Ditch Duolingo and try one of these free methods, which will give you good pronunciation AND a solid foundation:
FREE IRISH LEARNING RESOURCES
April 4, 2016, by Audrey Nickel for the “Irish For Beginners” Facebook group.
OK to copy, share, and use for teaching purposes so long as the author is credited.
Every time I mention my aversion to beginners using crowd-sourced sites such as Duolingo,
someone inevitably asks me if I can recommend something better (often multiple times in the same
thread because the topic keeps coming up). Of course, what they actually mean is "something better
that's also free." Rather than keep reinventing the wheel, I'm going to put my recommendations in
this post and, hopefully, find a way to put it permanently in the "files" section of this group.
Here goes:
FREE ON-LINE COURSES
1) Now You're Talking/Irish on Your Own
Líofa.eu has both the book (each chapter as a PDF) and the sound files that originally accompanied
the book available for free download here:
https://www.liofa.eu/learning-irish/resourcesIn addition, episodes of the RTÉ/BBC TV series that were designed to accompany the book and
sound files are available on YouTube here:
https://www.youtube.com/results…
The videos aren't in order, so you have to scroll around a bit, but they're all flagged as "episode 1,"
"episode 2," etc.
This is one of the most respected self-teaching courses of the past 20 years. It was developed by
Éamonn Ó Dónaill, who also developed the "Gaeilge Gan Stró" series, as well as several other Irish
language books and courses. The audio is all recorded by native speakers. Working your way
through this book chapter-by-chapter, including the audio and video files, will give you a solid
foundation and put you well on your way to developing excellent pronunciation.
Pronunciation is mainly based on the Ulster dialect, though other dialects are represented as the
course progresses.
Líofa.eu used to offer a free year of on-line classes via Ranganna.com, which would have been
complimentary to this course. I contacted them on April 4, 2016 to ask if those classes are still
available, and they aren't as of this writing, due to technical difficulties. I'll continue to monitor the
situation, and will revise this post if and when those classes become available again. In the
meantime, "Now You're Talking" is a complete course. The on-line classes fall into the "nice-but-notnecessary"
category.
2) Buntús Cainte
This is another venerable and well-respected self-teaching method. The text and audio is available
for free on-line at Memrise.
http://www.memrise.com/…/beginner-spoken-irish-01-20-buntu…/
Simply click on "Start Learning Now" to begin the course. You'll be prompted to log in using
Facebook.
Pronunciation is based on the Connacht dialect, but the grammar is based on the official standard.
You really can't go wrong with either of these methods, and they're totally, completely, 100% free. I
have a slight bias toward "Now You're Talking," having used it for so many years (also I like the fact
that it comes with both audio and video). I also have a slight bias toward buying the physical book,
but if you can't afford it right now, you can't. That shouldn't stand in your way. If you want to
purchase the book, I recommend against trying to buy it from Amazon.com...they'll rip you off big
time. It's available for 10 Euro from An Siopa Gaeilge, and even with shipping, that's a much better
deal than you'll find at Amazon. Get it at
http://www.siopagaeilge.ie/.
As I said, however, Buntús Cainte is also very well-respected and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend
it. You might try a sample lesson from each and see which appeals to you most. I do recommend,
however, that you choose one early on and stick with it until you've finished it, as bopping back and
forth between learning methods can cause a lot of confusion.
Here's another one that I just recently learned about but which appears to be excellent:
3) Is Féidir Liom ("I Can")
This fully on-line program was originally developed by a teacher to help parents and grandparents
help their children and grandchildren who were learning Irish at school. Pronunciation leans toward
Munster, from what I've been able to hear, but the grammar and spelling appear to be standardized.
This course also includes games, which may be attractive to people who enjoy the games on
Duolingo.
http://www.isfeidirliom.ie/OTHER HELPFUL FREE RESOURCES THAT OFFER PRONUNCIATION ASSISTANCE:
1) Teanglann.(
www.teanglann.ie)
This is a free, searchable, on-line compilation of some of the most respected Irish-English
dictionaries in the world, and pronunciation is provided for most of the words (but not inflected
forms). It will also show you examples of usage, which is extremely valuable when you start
composing your own sentences!
2) Forvo (
http://forvo.com/languages/ga/)
This is a pronunciation database. I offer this link with a slight caution. If you use it, I strongly
recommend only choosing recordings that feature native speakers or very careful/advanced
learners. Remember...just because a person is from Ireland does not mean that he or she has good
Irish! If in doubt, ask! One regular there, Bríd Eilís Ní Fhlatharta, is a native speaker of Connemara
Irish, and I can recommend her recordings without reservation..
.
3. Abair.ie (
www.abair.ie).
This is another pronunciation resource. It's generally pretty good (it features recordings by native
speakers from all three major dialects). It does do better with single words or simple phrases than it
does with whole sentences, however.
LISTENING RESOURCES
Even as an absolute beginner, it's extremely valuable to listen to naturally spoken Irish (as opposed
to the slowed down, extremely clear diction of learning audio) as often as possible. You may not
understand much more than "agus" at first, but listening like this trains your ear so that, as you begin
speaking, you'll develop a natural cadence (it's also fun, and a break from working though
workbooks). Here are my two favorite listening resources, both completely free of charge:
1) TG4 (wwwtg4.ie)
Irish language television! Click on "Player" (or "Seinnteoir" in the Irish interface) and you can choose
from a huge archive of programs of all types (dramas, documentaries, game shows, etc.). Typically
all of the programs are subtitled except for the news and for children's programming).
UPDATE: As of 4/8/16, you can choose your subtitles on some of TG4's on-line programming. The
default is English, but you can click on "cc" at the bottom of the screen to switch to Irish subtitles (if
they have them available) or to no subtitles. As of this writing Irish subtitles aren't available on all
programs, but I expect that this will change if the new options are popular.
This is a wonderful boon to learners, as you can start by watching shows with the English subtitles
and, once your Irish is a little stronger, watch the shows with the Irish subtitles (then watch them with
the English subtitles to check your understanding). Later on you can do the same with no subtitles,
checking your understanding against the Irish or English version.
So far this is only available on-line, so if you're watching TG4 in Ireland, you won't' be able to change
the subtitles on your television (yet!). Also, if you're running Explorer 8 or Windows '95 (or older) you
will need to update to a newer platform.
2) Raidió na Gaeltachta (
www.rnag.ie)
Irish language radio. There are several other radio stations that have mostly Irish content, and
they're all enjoyable and worth listening to, but I particularly like this one because so much of it is
native speech. Turn it on and listen as you go about your work...again, you won't understand much
at first, but your brain will be picking up the unique cadence, structure, and sounds of the language.
WHY I DON'T RECOMMEND DUOLINGO FOR BEGINNERS.
1) I've encountered many mistakes originating from Duolingo, both in
grammar and in pronunciation. Yes, most of them eventually get corrected, but not before some
beginners have picked them up and internalized them. When you first start learning is when you most want
to have really good, solid resources to learn from, not crowd-sourced stuff that can be iffy at best.
2) I believe that, when you're a beginner, you should focus on the language as it's actually spoken (a
lot of those Duolingo sentences are pretty bizarre!). If you want basics to become automatic, you
need to be practicing things people actually say, not the equivalent of "my hovercraft is full of eels."
Once you have sufficient Irish under your belt, you may find Duolingo to be a fun place to reinforce
some of what you've learned, but I only recommend it AFTER you have enough Irish to spot most of
the mistakes.
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