart arse btw but I think the huge level of apathy and sure 'I'll never use it anyway' play a part.

This is it. When you start learning a European language in your first year of secondary school, the expectation is that you have zero knowledge of that language, so you start with the basics, learning words, phrases etc, through things like cartoons and tapes and stuff like that.

I would say I had a pretty decent level of Irish leaving primary school as in I could understand, write and hold a broken conversation in it.

Tir gan teanga Tir gan anam