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Collecting Key Words—A Germanist's Approach to Irish Vocabulary

Context: In 2019/2020 was struggling (and failing)—as a massive bookworm who is heavily used to learning foreign languages by reading literature + applying clear pronunciation—to parse out sentences enough to read Irish translations of books like An Hobad, nó Anonn Agus ar Ais Arís and An Leon, an Bandraoi agus an Prios Éadaigh, together with their English originals.

Given the challenge of recognising word families and forms in context, I thought to collect key words related to Merlin/the Middle Ages because of how often I thought they were likely to appear in the project itself. My hypothesis was that by becoming functionally proficient at using verbs in the aimsir chaite (simple past tense) by writing what I saw while watching the first episode of BBC's Merlin on repeat, I would develop enough of an understanding of sentence structure/narrative style in order to read texts and bridge the A2-B1 gap.

It should be noted that I was coming at Irish from a Germanic-languages background (I teach German grammar and study English historical forms) in addition to other declension-heavy languages, so including this grammatical information seemed only logical to me, even though, as already stated, my main focus was working with Irish verbs. I had hoped to use this list as high frequency baseline examples which would exemplify subtle grammar rules, encourage me to notice their features in different contexts based on my pre-existing knowledge of what that specific form meant, and allow me to apply it in other nouns which shared the same gender/case marker without shifting my deep-dive focus from verbs to nouns at the level I was working with at that time.

I feel looking back that I could have been more strategic when it came to using these high frequency words to my benefit. For example, it would have been really helpful to make notecards with related words on them together with the grammatical information so that I could use them at a glance. I also think that list formats were not always suitable (or easy to read) based on the hotchpotch way in which I often put them together. I would have also done well to digitise my vocabulary lists in the same central document(s) I was writing the project in, rather than play vocabulary hunt for the right list (that, at least, improved over time when I discovered the wonderful world of using tab inserts and keeping a digital index of where I could find a specific vocabulary list).

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Some Context about the Tionscadal Merlin

(English)

Prefatory note: The Merlin Project is a learner-driven creative writing and translation project in Irish at the A2-B1 level completed by me, (main: @polysprachig) and checked, in part, by my Irish teachers during the pandemic. Objective: Watch an episode of the last show you watched on repeat, write what you see, add new vocabulary/structures, correct on your own or with a teacher and repeat. Links: The project and all its 2020-2022-made elements can be read here on my project website (no ads, should export to PDF but sometimes the story itself may get slightly cropped if you try to print/export, which I'm still trying to fix from a tech pov; if you're on chrome you should be able to view the full story text easily in reader mode and copy/paste it to a word doc; also, it's formatted for both mobile and desktop)

The last time I was in the Gaeltacht, Mí Lúnasa 2023 (i.e. August), I rounded off an Irish-English presentation on the project and how to complete it for yourself with the following slide and asked the students, teachers, administrators and other Irish-speakers in attendance to take 3-5 minutes to discuss their answers.

As you can imagine, some groups joked that it had to be the first one, and on that point, my presentation was slides ahead of them:

Because to be honest, it was. To some extent—Not that I need to sell Merlin to anyone on Tumblr dot com, but I watched the whole thing for the first time during the pandemic and was just so 🥰🥹😭 at its heartfelt tragicomic whimsy, charming (if not often cheeky) characters, interesting storylines, use of Old English (I'm a Germanist by degree), wacky & wise *sin-seanMerlin* crack (as we called Merlin when he aged himself up) and all the rest, and I really think it brought my household joy to watch together at the height of COVID.

In reality though, all, but one, of my project objectives are reflected here, the missing one being that I was trying to go from A2-B1 level in Irish—my 2020 language learning goals related to make strategic progress across my main five languages, which includes Irish—although this was made clear earlier on in the presentation.

Part of the difficulty in figuring out how best to share the project and its elements has always come back to managing the student-teacher-polyglot perspective that I used to approach it, but I've been brainstorming on how to relay that for a while now and plan to approach it with range/flexibility in mind.

That said, I'll be heavily relying on using effective tags in this Tumblr archive of the project, since the scope is rather extensive. <3

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Merlin Project Archive: Prep Work

D'oscail mé m'fhillteán leis an tionscadal Merlin anocht. Bhí a lán rudaí istigh ann—71 objects mar grianghraif, notaí, 's doiciméid leis an scéal agus an dialóg. Rinne mé fillteáin nua agus thug mé ainm '202__ MP Materials' orthu chun a bheith in ann amlíne an scéil a chur le chéile. Níl gach rud atá ceangailte leis an tionscadal ar mo ríomhaire glúine agus mar sin, níl siad fós i m'fhillteán, ach tosóidh mé dul trí na rudaí atá fós ann.

I opened my Merlin project folder this evening. There were a lot of things in it—71 objects like pictures, notes, and documents with the story and the dialogue. I made new folders and named them '202__ MP Materials' so as to be able to put together a timeline of the project. Not all of the elements relating to the project are on my laptop, and so there are things which are not yet in my folder, but I'll start by going through the things that are already there.

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28.09.2023 | Mediaeval narrators and fun reflections on quarantine writings

I don't know when the shift happened exactly, but sometime during the pandemic my learning objective of writing and correcting in order to practise this or that grammar rule morphed into writing and narrating in an attempt to both channel Chrétien de Troyes and act as a somewhat snarky rival (some 830 years too late) given the fact that the Romans de la table ronde, my plague escapist literature at the time, featured too many lengthy descriptions of who was sitting where at Arthur's table.

Still, while listing out my favourite lines and those which I found particularly tricky to write in my polyglot journal, I realised that the silly, opinionated narrator was one of the most enjoyable things to work on first in Irish, but then in the English translation—particularly when the project threatened to get too tedious.

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26.09.2023 | Indexing past notes

A rudimentary table of contents to be transposed into the scrawled-in notebook above it

All throughout the quarantine my grammatical topic of choice was the simple past tense for type 1 Irish verbs. At least, this was what I was predominately studying on my own, followed closely by work with various sentence structures to make my manner of expression a little bit more complex. But the notes I took during lessons with my teachers, in the present indexing of them, highlight the core structures of that cavernous void where A2 and B1 secretly intersect, both the most essential and the most satisfying once one is able to use them for oneself at that level. Topics easy enough to understand, yet challenging enough to require mountains of additional practice for easy application to speech and writing, because, well, what else is the A2-B1 gap supposed to be if not full of new words and demanding of repetition?

Also, I'm 100% convinced that I have a missing planner and notebook from 2020 located in some mysterious location, so in addition to indexing... it looks like a scavenger hunt is in the cards for the near future.

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17.03.2024 | lá fhéile Pádraig sona daoibh and some borderline Merlin fanfiction in Irish ☘️🍄

*Currently learning to record and working on my reader voice—without dropping my mixed accent

Sometimes you plan to do something 4 years ago, then 2, and in the end you do it today. How long I thought it would take to improve my writing and translation skills before moving on to creative reading and how long it actually took differed quite drastically. But as I annotate the polyglot journal I started in 2020 (which is not the book pictured above), it's hard to feel like that's a bad thing, since I gave myself an appropriate amount of time to work on each stage of my projects at my current level without feeling the need to rush on to the next thing.

The audio here is cut from a set of blanket test recordings I made to test out some recording software, which is why it gives she-just-picked-up-the-text-and-started-reading-without-prep-time vibes.

Text in Irish and English below.

English translation shares the original sentiment but at a different register—as was my specific intention in this particular project.

Fadó, fadó chuaigh Merlin go Camelot.

Long before the days of yore and once upon a time Merlin went to Camelot.

Bhuel, shiúil sé chuig an gcathair agus teangacha a bhróg ag longadán anonn is anall agus é ar a bhealach ann.

Walked, rather, the tongues of his boots swaying back and forth as he made his way there.

Ní raibh ann ach stócach bocht thart faoin am sin agus ní raibh a fhios aige cén dóigh marcaíocht ar chapall a dhéanamh, agus ní raibh capall aige fiú!

He was only a young lad at that time and hadn’t the faintest idea how to ride a horse, but fortunately for him, he didn’t own one!

Ba bhuachaill deas is cairdiúil é Merlin. Bhí sé ard tanaí agus bhí gruaig dhubh, súile gorma, agus cluasa móra air.

A nice, friendly boy Merlin was, tall and thin with black hair, blue eyes and sizeable ears.

É sin ráite, níor éist sé le daoine eile ar chor ar bith – agus fadhb i gcroí an scéil seo a bheidh inti sin, déanta na fírinne.

Not that he used them to listen to anyone else – a truth which, I dare say, will be the problem at the heart of this story.

Mar sin féin, ní hionann sin ‘s a rá go raibh sé ag déanamh amaidí gach lá.

Be that as it may, he wasn’t one to make a complete fool of himself either.

Thuig sé rudaí praiticiúla, mar shampla: ná bí i do shuí ar do thóin nuair a bhuaileann tú le díbheargaigh sa choill, ná hól uisce as an áit naofa agus rudaí mar sin.

He knew such practical things as not to sit on his arse when he happened on bandits in the forest, not to drink water from a sacred well and things like that.

Cé gur thuig sé é sin, rinne sé a rogha rud freisin.

Still, Merlin was rather prone to do as he pleased.

Tugadh am crua dó, ach b’fhearrde sé é gan dabht. 

It nearly always made his life more difficult, but what great test of character that turned out to be.

Chaith sé éadach glan buanfasach. Éadach donn a bhí i gceist den chuid is mó, ach bhí léine ghorm is scaif dhearg iontach deas aige freisin.

He wore clothes which were clean and durable and mostly brown to my recollection; yet he did have a blue shirt and a wonderfully lovely red scarf as well.

Ní raibh ach mála beag amháin aige chomh maith le pocán fíona, a luasc nuair a ghlac sé gach céim, agus éadach olla áisiúil ar chodail sé air. 

With him he carried only a small rucksack, a wineskin which rocked to and fro as he took each step, and a handy, woollen blanket to sleep on.

Bhí sé an-ghaofar nuair a chuaigh Merlin thar na sléibhte ar an mbóthar gainimh, ach mhothaigh sé an ghrian ar a aghaidh. Bhí sé te go leor.

A strong wind blew as Merlin traversed the mountains on the sandy road, but the sun on his face shone warm enough.

Bhí lá breá geallta don lá, rud a rinne radharc an tírdhreacha i bhfad níos áille.

The day was proving, as promised, to be a fine one and that made the view of the landscape even more beautiful.

Bhí féar glas agus rosáin bheaga ag fás taobh le cosán an tsléibhe, crainn ghiúise ina sheasamh ar charraigeacha na n-aillte, sruthanna beaga sneachta ag soilsiú ar cheann an tsléibhe agus néalta geala ag síneadh go bun na spéire.

Green grass and small shrubs grew along the mountain path, fir trees towered on the rocky cliffs, little streams of snow glistened on each mountain peak and bright clouds stretched as far as the eye could see.

Ní fhaca sé Camelot fós agus bhí tinneas cosa air, ach níor chuir sé sin moill air.

He could not yet see Camelot and his feet grew weary, but his pace never slowed.

Le fírinne, bhí an-dúil ag Merlin sa turas mór agus bhí sé sásta, is dócha. 

Truth be told, the journey was quite enjoyable for Merlin and he was generally content to be on it.

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Sideblog Nua → @merlinproject-sideblog

Haigh, a chairde,

Rinne mé Tumblr sideblog nua, aka @merlinproject-sideblog. Beidh mé ag postáil ansin faoin Merlin Project (an tionscadal (saghas Merlin fanfiction) a rinne mise i rith na pandéime chun mo chuid Gaeilge a feabhsú). Postálfaidh mé faoi agus chuirfidh mé cartlann tionscadail (project archive) le chéile ansin go dtí mí an Mheithimh 2025.

Má tá sibh agus bhur gcairde ag foghlaim na Gaeilge, beidh liosta focal, ábhar léitheoireachta agus nótaí gramadaí ar TEG/CEFR leibhéal A2-B1, agus níos mó ann.

English: New Irish-Langblr Sideblog

Hi everyone!

I made a new Tumblr sideblog - aka @merlinproject-sideblog - to post about the Merlin Project, aka the borderline Merlin fanfiction I wrote during the pandemic to improve my Irish. I'll be posting about it and putting the project archive together there until June 2025.

If you or your friends are learning Irish, there will be vocabulary lists, reading material/grammar notes at TEG/CEFR level A2-B1, and more.

:) @polysprachig

[merlinproject-sideblog]

Happy Beltane, First of May and Labour Day, a chairde!

It's been a long year, but now that it has passed I am super excited to share my levelling up project with all of you. It is an Irish Gaelic translation/creative writing piece (borderline fanfiction) at the A2 level with an English parallel text, in which I set out to answer the old-age quarantine question: Can I learn if I just ... watch TV?

So, without any further ado, here is The Merlin Project!

If you speak, learn or read Irish I would be keen to hear your thoughts on the story and how I can improve my writing. If you've created your own writing project to level up in a language, I'm curious to find out what method's you've used and whether you've found them effective. (:

- @polysprachig