Interesting thread. My wife and I want to have children soon, I want her to speak to them in French, and I'll speak to them in Breton and Irish. So far I thought about alternating Breton and Irish every other day. There are Breton-speaking people here (but we don't see them every day) but of course nobody else who speaks Irish...
I know the rule 1 person=1 language, but I really want my children to speak Irish so I don't see any other solution...

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Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

I've been speaking 3 languages to my son and it's going very well. But I make a big effort, and I think this is necessary for what I'm doing. English is our main language but he goes to a French-speaking crèche, so I taught him French so that his time at crèche would be used practising French with native speakers instead of wasting that opportunity. And he might start in a Dutch-speaking play school next year, so I'm teaching him enough Dutch that he won't be at too much a disadvantage compared to the natives. When he's using French and Dutch with natives, I'll stop using those languages with him.

One of my tactics is to constantly talk. Every time we go up or down a stairs we count the steps or do a, b, c. When I push the buggy down the street I narrate all the parked cars "White car, blue car, yellow van...", or I ask him all the colours. We read together for 30 or 40 minutes every evening. And I make him use correct words instead of just pointing or saying "this, this, this".

If I have more kids, I'll speak Irish right from the start (even if that means 4 languages), for two reasons:

One is that I saw a study showing that babies already have an accent by 8 months - babies in the West of Flanders cry different to those in the East. So they're already absorbing what they hear before that age.

And my own experience is that before 24 months I could tell him what language to speak in, and he would. Or ask him to translate words into another language. I guess at that age they're just happy to be getting attention, or maybe they just don't realise they could say no. But after 24 months, he's starting to rebel and he sometimes wants things in English since it takes him the least effort.

I know that he'll speak Irish - I have enough strategies and patience - but it probably would have been easier if I'd started earlier.

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Pages I made:
(These are unfortunately offline for the near future, but they'll be back!)

• Teaching Young Kids Irish (It's just my notes, a work in progress.)
• CD transcript and translations for the book Learning Irish

I read that too. Up until that age, maybe a little longer, babies babble in all the sounds likely in any language. But once they start learning what is to become their native language they will forget the other sounds. And after that whatever new language they learn will have an accent, maybe a little or maybe profound but there will be a difference. That's where accents come from. It doesn't matter how educated you are but if you are Japanese you will speak English with a Japanese accent, or speak English with an Indian accent etc.

A study we read about in a language acquisition class I took in university found that feti already acquire a basic "accent" in the womb. Babies born of French speaking families and of German speaking families had significantly different cries immediately upon birth. It gives a whole new meaning to having the language ó dhúchas!

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ЯГОН ТОҶИК НЕСТ ИНҶО???

Do you know what dialect she uses? Wikipedia says she's from Louth, so maybe Ulster, but there are few native speakers in Louth, so maybe Standard/School Irish.

Can you recommend any other song CDs? I'm making a list here:

https://ciaran.compsoc.com/teach-kids-i ... k-dialects


I got this. Looks nice. Looking forward to reading it but I want to solidify my pronounciatin first.

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Pages I made:
(These are unfortunately offline for the near future, but they'll be back!)

• Teaching Young Kids Irish (It's just my notes, a work in progress.)
• CD transcript and translations for the book Learning Irish

I think her own Irish is more or less Northern, and she did grow up in an Irish-speaking home. She lives in Ulster now, but the songs seem to run the gamut, being drawn from different locations. I'm not always a good judge of dialect, though, not being a native speaker.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

Ok, thanks. My current list now has Ulster as probably the best-served dialect:

https://ciaran.compsoc.com/teach-kids-i ... k-dialects

Munster:

• Rabhlaí Rabhlaí
• Bróga Nua
• Irish Songs We learned at School, Ar Ais Arís!

Ulster:

• Ící Pící
• Ní Thuigimse daoine Fásta
• Grá mo Chroí an Óige
• Báidín Fheidhlimidh
• Oró na Casaidigh Irish Childhood Songs
• Ceol Leat!
• A Stór Is A Stóirín

Connacht:

• Gugalaí Gug
• Peigín Leitir Móir
• Bliain na nAmhrán
• Ceol na Mara
• Déan Dráma 1 (and 2 and 3)
• Maidin sa Naíonra
• (Maybe "Rannta. Hup, Hup, a Chapaillín", but it's an "interactive" CD; I'm looking for music I can play in a normal way)

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Pages I made:
(These are unfortunately offline for the near future, but they'll be back!)

• Teaching Young Kids Irish (It's just my notes, a work in progress.)
• CD transcript and translations for the book Learning Irish

I see that you have already posted up information about this on your own website, using the pages on the subject that we have compiled here. I see that you haven't mentioned the book and CD set 'Codail A Mhuirnín', the CD 'Suantraí' by Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin, Gaschaint, as well as dvds such as 'Spraoi la Chéile', 'Cluichí Clois', 'Anam an Amhráin'. Forbairt Naíonraí Teo have also produced a DVD explaining what they do. What you really need is an Irish-speaking playgroup, perhaps there might be other Irish families in Brussels who would be interested in setting one up. It would be useful if you could get access to DVDs of other Irish-speaking children of the same age singing songs, reciting rhymes and playing srl. Perhaps somebody in Ireland could help you out with that and of course there's skype.

Just one other suggestion - the book Ulchabháin Óga ISBN 978 1 4063 4112 6 - you can listen to it being read on Soundcloud and it also exists in French (for once the translation isn't too bad - usually the French translations of children's books originally published in English and other languages are - and that's being polite!) Bébés Chouettes ISBN 978 2 8776 7088 3.

franc, a stór,
na bíodh drogall ort níos mó a roinnt! nílimid chun thú a thachtadh ar an iomarca a rá! :P

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ЯГОН ТОҶИК НЕСТ ИНҶО???

Thanks! Added these now. Do you know if the singers use Standard Irish? Or a particular dialect? And if they were raised with that dialect as their home language? (I.e. Is their pronunciation an example that should be copied?)

(The main reason I'm so insistent about dialect information is that, in my experience, fixing a bad pronunciation is very difficult after years of learning/use. So I want to be very aware of it now in the early stages of (re)learning Irish. A less-important reason is that if I list every audio recording available on the internet, my helpful page will turn into one big scary list. I might split the page into a shorter list for audio recordings where I know the dialect, the speaker's origin, and the quality, and then a separate list for listing everything.)


I have this in a section for book+CD sets aimed at parents: https://ciaran.compsoc.com/teach-kids-i ... ents-books


Spraoi le Chéile looks very interesting. I downloaded the PDF but do you know if the DVDs or files are still available?

For Cluichí, I found the videos on Youtube. The first few games I watched looked a little boring and I'm looking for materials with better sound quality (e.g. studio recordings). But I also found the PDF, so I'll read that and see if there's anything interesting.

The Anam an Amhráin songs are on youtube, but there's no lyrics and I see some non-natives in the list of singers.


Yeh, I wonder if there's a community of Gaeilge translators in Brussels. Or maybe they do that work from Ireland. I don't know how to contact them, but if I go to the next Seachtain na Gaeilge I might meet someone who knows.


Great. And I see he has a few other stories on soundcloud. Any idea what dialect the reader uses and whether it's mostly gaeltacht or mostly urban/school Irish?


Also great!

Thanks for all this info. If you've more suggestions, especially professional-quality recordings by gaeltacht natives, please post them here and I'll see where I can put them in my lists.

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Pages I made:
(These are unfortunately offline for the near future, but they'll be back!)

• Teaching Young Kids Irish (It's just my notes, a work in progress.)
• CD transcript and translations for the book Learning Irish