bog-farraige

[bog-farraige]

Never dumb down or Anglicise your name

Every time you do that YOU'RE LETTING THE BRITS WIN

[bog-farraige]

de-anglicized some of my relatives' names for fun and it's filled me with such a sense of peace i'm actually starting to cry and idk why

Máire Ó hUiginn. Léan Nóra Ó Nuadhain. Nóra Ó Cobhthaigh - for my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th great-grandmothers.

Máire Léan - for my great-grandmother, grandmother, and sister.

like... i don't know how to explain the feeling these give. it feels. right.

[bog-farraige]

winding roads // county mayo, ireland // july 2012 // ©

[bog-farraige]

jenanmatari starvation is a colonial tactic and there are years of studies of epigenetics that have made colonizers well aware of what their war crimes today will do to future generations. at least 4 generations in the future if a Palestinian in Gaza survives israel’s forcible starvation campaign today. to protect Palestinian life it’s from river to sea. nothing else.

[bog-farraige]

Is Liomsa an Domhan

Bunteideal: ワールドイズマイン (World is Mine)

Ceol & Liricí: ryo

Amhránaí: Hatsune Miku

An banphrionsa uimhir a haon sa domhan mór,

Caith liom mar seo, an dtuigeann tú?

Uimhir a haon: tabhair faoi deara aon uair a athraím mo stíl ghruaige

Uimhir a dó: féach orm i gceart, ó mo cheann go dtí mo bhróga

An dtuigeann tú?

Uimhir a trí: in aghaidh gach focal a deirim, freagair le trí focail ar a laghad

Má thuigeann tú, déan rud éigin faoi mo lámh dheas fholamh!

Nílim ag rá aon rud leithleach nó rud mar

Níl dada uaim ach tú a cheapadh ó do chroí

Go bhfuil mé gleoite

An banphrionsa uimhir a haon sa domhan mór

Tabhair aird orm! Hé, hé!

Ag coinneáil ag fanacht mé, tá sé sin coiscthe!

Cén sórt duine atá ionam, dar leat?

Ugh, pé rud, tá rud éigin milis uaim

Anois díreach!

“Lochtanna”? Cinnte go bhfuil “gleoite” i gceist agat?

Ní cheadóidh mé do ghearáin

Um, hé? An bhfuil tú ag éisteacht lena rudaí le rá agam? Gabh mo leithscéal…!

Ah, ós ag caint ar sin, chinn tú ar chapall bán dom, sea?

Faigh dom é!

Má thuigeann tú, freastail orm, faigh greim ar mo lámh agus tabhair orm do “bhanphrionsa”

Nílim ag rá aon rud leithleach nó rud mar

Ach is féidir leat tabhair amach dom anois is arís, tá a fhios agat?

Prionsa dom amháin sa domhan mór

Tabhair aird orm! Féach, féach!

Tá mo lámha folamh

Prionsa tostach agus frithshóisialta

Ó, cén fáth?! Déan deifir agus tabhair aird orm!

Ní thuigeann tú rud ar bith! Ní thuigeann tú aon rud…

Milseog bhriosc-chíste le sú talún ar a barr

Maróg glaeúil déanta le huibheacha speisialta

Coinníonn gach duine, gach duine smacht orthu féin…

Ná smaoinigh go bhfuilim i mo chailín leithleach

Is féidir fiú liom é a dhéanamh

Níos déanaí, beidh aiféala ort

Ar ndóigh! I ndeireadh na dála, is mise

An banphrionsa uimhir a haon sa domhan mór

Féach orm i gceart, nó b’fhéidir go rachaidh mé áit éigin eile

Go tobann, rugadh barróg orm. Cad a bhfuil tú ag-! Eh?

“Is beag nár leagadh thú”, arsa tú agus tú ag casadh thart

…tá sé níos dainséaraí mar seo

[bog-farraige]

singing the chorus of Siúil a Rúin to my cat while he sleeps.

tá an saol go maith <3

[bog-farraige]

Irish Shamrock Map ☘️🪡 Cross Stitch Pattern

[bog-farraige]

It is never too late to learn to speak Irish.

You do not have to be Irish to speak Irish.

Once you're out of school, there is no grammar police and most people are just excited to have someone to speak Irish with.

Incorporating Irish words into your day when you're not fluent (I have to go to the leithreas, throw it in the bruscar, that's a gorgeous gúna) is an act of decolonisation.

Helping people to understand the language is an act of love.

Gaeilge go deo ❤️

[bog-farraige]

what do you reccommend for a complete beginner in the states? and how do i pick a dialect to learn/focus on?

this ask is from january, sorry for the delay, I've just been pretty busy In terms of how to start in the states, I'd say look at the resources I've recommended in other posts tagged with #resources, the only thing that will be significantly different outside of ireland is less irish books in libraries, everything else I mention will be similarly accessible.

Choosing a Dialect

I'm of the opinion that you should choose a dialect when learning Irish for 2 reasons.

It helps you to be consistent with pronunciation, which varies a lot between dialects. If you pick one dialect you can check how that word is pronounced on a site like teanglann.ie and immediately know.

It's fun!! Standard Irish is kind of boring, and learning about dialects is a much better window into how Irish is actually spoken in native communities. There's so many interesting traits and features to learn about. Also it kind of fills that primal urge to join a team or a club (Gaelainn na Mumhan abú!)

In terms of how to pick, I think there's a few ways to go about it.

Pick based on the resources available to you. This is super reasonable, if you have a book that teaches connacht Irish and nothing else, maybe focus on connacht Irish.

Pick based on personal ties. Maybe your family comes from Kerry, or you grew up in Mayo, you can choose to learn a dialect based on that.

Pick based on what you like the best. You don't need a 'reason' to learn a specific dialect, listen to the major dialects and see if there's any you like the sound of. If you're a linguistic nerd see if any of the dialects have interesting traits to you. Pick whichever one has the best vibes.

It's important to remember that focusing on a dialect doesn't mean you can never choose to change and learn another dialect in the future, it's just a way of honing the pronunciation and natural-ness of your Irish.

[bog-farraige]

[bog-farraige]

Some interesting words & phrases about rain in irish

Clagarnach baistí - pelting rain

Ag clagarnach ar an díon - rain pattering on the roof

Bogfhearthainn - soft rain

Fliuch go craiceann - soaked to the skin

Breacbháisteach - occasional rain

Seadbháisteach - drizzle of rain

Cídeog - covering your head and shoulders against rain/wind

Spútrach - a downpour of rain, "Splashing rain"

[bog-farraige]

Don't Use Duolingo if You Really Want to Learn Irish

That title is a bit dramatic, but I really don't think that duolingo is a useful tool for Irish, especially in its current state, so I want to talk a bit about why, and I'll also talk about some alternatives.

Pronunciation

The first and most egregious issue is that at some point recently-ish, duo decided to start using Text-To-Speech for their Irish course, rather than recordings of a native speaker. The problem here is that their TTS is not trained on native speakers of Irish and pronounces words incorrectly. It doesn't make consistent distinctions between broad and slender consonants for example.

Irish has no standard pronunciation, so I understand how it can feel weird to choose just one dialect for the purposes of pronunciation (the old recordings were from a speaker of Galway Irish), but having just one dialect is much better than TTS which sounds like a learner, imagine if they had TTS for the French course which sounded like an anglophone schoolkid trying to pronounce french, and claimed they were teaching you how to speak french!

Grammar

Duo tends to be correct on grammar at least, which is a start. But often people using it get very confused about the grammar because duo doesn't explain any of it. I think there's a place for immersion in language learning, and I don't think everything has to be explained like that, but within duo's system of sentence testing and exercises like that, not having any explanation for why it's "mo chóta" and not "mo cóta" can be really confusing. Duo used to have more grammar information, it's a shame that they removed it, I wonder why they did it.

Money and Motivation

Duolingo is a business, and their motivation is not to help you learn a language 'fully', but to keep you using their app and hopefully have a higher chance of sharing it with others, competing with others, buying or causing others to buy memberships or lingots or any other in-app purchases.

I don't want to make it out like duo is some big conspiracy and they're tricking people, I don't think that's the case, but it's good to remember that their primary motivation is to keep people using the app, rather than help people move to a level in a language where they don't need the app anymore.

Keep this in mind whenever you see people trying to sell you stuff for language learning.

Why do people use Duolingo

I do get it, and I don't want to make anyone feel bad for using duo, there's a ton of reasons people tend towards it at first 1. It's really well known, so especially if you're learning a language and haven't heard of other resources for it, you'll check duolingo 2. It's very motivating for a lot of people, checking in every day and forming that habit is a really good way of sticking with a language 3. It's fun, people enjoy it

If you use it for reason 3. and you still like it, then don't worry about this post, I'm not trying to yuck anyone's yums, keep having fun!

If you use it for reasons 1. or 2. you can still keep using it if you like, but I want to suggest some other things which you might find helpful in trying to get to a higher level in Irish.

Other Resources

To address the pronunciation issue, I'd heavily recommend you disregard the pronunciation in duolingo, if you're looking for more reliable sources of pronunciation, I'd look towards recordings of native speakers, you can find that on:

Teanglann and Foclóir (they use the same recordings)

Fuaimeanna

and a really useful and underused one: https://davissandefur.github.io/minimal-pairs/ where you can hear the difference between similar sounds that English speakers often mix up in Irish.

A lot of people like duolingo because it's nice to have a clear path forward, a progression that you can get into without too much decision-making. For this I recommend getting a good textbook or course and working through it, the ones I'll recommend also have native speaker audio on them.

Learning Irish by Mícheál Ó Siadhail, this book teaches Galway Irish, not just in pronunciation but in grammar too. It's quite dense but it's well thought out and well explained.

Teach Yourself Irish (1961) this book is available for free online, and is a really good option if you're interested in Cork Irish (Munster), and have some experience with grammatical terminology. I used this book myself and really liked it, but it's very intense and not for everyone. (If you do end up using it, feel free to skip the appendices at the start, they're more of a reference and sometimes put people off from actually getting to the first chapter. Also if you have any questions about it or need any help just let me know.)

If you want a video course, there's a great course called "Now You're Talking" which is available for free online, along with audio files and worksheets here. It features Donegal Irish and leads into the more intermediate level course called Céim ar Aghaidh also available online.

There's other textbooks that I have less experience with (Buntús na Gaeilge, Gaeilge/Gramadach Gan Stró, etc.) but if they work for you, stick with them, there's nothing worse than not making progress because you keep switching resources trying to find the "perfect one"

Whether or not you continue to use Duolingo, I would really really encourage you to try engaging with media in Irish. People often shy away from this when they're learning because they don't feel like they're "ready" yet. But you basically never feel like you're ready, you just have to try and find something near your level and try to get comfortable with not understanding everything. This is where you learn a huge portion of the language, you hear how things are pronounced you see what words mean in what contexts, getting input in your target language is so important!

I know content can be kind of hard to find, so I'll make a few recommendations here: There's a wealth of content available for free online (more if you're in ireland but some internationally) on TG4 If you're still starting out, I'd recommend trying to watch some kids shows since they'll have simpler language and will be easier to follow. I wouldn't recommend using English subtitles when you watch them. Some good options include:

Dónall Dána: an Irish dub of Horrid Henry, silly and childish but the actors have good Irish and importantly the show has Irish language subtitles, they don't always match but if you're still beginning and can't necessarily get everything by ear, they're really useful. (Mostly Galway Irish)

Curious George: another dub, again with Irish language subtitles (I can't remember what dialects were in it off the top of my head but I'd assume mostly galway again)

Seó Luna: No subtitles, but a good option if you're aiming for Munster Irish, the lead character has Kerry Irish

Miraculous: No subtitles but a better show than most of the other kids' ones and more bearable to watch as an adult (Mostly Galway Irish)

Ros na Rún: Moving away from kids shows, a long running soap opera, this has Irish subtitles and a really good mix of dialects within the show. If you're finding the kids shows boring or too easy I'd really recommend it, but it can be complex because of the amount of characters, dialects, and plotlines. I'd recommend starting at the beginning of a newer season and just trying to catch on to what's happening as you go.

There are a lot of books, if you live in Ireland you can get nearly any Irish book for free from a library, so please check out your local library or request some of these from other libraries in the system:

There's a series of fairytales (Rápúnzell, Luaithríona etc.) by Máiréad Ní Ghráda which are illustrated and for children, which are a really good option for when you're just starting out reading

There's kids books about Fionn and the Fianna by Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin

There's a cute little kids' book in Kerry Irish about a cat named Mábúis

Leabhar Breac has a lot of graphic novels, some of them based on Irish mythology, some on other stuff. The fact that they're illustrated can make it a lot easier to follow even if you don't understand all the words at first.

Gliadar has just released their Scott Pilgrim translation

If you're looking for something a bit more advanced you can look at some of the books for adult learners by Comhar, they contain simplified language and glossaries but have full original adult stories.

And if you're wanting full, natural, native-level Irish there's a load of books by those same groups, and others like An Gúm, Cló Iar-Chonnacht, Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne, Éabhlóid, Coiscéim, and more.

And don't shy away from older books written in Seanchló either, they can be more challenging but it's a whole extra world of books

If you're trying to improve your listening comprehension, I definitely recommend listening to shows on Raidió na Gaeltachta, hearing native Irish speakers talk at full speed is really good practice. But I get that it can be overwhelming at first. Here are some things you can do as you build up to that:

Watching those same TV shows I mentioned without subtitles is a good way to build up listening skills.

Vifax is a website where you can practice listening to short news segments and answer questions on them, then getting to look at the transcript with notes afterwards.

Snas is kind of the evolution of vifax, now using clips from both the news and Ros na Rún.

I really hope that this post can help people move away from duolingo if they're looking to take their Irish learning to the next level, if you've got any questions, just let me know!