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I'm Irish and have always been surprised at your in-depth analysis of Languages. This one is close to my heart and you have not disappointed! Well done...
@@turkoositerapsidi The EU is quickly saturating Ireland with immigrants. Ireland "kissing up" to the EU will lead to erasure of White Irish culture in less than 30 years. They already have an Indian Queen (Varadkar) ruling Ireland at the minute. Irish have failed to run their own heavily bankrupt country. Ireland currently has DOUBLE the DEBT of GREECE, with half the population of GREECE. Only 4.5 Million People. Sadly, White Irish and their culture will not exist much longer in their own country. Sad but true. Irish youth are well liked in other countries, so the young will continue to move overseas. www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/why-do-the-irish-still-owe-more-than-the-greeks-1.3001026?mode=amp
@@Langfocus I believe that it likes to toot it's own horn but that doesn't mean its not good at teaching languages. I started learning Irish on duo lingo just a week ago and its going really well (though my accent is probably terrible)
English: Strawberry Irish: Juice of the land English: Dictionary Irish: Words English: Library Irish: Place with Books English: Hospital Ulster Irish: Place with the patients
I like languages that make up self descriptive terms. I think is better than having a bunch of sounds and collection of letters, many borrowed form other languages and detached from their original context, that could mean anything, like in English.
I always found places ending in -lann funny like 'pictuirlann' or picture place, meaning cinema or 'bialann' which means restaraunt but in a direct translation is 'food place', sounds like cave men or something lmao
@@lordhumongous644 actually that example is an interesting one. The word Whiskey comes from uisce beatha. Whiskey is an English mispronunciation of uisce.
I'm an Irish man who moved to London at 11 and so didn't learn too much Irish but thanks to Duolingo and books I've taught myself. Let's keep this beautiful ancient language alive! 🇮🇪
So I’ve seen this short film about a Chinese guy who decided to go to Ireland and studied “Irish”. He became very fluent in Gaelic but without knowing a word in English. It was really interesting when he arrived in Ireland and tries to speak Gaelic to people. The film “Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom”.
I have lived in Ireland for over 3 years now, and this was so helpful! No Irish people I know could explain any of the spelling features so simply. I live in Dublin, so I only know one person who is a fluent Irish speaker. Everyone else can barely say, "hello, my name is..." I would also note that the Irish Famine was man made and partly used by the British to "solve the Irish problem". There are official documents publicly available that reveal this. Ireland was a net exporter of food during the Famine.
That's because Irish people are taught the spelling features as pointless spelling features which are for some reason for writing and reading only. The reason this happens is that most teachers either A. Don't know the native phonology themselves B. Couldn't be bothered teaching it because it has no use to students with regards getting marks for the leaving certificate
Native Irish speaker here.First off , love these videos, so much work put into them 👌 Just a quick correction, gasúr means “child” (of any sex) and not “boy” .
Langfocus No problem. Thank you for making these videos. I’ve learned so much about my own language I never knew, plus so much about other languages too. If you’re ever in Connemara I’ll buy you a pint 🍺
@@RickyMacHatton Buachaill (and cailín) are 'boy and girl, but after puberty and until marriage. Younger children are 'gasúr' and 'girseach' (at least that's how it is in Tír Chonaill)
Dutch living in Sp Brazil I find that most expats and foreigners learning Portuguese have most difficulties with the distinction of male and female like "o menino"(the boy) e "a menina"(the girl) and especially when the noun is not obvious determined like "ponte" (bridge) ..... "A ponte"(correct) or "O ponte"(incorrect).
homesanto You can’t call a language “dead” until there are absolutely no native speakers. There are native speakers of Irish. It’s not dead. It’s ridiculous that you would suggest that but go off I guess 🤷🏻♀️
I'm Russian and I'm learning Irish. The most important thing I can say about the language is that it is a really exotic language, even though it belongs to Indo-European language family. What makes Irish language exotic? Well, several unique phenomena such as lenition and eclipsis, which are nowhere else to be found outside in other European languages except the other Celtic languages. It is definitely hard to get used to non-standard VSO system, since again, no other European languages use such system, but standard SVO only. Irish has three cases, but in comparison to Russian or other Eastern European languages (excluding obviously Finno-Ugric languages), the cases are really simply constructed. However, the prepositions give another challenge in making a great number of new words depending on the personal pronoun you use. Besides that, the basic verbs such as have, know, want, can, live, sleep, etc. are all built by using "bí" and prepositions with pronouns, which makes it hard to master, especially when it comes to making complex sentences or imperative forms. The video missed one more interesting aspect of Irish, such as no universal words of "yes" and "no": if you wish to say yes or no, you have to look straight to the context, because these words are linked to the tense and the verb you use. For example: An raibh tú sa bhaile inniu? (were you at home today?) - bhí (yes/I was); ní raibh (no/I wasn't) - Past tense, verb "to be"; An bhfuil tú go maith? (are you well?) - tá (yes/I am), níl (no/I'm not) - Present tense, verb "to be"; An ndúnann tú an doras? (do you close the door?) - dúnaim (yes/I close); ní dhúnaim (no/I don't close) - Present tense, verb "to close". The most challenging things I faced were: 1. The words order (Verb-Subject-Object); 2. Prepositions and the verb constructions that use them (have, know, want, can, live, sleep, etc.); 3. Pronounciation and writing (just like in English, there is a good number of exceptions when one letter combination is pronounced differently depending on the word, plus the generally long words that end up being pronounced shortly). Other than that, it is a very interesting language to learn, and the more foreigners learn it, the more motivation it gives to the native Irish to return to their mother tongue. I sincerely hope Irish will be once again widely spoken everywhere across Ireland and all the population will get decent fluency in it. Paul, thank you very much for the video. P.S. Can't wait to practice Gaeilge this summer in Ireland :) Feicfidh mé go luath sibh, a chairde! :)
@@123-t2v3d maths, english and a hole bunch of other stuff are forced too but nobody complains. maybe if the teachers were able to speak it, it might help.
Dia daoibh ! I am Russian and I love Celtic languages, especially Irish - Connacht dialect. Complex grammar, an abundance of soft consonants - heaven for the Russian throat and mind :))
I was born in the Conamara Gaeltacht and grew up with fluent Irish. Later, when I moved into the city, my English was so poor I had to go for extra lessons outside of school just to catch up with my class mates who spoke Irish like aliens to me. If I had advice for anyone learning it would be to just go for it, your pronunciation will almost certainly be wrong and you'll definitely mess up the grammar, but Irish people are forgiving and the locals will greatly appreciate it if you make the effort. You'll pick up the nuances along the way and it won't seem so bad or confusing.
@@Tjmce I speak Conamara Irish, so im biased, but I'd recommend learning that as much as possible 😂 My girlfriend speaks Munster Irish though and would tell you the same about that, so it's really up to you! I think if you can hold a basic conversation, even simplifying how you would normally say it in English to fit into the Irish vocab you know, you're doing great. If you feel like school isn't getting you where you need to be, TG4 has loads and loads of great shows (especially American shows translated into Irish) and you'll pick up a lot of slang and colloquialism from that too! But really just getting started is the key, as they say, tús maith leath na hoibre!
@@Tjmce My Irish is Ulster (specifically Gaoth Dobhair). Even in Donegal, the pronunciation varies from townland to townland, for example, I would say gwee dowie where someone from Na Rosain would call it gwee dow-ar
There are 3 striking similarities between Irish people and Russians: 1) Both languages have constrastive palatalization (broad/slender) 2) Both languages say "at me there is" instead of "I have" 3) Both love to drink
You kind of glossed over the decline of the Irish language around the time of the famine. During the famine, Ireland actually exported MORE food than it had in the previous years. And whilst we commonly hear the phrase "a million died, a million left" that doesn't answer for how we went from 8+ million to
To quote the irish during the plantations, "To help or to connacht" which shows that people would rather go to hell than go to connacht and be under the rule of Oliver Cromwell.
Every novel language comes across beautiful and mysterious. English the lungua franca has been devastating to several native languages. There are pros and cons to a global language of transaction.
As a learner my first impression of Irish pretty much went like this: 1st rule of Irish is “slender with slender, broad with broad” 2nd rule of a Irish is “there are no rules!”
First one is actually a good one to go with, both for verb formation and for general spelling. There are indeed rules but they’re shite, make no sense, and take ages to learn as there’s absolute tons of them. Best to just speak it and learn through trial and error
I went to school for years. I am happy there are RUclips videos out there I can learn more than school. I should say that school is not always a place to have an education. Don’t get me wrong here.
@@GodOfExploding here in Ireland school cant teach a single language never mind irish i am unsure if this is the same in other provences but in ulster, yeah
Sandernista Uh, no? Terrorists who call themselves Muslims don’t represent all Muslims, either... Any other groups you’d like to generalize about, or are you about done?
@@sandernista6499 the only reason for the conflict is that we are under rule of a foreign country which oppresses many parts of our culture such as the language . Attrocities have been comitted both sides but on a whole usually the irish people arnt a violent people more friendly than anything. Id encourage you to look into the horrible things the english have done to us and youll see its not so clear as to who is the evil one
One of the tragic legacies of British imperialism is how it convinced people of different cultures that their languages were inferior to English and how this belief is still held by most of the people in these former British colonies. In the Indian Subcontinent (especially Pakistan and Northern India), you will see people giving preference and prestige to English rather than their own mother tongue. In Ireland, it's the same case. I really hope that the Irish revive their language and get rid of English. If Israel can do it with Hebrew, Ireland and Scotland can as well. Tiocfaidh ar la!
There is a big difference between Ireland and India. English is useful in India to bridge the gap between the dozens of languages and dialects, and is always learned as a second language. Most Irish learn English as their first language which is sad.
@@fartmaster--po4ti Why isn’t Hindi used as the lingua franca between the people of different language and dialects in India, the way China use Mandarin for its people? Where in China, everyone including the Tibetans, Uighurs, Aborigines etc know Mandarin, in India not everyone who is not a native speaker of Hindi know Hindi.
@@estellemelodimitchell8259 I don't know, probably for historical/cultural reasons due to the legacy of the British empire. Also English is a more valuable language to learn as it is a global lingua franca.
Honestly, I think Irish people in general are quite proud of their language. The issue is that outside of school it isn't very well known/understood and it is often very unenjoyable to learn in school which makes people lose interest in learning the language. I think that a lot if the problems with people not speaking Irish in Ireland boils down to the way that it is taught in schools. If the way it was taught in schools changed to make it mire engaging and added more emphasis on the language during the earlier parts of the school system I think that there would be a better chance of reviving the Irish language to become more common outside of Gaeltacht regions☺🍊
What's great about Irish is that it only has nine (!) irregular verbs: abair (to say), clois (to hear), déan (to make), faigh (to get), feic (to see), ith (to eat), tabhair (to give), tar (to come), téigh (to go).
Speaking as an Irish person who has a fierce love for the language and recognising my bias, it's so much easier than French (the other language I did for the Leaving). There's a lot of rules, but not too many exceptions (and only 11 irregular verbs)! Plus a lot of the "complicated rules" are much more straightforward when you take the grammatical gender of a word into account. The biggest hurdle for learners in my experience is the phonology - it's difficult to see "teach" and not think "ah yes, like the verb in English", once you can switch to Not reading with English pronunciation spelling conventions and pronouncing words you've never seen before! And for any new learners, or those considering learning, no one is expecting you to know all the grammar immediately right off the bat!
Dia dhuit! I am an Irish learner, and answering your questions: It's tough and challenging to learn it, but you get to understand some of the mentality behind Irish people's perspective of the world, what'd be a simple "thank you" becomes something similar to "may you have goodness" in "go raibh maith agat", or with "I'm sorry" being "there is sadness in me" and it also means "I'm sad" with "tá brón orm". The most challenging part, in my opinion, is the amount of rules for the mutations and when you try to focus on one dialect to be you center of pronunciation but sometimes you only find a subject in one of the other dialects. The most interesting part I've mentioned before in the first question, about the way that some expressions sound like proverbs or has another ways to be understood. I hope this was helpful... Slán!
@@OisinmacFionn couldn't be more true. The only reason I would say I'm conversationaly fluent in irish is because I've always went to an irish school. Since I started till now
The famine was genocide against native Irish. This isn't conspiracy, it's true and understood in the historical record. Also, I'm English so it's not like it's in my interest to make this statement. I, as a lover of languages and also being against the viscious imperialism of my country, would love to see Irish much more widely spoken.
I’m irish and I can tell you at this point no one really blames the english. I mean we know what happened but we’ve sorta moved on.... in the republic anywayyy
Do you know how much effort the British state and people put into countering the famine when it hit Scotland, Ireland and the rest of western europe? The food supply in the south collapsed so food was shipped in, paid labour was instituted on government funds similar to what Roosevelt did during the new deal, using the poor and unemployed on civil works projects such as road building, charities brought in soup kitchens and other relief projects and finally when the economy and food supply wasn't recovering efforts were made to give cheap passage to the new world where there was food and work. There's bitterness because people had to be moved off their land, theres especially grudges because the conditions loading starving, unwashed unhealthy people on overcrowded ships was a recipe for disaster (they're called coffin ships for a reason) and there are really bitter historical biases because the government chose to go for exporting the people rather than stopping food exports from the unaffected north into the starving south and destroying the northern economy to aid the south. Genocide implies people planned it, while theres groups and people tried to take advantage and profit from the disaster and others who got charity fatigue after years of paying to support Ireland and cut the relief off there was never an attempt to destroy Ireland and the Irish. It could be self-defeating after all, where do you think the British state got its best soldiers from, its industrial workers, the Navvies who built the canals and railways and the entrepreneurs and merchants who ran the Empire?
How did this learn more about my language for a single video than I learned during my 14 years in school? I don’t know how you found this information or how long it took you, but you’re a genius and I cannot compliment this video enough
@@svendinsvinderlin4569 Most will blame everything but themselves for not learning Irish. If you don't want to learn something you won't learn it. I didn't learn much Irish in school, not because of poor teachers or the system. It was because I didn't really want to so I didn't apply myself to learn it.
@@boru1982 Firstly I'm relatively fluent in Irish, so don't go assuming that I just don't want to blame myself. Also yes, I agree that if the kids wanted to learn, the problem would probably be fixed. But why are you blaming them for not wanting to learn? It's up to the teachers to make them want to learn. Your idea of education is like that of a catholic nun in the 50s.
@@svendinsvinderlin4569 You should read my post again. It seems you're replying to a post in your head. I never even implied you weren't fluent nor did I imply children were to blame. What I am saying is that many adults who look back and bemoan their inability to learn the language while at school will blame teachers, systems and everything else for not applying themselves to learn. There is only one person who can do it. You even touched on it in your last post - you even said it's a teachers job to make them want to learn - utter impractical romantic nonsense. This isn't the land of Dead Poets Society. The teacher is there to get through a wide-ranging syllabus and teach in a short amount of time- they don't have the time to make 25-40 students want to learn individually. The attitude the student brings to school is made at home not the classroom. The fact of the matter is that school is just a basis for learning. The majority of learning takes place while studying for exams or revising outside of school hours. I'm not saying the syllabus is adequate nor saying the teachers are good. The reason I didn't learn much Irish at school is because I (along with my fellow classmates) didn't apply myself to do so. The fault was purely my own. I didn't have the discipline to do so which is likely common to most people at that age. The teacher could've been brilliant, the system could've been perfect. It wouldn't have changed anything. Most Irish people want to learn Irish by the time it's too late and they're well finished with school. Unfortunately there are many, as if it's human nature, that will blame it on everything they can other than themselves. You've now blamed the system in your first comment and the teachers for students not wanting to learn in your second. Unfortunately there are many that share your lack of accountability.
Learner of Irish: The overpowering resentement towards this language amongst my class mates in school (Dublin)combined with the absolute disastrous teaching methodolgy(the dreaded 'projector' and foaming-mouthed múinteoirs) has done a lot of damage to the language's image and has left a deep sore in the psyches of a lot of people, not to mention being associated with second gen Connaght speaker civil servants D4 kids called Fionn Mac C. Having a global language as your first tongue doesn't argue the case much better either when growing up in 80s recession hit Ireland. That said, thanks to the internet and TG4, having studied languages abroad and sufficiently distanced myself from these hangups, I have regained my interest in Irish and hope to get better over the next few years. Also, ironically perhaps, this is one of the best produced videos on Irish I've seen on RUclips. Go raibh maith agat agus is breá liom an video!
Gawd, those D4 types mangle the language with the way they squeeze their vowels too (posh English vowels) . Sounds awful. Irish uses pure vowels like the old culchie accents.
I think you hit the nail on the head there, I believe the single biggest contributor to the fall of Gaeilge (since 1916) is the education system. Most teachers only need to perform a basic exam in Irish to become a teacher, and thus the majority of teachers are shite at Irish. So you have a shite teacher, which causes you to dislike the subject.
@@cuppaaCoffey It isn't possible to keep a language alive if it isn't preferred in daily use even if you teach it well. English is so much easier to use day to day that it is hard to imagine Irish making a genuine comeback in anyway.
Irish is a pretty language as its creator made it into a very unique and distinctive language with mostly pretty words and used a lot of Norse words and sounds, so Modern Irish is very elvish, but it has a category 3 spelling which is not easy to get used to or use on a daily basis - most ppl don’t care about the languages that they were made to learn and most ppl also don’t look at the artistic value of languages that are pretty and they are generally going to use the language that’s easier to use, and English being one of the prettiest languages ever and also the easiest language ever created in every way, I can see why most switched to English and stopped learning Irish, because English is the easiest to use and type on any device and the easiest to learn etc, but anyways, I am learning Irish and Gaelic and Manx etc for their pretty and poetic words 2gether with Norse and Icelandic and Dutch and Norwegian Gothic and Faroese and Danish and Welsh and Breton and Cornish and Forn Svenska and many other pretty languages, and I highly recommend learning them 2gether, as these are one of the prettiest languages ever, as pretty as English, so, even though the spelling of Irish and Gaelic are a bit complicated, they are very pretty, and they aren’t really that complicated, especially when compared to truly impossible category 10 languages such as Chinese languages and Japanese which have impossible characters and tones and mostly words that aren’t pretty, so Irish and Gaelic are still on the easy side (tho they are the hardest languages that I am learning) and are just slightly more complicated than Hungarian and Latvian and Finnish and Estonian which are category 2 languages, though the easiest languages ever are the Germanic languages and the other modern Celtic languages Welsh / Breton / Cornish / Manx (and Gaulish too) and the true Latin languages Galician / Latin / Gallo / Portuguese / Spanish / Catalan / Walloon / Guernsey / Occitan / Venetian / Esperanto / Pretarolo / Sardinian / Italian and the other Italian-based languages and Slovene which are all category 1 languages!
In a way, it makes sense that English is to become the language that’s used by all as the main language as it is the easiest to use and most practical, and it is also pretty and one of the prettiest! In general, all should focus on the pretty languages which include the Germanic languages and the Celtic languages and Latin and a few others, and the pretty languages should be an option in all schools everywhere, so that the ones that are naturally interested in them can choose to learn them at school, so technically, instead of just trying to get ppl from one region learn Irish and Gaelic etc that don’t have an interest in learning them (even though they are pretty languages) they should start teaching them and the other Celtic languages on yt via videos and tons of vocab videos etc and videos explaining every aspect of their grammar in detail, so that the ones who are truly interested in these languages can easily learn them! There are many that want to learn pretty and poetic languages, even the ones that are a bit more complicated, but one cannot learn the Celtic languages easily because there just aren’t enough resources and there aren’t many vocab videos on yt that would have over ten thousand words!
Paul, this video is really spectacular. I'm an American whose father speaks Irish, so I was exposed to it a lot growing up but have only really become conversational as an adult. To experience Irish as a living, breathing language is to fall in love with it. This can be difficult to find even in Ireland, but is not impossible. I was very lucky to get a taste of this growing up and later experienced it on both sides of the Atlantic as an adult. It's very easy to be intimidated by the millions of rules we have in Irish, but the important thing is always the blás - the sound and flavor of the language. The blás is what makes Irish sound like home. Have been watching and enjoying your videos for a while so I was thrilled to see a new one about Irish pop up! Go raibh míle maith agat :) Coinnigh bhur misneach a chairde! ✊☘️✊
Seán McCluskey Wow! You are a rare breed of Irish-American. I play Hurling in New York and worked with a lot of Gaeligors in the Irish media and there are a select few Irish-Americans that even know there is an Irish language. Well done to your da and you as well!
MY experience of learning the language was really bad. REALLY BAD Absolutely none of the students in my school (and I mean NONE) knew that slender and broad consonants were pronounced differently other than s When I asked why they were written as broad or slender in one of my Irish classes they just said "it's just the way it's written" pretty much every time The thing is, almost all Irish teachers have learned Irish this way, anglifying the language and just plain ignoring anything that's too difficult. They then teach upcoming Irish teachers this and it produces a vicious cycle. You can be absolutely terrible at the language yet the tests and exams are so easy, it just builds on the problem, any oral exam completely doesn't take into account if you can even pronounce half of the consonants correctly cause the government is too afraid to say that what 2 million people know as "Irish" is incorrectly pronounced. What you learn in Irish, is so painful, it's poems, rhymes, nothing about actually speaking the language, so any sort of exam or homework leaves you staring at the paper in bewilderment, google translate is now the writer of I'd bet, hundreds of thousands of Irish essays in school, and you can immediately tell cause it's all wrong. There's 3 types of numbers? naaaaah just let them learn a few more really basic sentences off by heart and we'll get to the grammar "later" , then the teacher gets angry at you for not correctly doing something you weren't taught how to use. I got an exemption from Irish, I went, said I had aspergers and got an exemption so I don't have to learn the language because I was so fucking sick of coming into school and being yelled at by my teacher because I didn't do my homework, yet when I asked how, none of my questions were answered, they gave sample sentences but when I used them they grammatically didn't make sense, but I wasn't taught how to use them. I know many others who have done the same, people who are fully capable of learning it, but drop out cause we're not taught to use it correctly.
You have the most beautiful, interesting language, a proper national treasure, but because of the way it's tought it kills the students interest. That's just sad :/
Reading all the comments here, Looks like all schools in the world teach language in wrong ways, In my country only two languages are taught at school level. those are the native language Bangla (Bengali) and English as a foreign language. After 12 years of English lessons at school most students in my country cant speak a proper English sentence. The condition of Bangla is even worst.. most students cant find any interest in the rich Bangla literature because of the boring teaching method.. they just memorise answers and pass exams..so sad
This is the core of the difficulty with trying to keep a dying language alive. The teachers aren't fluent speakers so there is a limit to how well they are able to teach Irish to their students. My daughter's French teacher is French. Most Irish teachers are neither native speakers nor fluent. Irish only continues to be taught because there is a legal requirement to do so. It is neither taught nor studied with any enthusiasm.
You’re correct. A lot of the time students in school do not learn the authentic pronunciation. Just like all languages, Gaeilge has tricky yet very interesting sounds and pronunciations, the same as having to roll your ‘r’s’ in Spanish. I’m 15 and personally I loveeee Gaeilge and have been lucky with the teachers that have taught me.
@@sarco64 It depends on the region. All are needed in the aural exam for the Irish Leaving Cert but usually the most emphasis is placed on the dialect of the region. Most textbooks are written in a mix of all dialects.
@@sarco64 whatever dialect your teacher has. Sometimes you’ve to start learning another dialect with different pronunciations if your teacher changes. There is really no emphasis on pronunciation since we all have Irish accents. This is bad because our accents are becoming more American every year so Irish sounds less Irish every year.
@@NegativeAccelerate Often the teachers don't have native pronunciation either, which means there's little chance of them teaching them. Even with an Irish accent most people of English speaking backgrounds pronounce it very badly because the phonetic systems of English and (real) Irish are very different Irish English has a similar phonemic inventory to the English of other regions and, as you alluded to, outside of stronger regional dialects does not have much relation with the Irish language at all, particularly among the middle classes and younger generations So you cannot rely on an Irish 'accent' to skip learning the native sounds (which don't exist in English) and stress patterns (learners tend to use English stress patterns in Irish, rendering the native Irish -se and -ne endings to denote stress defunct) of the Irish language
I'm currently brushing up on my Irish my son will be going to an irish school also I'm gunna make sure this language has a lifeline at all times..it'll be a generational thing, and I might even adapt it for everyday family speech while only using english as a secondary or in public with non Irish speakers🇮🇪🇮🇪
Ar fheabhas ar fad!! - absolutely excellent. A video full of great detail and lots of positivity. It’s so nice to see a well-researched and positive video about The Irish Language from a purely objective source. Go raibh míle maith agat - a thousand thanks.
Thank you Paul for this amazing video! I'm so glad to see a video on our language :) Unfortunately it's true that students here really love complaining about learning the language, but like mentioned in many comments it's merely because of how it's taught in schools! You don't learn the language properly, at least in my experience. It's more rote learning stories, poems, phrases etc. without actually knowing the grammatical rules and correct pronunciation. For example, I didn't even know how the genitive (tuiseal ginideach) worked until I went to study Nua Ghaeilge in university! The teachers don't tell the students anything like this and it's a shame since they don't know how the language works at all. There's no strong emphasis put on speaking the language as well, which is a shame, because actively trying to speak the language helps immensely. I hope to be a teacher in Irish one day and I'll certainly be trying out other methods than what is used.. no doubt about that. Ach tá a fhios agam nach bhfaighidh an teanga álainn seo bás sa todhchaí!!
Ar fheabhas. Bhain mé taitneamh as é. I've been studying Irish for over 10 years...and still haven't mastered it. I do feel that I have an edge on the spoken part of the language because I learned from native speakers. Many native speakers are impressed with my vocabulary and correct grammar. (most of the time.) The most difficult part of learning in the beginning was the strange words, lentition, mutations, etc. I was impressed with you including the Norse and Norman words in Irish. This is one of the best introductions to Gaeilge I've seen. Well done!
Irish has been a 22-year old love story for me. Like most relationships, the things that attracted me initially are the things that frustrate me, and the things that frustrated me are the things that attract me. It is NOT an easy language to learn, but its complexity is its beauty. I've always considered Irish a fun language if you let it be, but tough one if you expect perfection from yourself too soon!
Thanks! I’m glad it was interesting. I wasn’t sure if it was interesting, actually (I mean the video, not the language), but it seems lots of people like it.
I once had the chance to contract at the European head office of a company in Dublin. At lunch, the people around me spoke many European languages but I heard Irish in great part. It delighted me to hear it chosen by its speakers, who could of course have spoken English together. Of course they may have been using it to prevent eavesdropping but the fact that it was actually being used was fantastic. I hope it continues to grow, just as Welsh is. 👍 Happy New Year, Langfocus, and to all Langfocians 😊
When I first started learning Irish, trying to figure out how to pronounce many words was a challenge. Serious challenge. I think especially for an English speaker. You have to throw out so many known English language rules on pronunciation and pretty much start from scratch. It will restrict your learning to pronounce the Irish words correctly. You addressed one aspect with the eclipses/lenition that affects the words and pronunciation in different ways and the slender/ broad letters. If you don't understand why letters work how they do in Irish, you would never know that this word ----->" bhfuil" is pronounced as "will" LOL It has been the vest journey in language learning, to be sure. I have loved every minute of it. there are a lot of good resources out there. Although I long for the day I get to go to Ireland and learn to speak it properly.
Yeah Irish spelling is really confusing, but I kind of grew up with it. For instance, my name is Aoife. I was living in America for a while and nobody had a CLUE how to pronounce my name. (It’s pronounced ee-fa, it means beauty or something idk) So for the craic I got a few friends together and gave them some Irish names/words to pronounce. It was HILARIOUS.
Wow, finally a fluent native speaker of Gaelic on RUclips! It's great to finally hear somebody who actually knows how to pronounce the words correctly - thanks!
Yes, after a couple of mishaps with heritage learners doing the audio for previous videos (the Celtic Languages video and a Mystery Languages episode), I was determined to have a genuine native speaker help this time. Patrick is actually the same guy who recorded the audio for the little “correction” video that is linked to from the Celtic languages video. So I knew he was reliable, but this time he really went above and beyond the call of duty by helping during the holiday period. 👏🏻
Tu devrais t'exprimer en français pour exposer tes idées, pareil quand tu apprendras le gaélique irlandais, cette dernière langue a vraiment besoin de gens motivés comme toi pour survivre. Bonjour de France !🇫🇷
I'm really interested in learning Irish but mostly the reaction I get when I tell people is "why waste your time learning a dying languange?" I've already learned portuguese (brazilian wife) and i'm wanting to add something both more challenging and to connect me closer to my ethnic roots.
I can help you = Is féidir liom cabhrú leat ('Iss fayder lum cow roo lat') ... Irish isn't dead yet = Níl an Ghaeilge marbh fós ('Neel an ghwail geh marv fowss').
it was dying hard but recognized as a world language again I think a decade ago. Many people are taking pride in learning it again. Its not a waste of time and Although I moved from Ireland I'm learning again because I love it too and want it to survive
irish is not a "dying language". it's the language of every true irish, while english was impossed while they killed native irish speakers. this is not an attempt to revive a language, but recover what ireland lost.
I’m ethnically Irish and lately I’ve been very interested in my ancestry and learning about Ireland specifically, as my (American) family has always been very proud of our Irish blood. I thought I’d try my hand at learning Irish since my dad mentioned he was learning in passing conversation. I think it’s real important to help preserve this culture and language especially considering its history, and videos like these are amazing at doing that ❤
Damn, I don't know how you do it, but you make me fall in love with every single language you talk about, thanks to that, I've decided to study linguistics.
I'm not sure, but I definitely go deep down the rabbit hole when I make a video like this. I basically forget the world around me for a couple weeks. And just like when you watch a movie and you empathize with the characters (feel what they feel), when you watch one of my videos, you might feel how I was feeling while making the video.
Go raibh maith agat, an-mhaith Paul! I’m an Irish Canadian. I learnt Irish throughout primary and secondary school and by the time I finished I was close to fluent. I moved abroad in my 20s so have forgotten a lot, but I still love the language (grammar and all) and think it’s really important to keep it vibrant. During the promotion initiatives of the 1950s, regular typescript was introduced, and while it certainly made Irish more accessible, the old Irish script was so beautiful. Bhliain nua sásta dhuit!
Gerarda Cronin I learnt writing in seanchló (standard and cursive), in the late 90's/early 2000's, when I learnt to write. Some people still use it today, myself included. I teach it to my Irish students over in Ceanada... it's a lot faster to write with ponc than it is to spell everything the modern way if you're writing things out by hand
Irish seems a really interesting language to learn and it brings people close to the ancient celtic culture which is one of the most important in Europe. Also the celtic language family has influenced all languages of the British Isles and indirectly the entire world. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone, from Thessaloniki Greece! (Καλά Χριστούγεννα και Καλή Χρονιά! )
@@fergusfitzgerald6936 Thank you, i appreciate your interest and your comment 😁. I believe that leanring each others languages and cultures, no matter your ethnic backround, is a really beatiful and important thing for all of us, because it gets us closer to one another and makes us clear how many things we have in common than to take apart.
Thanks for the nice message and the comment on learning each other's languages and cultures Ion Ladopoulos! I am Irish and was in Greece just once but hope to go to it again and the Irish have a lot in common with the Greeks we have to remember!
As a basque speaker i use to think that my language was one of the most difficult languages in Europe but after watching this well :) bye (btw what a beautifull language you have!)
Uralic languages are the hardest languages that’re spoken in Europe, which aren’t in Category 5 of the hardest languages in the world. (Most of them are asian languages.)
@Iraitz Lizarralde yes basques rapped many native's in my country and many ppl in my country with basque last names are blue eyed.. but isnt that racial profiling mombo jumbo ?? I am colombian by the way.. and what the british did to the irish u did to our natives and blacks :) ...
Milesius ‘ Galamh ‘ , from brygantia, 3500 bc ,, married ‘Scota’ an Egyptian pharaoh ‘nemphet’ daughter & had children by her , heremon , Ir & milesius brother Heber , these arrived & killed , in retaliation, the Tuatha de danan and gave their wives to the picts, in turn Sent to ,,, Scotaland Some ‘Ir’ish share the same blood (DNA)as the Phoenicians , ( descendants of the tribe of Judah’ similarities in languages etc , these milesius descendants deforested large swathes of Ireland and introduced farming the land.using skills learnt from the east ,,, just to clarify , your welcome.
@Ir liz lo que dice es verdad, tienes en Azpeitia la tumba de Nicolás Sáez de Elola, que ayudó a capturar a Atahualpa, el último emperador inca, por ejemplo. Es de Perú y no de colombia, pero de aquí fueron pallá y nadie se libró de ser un racista y mucho más
Go raibh míle maith agat for making this video. Irish rarely gets talked about in the grand scheme of European linguistics which is sad, because it's one of the most unique and creative languages in Europe.
I couldn’t thank you more! Impeccable timing because I just started learning Irish after I’ve studied Scots Gaelic for months, and now I’m going to the Gaeltacht in May!
@@brendansweeney7468 I'd advise you pick one and learn it fairly well before trying the other. At least to use it actively. Knowing one will allow you to passively understand a fair bit of the other. (And then there's always Manx ;-) )
Sárjab, an-mhaith! My experience in primary and secondary school was quite poor, it is very difficult for teachers to encourage students to learn and speak the language. But during the summer I went to summer camps in the Gaeltacht (irish-speaking parts of Ireland) and fell in love with the language. I chose to study Irish in college and now live and work through Irish everyday. I consider myself very very lucky. The biggest things learners of Irish should look out for is that Irish doesn't follow English orthograpy or phonology. Initial mutations are a big one as well. Something that wasn't mentioned in the video is that Irish has two grammatical genders, which dictate many of the mutations, depending on number and case. All in all, Paul did an excellent job. Go n-éirí libh agus athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh.
Grammatical gender is a pretty universal Indo-European trait, though, and many languages such as German even have 3. Maybe Paul thought that anyone who watches his channel would already assume that grammatical gender is playing a part? English is the only language that's totally lost it, although it's quickly fading away in Dutch, and it's one of the first things you'll learn in any language lesson after hello/goodbye, please/thank you, mom/dad, etc.
I visited Ireland last year. It was amazing. But, everyone was speaking English. I only encountered spoken Irish in a pub on the outskirts of Dublin. I hope the language does not disappear or go extinct.
@@dombramax6926 Gaeltacht areas along the west coast. Mist famous would be Connemara in Co. Galway but theres plenty more gaeltacht areas around the country
I loved it and many more too, only the progressive cynics uneducated and shallow dont ... Every country have a fair few idiots , ireland is no different
I'm delighted to finally see a full video on my beloved language. Irish is such a beautiful langauge and it would be the worst thing ever for it to die out. I learnt Gaeilge in primary and secondary school and I am now studying it in college. Gaeilge is such a unique language and shares so many similarities and rules with other European languages that English doesn't. I'm currently also studying German in college and starting to learn French aswell and I have found it so much easier to grasp these languages because of the similar rules I've learnt for Irish. I think it's so important for our country to have our own language and I wish the government and the people of Ireland did more to promote it. Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam.
I would rather it become optional for the leaving or even better, have it off the curriculum from primary to secondary entirely! If that happened that would honestly be the best day of my life. Irish is a fucking shit language that almost everyone I know hates and never speaks outside of school.
My native language is German, I learned English and a bit fench in school and now I am trying to learn Irish (just started)! I find it the most beautiful language (in sound and in letters)! I discovered it through Clannad and Enya and wish to learn it now, but it's so difficult to pronounce! Hopefully I can master it one day! Viel Glück mit Deutsch!
@@Buecherfreak16 Danke schön!!! That’s amazing you’re learning Irish! I’d love to help you in any way I can. My Instagram is @cormacredmond if you want to message me if you ever need help, have any questions or want to practice 💚
@@cormacredmond7438 that's so very kind of you! I just send you a request on Instagram (though I am not that much on Instagram), I hope I had the right profil. If you need any help with german, feel free to contact me :)
As a learner, what you have in your video is so familiar, but with the proper linguistic terms. I’d definitely agree with your comments on learners’ pronunciation. I try my best to replicate how a native speaker would speak, but it does take additional study and practise, something many students simply aren’t willing to do. The syllabus is jam packed with texts, prose and poems to learn so ultimately something has to give, which tends to be true conversational skills and pronunciation. Very informative video, Hope you have a happy new year!
Hannah 1234 Have you any online resources for irish? I am interested in learning it, and I only know very little, but I want to eventually know enough to have a conversation with an Irish friend some day.
Privet Digit Duolingo is a very helpful resource, though it is lacking thorough grammar exercises. Here’s a list of some (hopefully) helpful resources: www.thejournal.ie/readme/irish-for-new-year-4415144-Dec2018/ I’d recommend the podcast Motherfoclóir. It’s all about Irish, though spoken in English, and will immerse you in the culture and politics of Irish along with including lots of vocab. Here’s a video explaining the sounds in Connacht Irish: www.reddit.com/r/gaeilge/comments/a9r9rw/42_phriomhfhuaim_chonamara/?st=JQCWRBCV&sh=3f759bd5 Connacht Irish is different to Munster Irish and Ulster Irish, and different resources will focus on the different dialects. If you’re willing to spend a bit of money, I’ve heard lots of good things about the textbook “Learning Irish” by Micheal O Siadhail. The book focuses on a type of Connacht Irish. I’ve also heard of a free pdf of the book floating about, if the book is too pricey. Depending on where you are in the world, you might be able to find Irish speaking events in your area. Keep an eye out for those as speaking Irish is the best way to learn. If you can’t find anyone to speak with in real life, even talking to someone online will do you good. Hope this helps!
An idea for your consideration : start videos such as this with an extended sample of the language being spoken, either orated or in conversation. I would love to hear these languages being spoken for a minute or two to get a feel for them before the analytics.
Amazing, I'm Irish and learnt Irish at school but I never recall one teacher explaining Irish like you have. I learnt and recalled so much in 20 minutes. I like to listen to the news in Irish and try to work out what was said by listening to the English news straight after. Great video
I learned Irish in Dublin, but would spend a month living with a family in the Gaeltacht during the summer to improve fluency. I remember the great music and craic, but somehow, my accent always remained more Rathmines than Rosmuc.
Thank you for the history on Ireland. On my moms side my maternal grandmother had Scottish, Welsh & some Irish but I didn’t know they are all considered an Gaelic language until you said so
Hi Paul! Thank you for another brilliant video. I have two things to add: 1) "Is" is a copula and the difference between "is" and "bí" can be compared to "ser" and "estar" in Spanish. 2) Use of the t-prefix is not that complicated. Basically it is used a) in nominative of definite masculine nouns starting with a vowel, b) in genitive of definite masculine nouns starting with "s" and c) in nominative of definite feminine nouns starting with "s" followed by a vowel, "l", "n" or "r". Also it may be used with definite "s" nouns after many prepositions, but this depends on the Irish dialect. Regarding your question to people studying Irish, to me the most difficult part of the learning process was to get used to initial mutations and to VSO order. Understanding anything spoken was a nightmare to me for a long time. :) Athbhliain faoi shéan is faoi mhaise duit! Happy New Year!
you weren’t kidding when you said that irish learners often dig deep into the subject when learning it. i’ve had to learn a lot about the study of linguistics as a whole in order to understand many of the grammatical concepts in irish, being so different from what i’m used to in english. i’m glad i did though, it’s opened up a real passion for linguistics in me.
Having studied Irish for 14 years in the Irish system I have learned more in this video than in all my time in class. We need more grammar instruction in Irish and English language classes at school. I am taking lessons in Irish Paleography. I'll be hitting the grammar with due diligence.
For many kids Irish was a school subject growing up, not a language. For a lot of people where was no practical use or no need to use it. All the good media is in English, all your friends spoke English, everything was written in English. You would have to go out of your way to apply it. You can make someone sit in a room 40 minutes every school day for 14 years and they can (and will from personal experience) just leave with knowing nothing. It is actually impressive to manage to be that unsuccessful at something.
my favorite thing about the language is that you can do so much with a small vocabulary since small sounds and short phrases can transform the meaning of a sentence so much it’s like verbal semicolons. I really love how easily the language give’s you context.
I'm from England and I think it's sad that the Irish language has declined so much. Irish people should be proud of their heritage. Irish people should learn Irish and revive the language like Israel revived Hebrew. I'm a quarter Irish and the Irish language is beautiful. I heard an Irish person speaking it a few weeks ago (in England of all places lol). This goes for people of Northern Ireland too. Stop with the British nationalism and hating Catholics for no reason. You're Irish. Anyway Irish people were all the same religion at one point before Christianity.
@@haziqmir1 Are you even Irish? I'm literally praising the Irish language and how it's sad it's been declining. You should be happy about that. Ireland and Britain need to get along. We should be friends and make sure not to repeat the horrible history. Hating on people for being English will just make things worse and will achieve nothing.
Correction: they were still all the same religion before Henry VIII created Anglicanism. Plus, the Presbyterians in Ireland come from the Scottish settlers who, again, only became a thing when Knox founded the Presbyterian Church.
If only the language hadn't been suppressed for centuries by foreign occupiers. Not blaming you, but there are reasons for the decline, and the use of English means there isn't as much of an imperative to find a new lingua franca as there was with the formation of Israel.
If we all make a second fake account... hm. Paul's a celebrity among language geeks and learners, it's just a matter of time. Maybe if he did a video on the Kelen language ;)
It was really tough learning Irish in school, especially if you had a harsh teacher or a teacher that didn't know what they were doing. You didn't really start using Irish in conversations in school until you were about 16, this was for an oral exam where you speak Irish with s teacher on your own. I wish the government created a website where we could learn to speak Irish fluently.
Probably the Indo-European languages with the least phonetic spelling. While I find it difficult, it's still so interesting and would love to see them more widely spoken. Will be interesting to see the status of Irish and Welsh especially in 20-30 years.
I'm Scottish (engaged to an Irishman) and started dabbling in the Irish Duolingo course just over a year ago. I ended up getting really into it, and I finished the course. My speaking leaves a lot to be desired, but it's amazing to be able to read, write and hear new words! Irish made me fall in love with learning languages, something I decided I was terrible at during my high school French lessons and have never even attempted since. Now, I'm actually revisiting French, learning some Spanish and even a bit of Scots Gaelic (which, no, I didn't speak a word of growing up). I find it beautiful to hear how people express themselves in different languages. In Irish, emotions and feelings are "on" you ("Tá brón orm" / "I'm sorry" literally translates to "there is sorrow on me") and if you enjoy something, you say it "shines" with you ("Taitníonn sé liom"). I really love that! Irish numbers are a bit of a nightmare to wrap your head around, plus the sentence structure can be a real headscratcher, but that's part of the challenge. Well, sin é - is aoibhinn liom Gaeilge! Go raibh maith agat, agus slán!
I am afraid you have just "cured" me from wanting to learn Irish. I've always thought what a nice sounding language it was, and it would be cool to learn it - but it is so freakin' complicated!!!
I was in Berlin on a school trip and we were getting a picture With a guy dressed as a Soviet soldier at checkpoint Charlie, he asked where we were from and we said Ireland and he asked Cónas atá tú.
i am doing both german and gaeilge, and i tell you honestly, german’s nouns are always what trip me up. for soem god-given reason, i’ve no trouble remembering irish genders, but german genders want me dead.
This is a very good video. Well done to anyone from outside Ireland who is learning our language. My first language is English. I am from the east of Ireland and there are very few native Irish speakers here. Everyday conversation is almost exclusively undertaken in English. I was required to learn Irish until the age of 17 at school. I have a cupla focail. currently I am in a coffee shop and people around me are conversing in a Slavic language and other people in French and a few in English.
I’m Australian but I have a lot of Irish blood in me and I want to learn how to embrace my culture and ancestry more and this was very helpful. To everyone reading this, have a great day
I had no idea Irish grammar is so similar to Hungarian, for example with these slender and broad vowels and consonants, it reminds of vowel harmony, and the prepositions act the same - you add personal pronouns to them. Even the endings are the same in 1sg (m) or similar in 2sg (t in Irish, d in Hungarian). It's also the same with showing possession. Hungarian also have 3 types of numbers, used in different situations, but they're not as complicated as Irish, I think.
An addition similarity to Hungarian: one of a pair is referred to as "half", e.g. "ar leathchois", lit, "on a half-leg" describes a one-legged person. I am told that this is like 'fél lába" in Hungarian - forgive me if I spell it incorrectly.
It's worth noting that the great potato famine was a man made famine and is commonly considered a genocide. The Irish Catholics, the native population, was specifically targeted and oppressed by the protestants and the protestant English and this caused the conditions that created the famine. Then, once the famine was under way, these policies continued and continued in a way that was particularly vicious to the native, Catholic Irish. Some Irish consider the term 'famine' in this context to be dismissive and apologetic of what can and is often argued to be genocide.
Sean Sultan British government policy has always been to eradicate the Celtic peoples' language and culture - more latterly using subtle means. Cornish people are still being hammered in this way.
You're confusing greed and neglegence with malicious intent. Irish people suffered a lot from English crown but what you are saing is a conspiracy theory, not helping a better understanding of history.
@@FlymanMS No, I'm not peddling a conspiracy theory. I base what I said on economic and political facts. Things like deliberately underfunding schools compared to English schools. Like encouraging people from outside of Cornwall to buy up Cornish housing stock as second homes (empty 11 months of the year) by giving them a 10% discount on council tax (it used to be 50%!) which degrades the local economy and drives local people out of Cornwall. You could write a book on this. The government doesn't say, "We are doing this to eradicate Cornish people," but that is the logical and obvious outcome. If you're in any doubt about this, just check the local newspapers' websites whenever there is a story about the Cornish language - the comments section is heavy with hatred and abuse from English people. As a Cornish person, I have been insulted a great many times for being Cornish - sometimes in the nicest possible way but insulted nevertheless. All this is sad but true.
FlymanMS nope it's true. Look at the figures of the grains exported from Ireland during the 1840's and 50's. Those grains were taken from Irish farmers at gunpoint even though the british knew well what it was like for ordinary people. It started off as greed when Irish people were left with just the potato to subsist on but when they had full knowledge of a famine due to a disease they brought over from America, it is then malicious intent to still take those same farmers food from them
I am learner of Irish from Germany. I think that while you pointed out all the interesting aspects of the language, you should also have mentioned more that not all of them are difficult at all. Personally, I think Irish is a language of medium difficulty. It may seem to be difficult because it is quite different from what other indoeuropean languages but it has many features that make it easier than most. Example: The pronounciation rules may seem complicated at first, but in fact they are relatively simple once you get into them because they are very regular. (except from some dialectal variations) In that regard the language is much easier than for example English. Other example: Irish has lost most of its cases. Only Nominative and Genitive remain, with some traces of the Dative in one dialect. In general, the grammar of Irish is not really hard. What makes the language difficult IMO are two things: First, the initial mutations. Not their formation or pronounciation, but there are tons and tons of circumstances when they are formed with many exception rules. The other hard thing: Not the grammar, but how it is used. Native irish speakers tend to have a strange, somewhat poetic, form of indirect speech. This takes some time getting used to and seems to be nearly impossible to learn. That way I was able to tell native writers from non-native ones very easily quite soon. BTW, that number of native speakers using the language daily seems to be a bit on the high side. I have read numbers of about 40000.
So in other words, it looks difficult because there's a tonne of rules, but it's actually easy because unlike a tonne of other languages, it actually follows the rules it lays out?
Yes it's on the high side, his figures come from a recent census I think, on it you could tick yes/no to whether you had Irish or not so any Joe Soap who remembered a few words from school could tick yes if he/she wanted. A more accurate picture would have been gained if the question was 'Can you listen to RnaG and understand everything? Yes/no.'
We have been living in Ireland for just over 3 years now.. My granddaughter has to learn it at school. She is not happy about it. I am so glad that I don't have to learn it - it's a complicated language. The Irish people are so friendly and funny. I love them.
Físean iontach é seo, a Phól. What a wonderful overview of the oldest written vernacular language in Europe. As someone who learned it in school many years ago I've two comments... the teachers I had had excellent pronunciation (Gaeilge na Mumhan... Munster Irish) but it was metaphorically beaten into us so the day we left school at 18 we all dropped it. The advent of the internet has changed everything and has made it accessible and normal for those who are interested, whatever their standard. Your videos are well made, informative, introductory for many languages, and a pleasure to watch. Go raibh míle míle maith agat (",)
Hi, everyone! I hope you like the video.
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Langfocus thanks for the new video!
And make video on simmilar hindi and Nepali....
Happy new year
Hapsy nooyer Paul!!
The same to you! I love learning new stuff, especially if it's related to languages!
I'm Irish and have always been surprised at your in-depth analysis of Languages. This one is close to my heart and you have not disappointed! Well done...
Irish peopl are english noew, why they denys it? I hav no idea, they speek englands languag, so they is englishmen.
@deus vult Houw so? Eirish dont speak Eirish anymor but prefer this languag at home, speechs of nativ englisman.
@@fergalmurrayyoutube What a load of pure rubbish. Most Irish don't really even understand Gaelic (Irish)
@@turkoositerapsidi The EU is quickly saturating Ireland with immigrants. Ireland "kissing up" to the EU will lead to erasure of White Irish culture in less than 30 years. They already have an Indian Queen (Varadkar) ruling Ireland at the minute. Irish have failed to run their own heavily bankrupt country.
Ireland currently has DOUBLE the DEBT of GREECE, with half the population of GREECE. Only 4.5 Million People.
Sadly, White Irish and their culture will not exist much longer in their own country. Sad but true.
Irish youth are well liked in other countries, so the young will continue to move overseas.
www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/why-do-the-irish-still-owe-more-than-the-greeks-1.3001026?mode=amp
Metro 4652387 He was raised in Ireland & has an Irish mother, the fact that his Da is Indian is irrelevant
I will never complain about French again.
MayonnaiseVenusaur I know French is so hard to learn
Welsh is very much like Irish, though many differences are prevalent as well
In some aspects, arabic seems easier to learn than English or French. But *who* will believe me.
@@yimoawanardo Add some vowels to your script
@@M10n15u3h5 Nothing shorter than saying "make English phonetics regular, or make English vowels more representative of actual pronounciation" to you.
This is a quote i found on Duolingo
"There are more ppl learning Irish on Duolingo than there are native speakers"
-Duo
Duolingo likes to toot its own horn like that. How many of those people actually use the course? Probably a low percentage.
Yeah that's false
Twilight living thank you for recommending the channel.
@@Langfocus I believe that it likes to toot it's own horn but that doesn't mean its not good at teaching languages. I started learning Irish on duo lingo just a week ago and its going really well (though my accent is probably terrible)
@Twilight living thnx for the recommending the channel! though maybe you should watch a channel on English spelling as well XD (just kidding)
English: Strawberry
Irish: Juice of the land
English: Dictionary
Irish: Words
English: Library
Irish: Place with Books
English: Hospital
Ulster Irish: Place with the patients
I like languages that make up self descriptive terms. I think is better than having a bunch of sounds and collection of letters, many borrowed form other languages and detached from their original context, that could mean anything, like in English.
@César Correa English: Goodbye = God be with you.
I always found places ending in -lann funny like 'pictuirlann' or picture place, meaning cinema or 'bialann' which means restaraunt but in a direct translation is 'food place', sounds like cave men or something lmao
English: Whiskey
Irish: Water of life (uisce beatha)
@@lordhumongous644 actually that example is an interesting one. The word Whiskey comes from uisce beatha. Whiskey is an English mispronunciation of uisce.
I'm an Irish man who moved to London at 11 and so didn't learn too much Irish but thanks to Duolingo and books I've taught myself.
Let's keep this beautiful ancient language alive! 🇮🇪
@@ronanpflanagan damn who hurt you
@@ronanpflanagan irish is a good language and everyone thinks this in ireland but it's important to learn to keep the language alive
RaggedPizza 1895 pathetic
RaggedPizza 1895 but im irish and want to learn it?? ypure making no sense?
I spoke Gaelic in school till I was 11
So I’ve seen this short film about a Chinese guy who decided to go to Ireland and studied “Irish”. He became very fluent in Gaelic but without knowing a word in English. It was really interesting when he arrived in Ireland and tries to speak Gaelic to people. The film “Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom”.
Growing up in ireland I've seen that like 6 times in school its great
Yu-ming the absolute icon "an bhfuil tusa ag labhairt liomsa?"
i think they play this in every primary school in Ireland
@@paper_flwrs Nil aon duine eile anseo
One of the last pieces involving the late, great and much lamented Frank Kelly.
I have lived in Ireland for over 3 years now, and this was so helpful! No Irish people I know could explain any of the spelling features so simply. I live in Dublin, so I only know one person who is a fluent Irish speaker. Everyone else can barely say, "hello, my name is..."
I would also note that the Irish Famine was man made and partly used by the British to "solve the Irish problem". There are official documents publicly available that reveal this. Ireland was a net exporter of food during the Famine.
Dublin is probably the least Irish place in Ireland.
Caoimhín Ó Caoimh yeah time be fair
Caoimhín Ó Caoimh yeah to be fair
That's because Irish people are taught the spelling features as pointless spelling features which are for some reason for writing and reading only.
The reason this happens is that most teachers either
A. Don't know the native phonology themselves
B. Couldn't be bothered teaching it because it has no use to students with regards getting marks for the leaving certificate
Head round to 6 Harcourt Street and ask there about classes and go to the club they have if you want a pint or three in an Irish speaking environment
Native Irish speaker here.First off , love these videos, so much work put into them 👌
Just a quick correction, gasúr means “child” (of any sex) and not “boy” .
Thanks!
Langfocus No problem. Thank you for making these videos. I’ve learned so much about my own language I never knew, plus so much about other languages too. If you’re ever in Connemara I’ll buy you a pint 🍺
I believe ‘boy’ is ‘buachaill’ as Gaeilge.
@@RickyMacHatton yes, spot on 👌👍
@@RickyMacHatton Buachaill (and cailín) are 'boy and girl, but after puberty and until marriage. Younger children are 'gasúr' and 'girseach' (at least that's how it is in Tír Chonaill)
"It would be so cool to learn Irish." *Watches Langfocus* "It would be so cool to learn Portuguese."
Why portuguese!? Has a lot of retarded little rules like that
@@carleindegasoline8704 As a Portuguese person myself I can say that the worst part about Portuguese is verbs conjugations...
@@miscas_ meu chapa! im brazilian... so... yah, i agree
Except for verb conjugations, it's not difficult. Even we brazilians sometimes don't know exactly. Come to Brazil learn it
Dutch living in Sp Brazil
I find that most expats and foreigners learning Portuguese have most difficulties with the distinction of male and female like "o menino"(the boy) e "a menina"(the girl) and especially when the noun is not obvious determined like "ponte" (bridge) ..... "A ponte"(correct) or "O ponte"(incorrect).
Irish people pls don't let your language die!!!
I'm afraid it's too late for Irish language. It's dead actually. Folk piece.
Focal off!
@M IH It's a matter of fact, dude. Irish let their own language die.
homesanto You can’t call a language “dead” until there are absolutely no native speakers. There are native speakers of Irish. It’s not dead. It’s ridiculous that you would suggest that but go off I guess 🤷🏻♀️
I wish I could revive all Celtic languages in today world.
I'm Russian and I'm learning Irish.
The most important thing I can say about the language is that it is a really exotic language, even though it belongs to Indo-European language family.
What makes Irish language exotic? Well, several unique phenomena such as lenition and eclipsis, which are nowhere else to be found outside in other European languages except the other Celtic languages.
It is definitely hard to get used to non-standard VSO system, since again, no other European languages use such system, but standard SVO only. Irish has three cases, but in comparison to Russian or other Eastern European languages (excluding obviously Finno-Ugric languages), the cases are really simply constructed.
However, the prepositions give another challenge in making a great number of new words depending on the personal pronoun you use. Besides that, the basic verbs such as have, know, want, can, live, sleep, etc. are all built by using "bí" and prepositions with pronouns, which makes it hard to master, especially when it comes to making complex sentences or imperative forms.
The video missed one more interesting aspect of Irish, such as no universal words of "yes" and "no": if you wish to say yes or no, you have to look straight to the context, because these words are linked to the tense and the verb you use.
For example: An raibh tú sa bhaile inniu? (were you at home today?) - bhí (yes/I was); ní raibh (no/I wasn't) - Past tense, verb "to be";
An bhfuil tú go maith? (are you well?) - tá (yes/I am), níl (no/I'm not) - Present tense, verb "to be";
An ndúnann tú an doras? (do you close the door?)
- dúnaim (yes/I close); ní dhúnaim (no/I don't close) - Present tense, verb "to close".
The most challenging things I faced were:
1. The words order (Verb-Subject-Object);
2. Prepositions and the verb constructions that use them (have, know, want, can, live, sleep, etc.);
3. Pronounciation and writing (just like in English, there is a good number of exceptions when one letter combination is pronounced differently depending on the word, plus the generally long words that end up being pronounced shortly).
Other than that, it is a very interesting language to learn, and the more foreigners learn it, the more motivation it gives to the native Irish to return to their mother tongue. I sincerely hope Irish will be once again widely spoken everywhere across Ireland and all the population will get decent fluency in it.
Paul, thank you very much for the video.
P.S. Can't wait to practice Gaeilge this summer in Ireland :) Feicfidh mé go luath sibh, a chairde! :)
The irish lost their potatoes and the Russians the space race
I'm really impressed learn more from this than I did at school x
Very interesting comment, thank you.
Wow you could teach irish ..your better than any teachers ive had
@@123-t2v3d maths, english and a hole bunch of other stuff are forced too but nobody complains. maybe if the teachers were able to speak it, it might help.
Dia daoibh ! I am Russian and I love Celtic languages, especially Irish - Connacht dialect. Complex grammar, an abundance of soft consonants - heaven for the Russian throat and mind :))
Dia duit! Conas atá tú agus ar foghlaim tú gaeilge
А бретонский не изучаете ?
I was born in the Conamara Gaeltacht and grew up with fluent Irish. Later, when I moved into the city, my English was so poor I had to go for extra lessons outside of school just to catch up with my class mates who spoke Irish like aliens to me.
If I had advice for anyone learning it would be to just go for it, your pronunciation will almost certainly be wrong and you'll definitely mess up the grammar, but Irish people are forgiving and the locals will greatly appreciate it if you make the effort. You'll pick up the nuances along the way and it won't seem so bad or confusing.
I really want to be fluent in irish I still learn Irish in school but it is in leinster so it is a mix of dialects any tips?
@@Tjmce I speak Conamara Irish, so im biased, but I'd recommend learning that as much as possible 😂 My girlfriend speaks Munster Irish though and would tell you the same about that, so it's really up to you! I think if you can hold a basic conversation, even simplifying how you would normally say it in English to fit into the Irish vocab you know, you're doing great. If you feel like school isn't getting you where you need to be, TG4 has loads and loads of great shows (especially American shows translated into Irish) and you'll pick up a lot of slang and colloquialism from that too! But really just getting started is the key, as they say, tús maith leath na hoibre!
@@Tjmce coinnigh ort agus glac do mhisneach tá cúpla fhíseán agam ar mo chainéal chuideofas leat
@@Tjmce Molaim físeanna Dazpatreg thuas duit. Tá siad ar fheabhas.
@@Tjmce My Irish is Ulster (specifically Gaoth Dobhair). Even in Donegal, the pronunciation varies from townland to townland, for example, I would say gwee dowie where someone from Na Rosain would call it gwee dow-ar
There are 3 striking similarities between Irish people and Russians: 1) Both languages have constrastive palatalization (broad/slender) 2) Both languages say "at me there is" instead of "I have" 3) Both love to drink
I have been saying for a while that Old Irish would have sounded like a Russian impersonating a Welshman.
My Russo-latvian friend used to say Ireland is the western most country of eastern Europe.
We are both alcoholics
KonstantinGeist both love AK-47s.
@@SuperDscruggs how else are we to fend off the english speakers trying to force their forms of property rights on the world
You kind of glossed over the decline of the Irish language around the time of the famine.
During the famine, Ireland actually exported MORE food than it had in the previous years. And whilst we commonly hear the phrase "a million died, a million left" that doesn't answer for how we went from 8+ million to
The Famine was an Organised Genocide
Genocide and cultural attack took place
To be fair, it's a language focussed video
To quote the irish during the plantations, "To help or to connacht" which shows that people would rather go to hell than go to connacht and be under the rule of Oliver Cromwell.
@RadioNul he touched upon other Irish history, mentioning the effect of the genocide on native speakers of Irish was the least he could have done.
Irish is such a beautiful and mysterious language. I love learning it and I wish it was never replaced by English
Tell me about it, I hate that it was replaced. I went to an Irish school when I was younger and had to speak Irish all the time. I love my country.
Every novel language comes across beautiful and mysterious.
English the lungua franca has been devastating to several native languages. There are pros and cons to a global language of transaction.
Kinda like how Hawaiian was replaced with English in its native area too
If it hadn't been replaced, it wouldn't be considered mysterious.
No one pines over Albanian or Estonian
scots is spak by fowk in Scotlan, Norlinn airlinn an tha ROI forby...
As a learner my first impression of Irish pretty much went like this:
1st rule of Irish is “slender with slender, broad with broad”
2nd rule of a Irish is “there are no rules!”
First one is actually a good one to go with, both for verb formation and for general spelling. There are indeed rules but they’re shite, make no sense, and take ages to learn as there’s absolute tons of them. Best to just speak it and learn through trial and error
ah, caol le caol, leathan le leathan...
it rolls of the tongue, that's for sure...
You literally just watched a video on regular rules of Irish grammar.
Syzible I’m not sure if you’ve heard of these before but that was called a “joke”
@@Jellygamer0 Ikr I think it sounds really nice tbh
I learnt more in these 20 minutes than 13 years in school
I see this type of comment underneath a lot of his videos 😂
I went to school for years. I am happy there are RUclips videos out there I can learn more than school. I should say that school is not always a place to have an education. Don’t get me wrong here.
Its almost like irish is taught badly in schools :O
I agree
@@GodOfExploding here in Ireland school cant teach a single language never mind irish i am unsure if this is the same in other provences but in ulster, yeah
Preserve your gaellic heritage and keep learning Irish . Happy New Year from the Basque Country !
Sandernista
Nope. Terrorists don’t represent the whole people
Sandernista
Uh, no? Terrorists who call themselves Muslims don’t represent all Muslims, either... Any other groups you’d like to generalize about, or are you about done?
@Deito World is about the IRA and ETA
@Deito World
People don't like having to think in more shades than black or white.
@@sandernista6499 the only reason for the conflict is that we are under rule of a foreign country which oppresses many parts of our culture such as the language . Attrocities have been comitted both sides but on a whole usually the irish people arnt a violent people more friendly than anything. Id encourage you to look into the horrible things the english have done to us and youll see its not so clear as to who is the evil one
One of the tragic legacies of British imperialism is how it convinced people of different cultures that their languages were inferior to English and how this belief is still held by most of the people in these former British colonies. In the Indian Subcontinent (especially Pakistan and Northern India), you will see people giving preference and prestige to English rather than their own mother tongue. In Ireland, it's the same case. I really hope that the Irish revive their language and get rid of English. If Israel can do it with Hebrew, Ireland and Scotland can as well.
Tiocfaidh ar la!
This is so true. Agreed!
There is a big difference between Ireland and India. English is useful in India to bridge the gap between the dozens of languages and dialects, and is always learned as a second language. Most Irish learn English as their first language which is sad.
@@fartmaster--po4ti Why isn’t Hindi used as the lingua franca between the people of different language and dialects in India, the way China use Mandarin for its people? Where in China, everyone including the Tibetans, Uighurs, Aborigines etc know Mandarin, in India not everyone who is not a native speaker of Hindi know Hindi.
@@estellemelodimitchell8259 I don't know, probably for historical/cultural reasons due to the legacy of the British empire. Also English is a more valuable language to learn as it is a global lingua franca.
Honestly, I think Irish people in general are quite proud of their language. The issue is that outside of school it isn't very well known/understood and it is often very unenjoyable to learn in school which makes people lose interest in learning the language. I think that a lot if the problems with people not speaking Irish in Ireland boils down to the way that it is taught in schools. If the way it was taught in schools changed to make it mire engaging and added more emphasis on the language during the earlier parts of the school system I think that there would be a better chance of reviving the Irish language to become more common outside of Gaeltacht regions☺🍊
People: ugh French words wtf
Irish people: *maniacal laughter*
Honestly French just looks like funny english compared to Irish
At least our counting isn't as convoluted.
I mean, three twenties fifteen..?
I think french is way harder than Irish
Me and my BobbyGee I’m French and just started learning Irish .... I NOW understand what people have always complained to me about xD
Im from Ireland and Im used to half the words now feicher means good morning or something
Thug mé
Thug tú
Thug sé
Thug sí
Thugamar
Thug sibh
Thug life
🇮🇪
Focal aon, focal dó, focal trí, focal eile
And I don't know no focail at all 😉
Liom
Leat
Leis
Lei
Linn
@Cáca Milis sa Seomra Spraoi Ta! nigh do lámha!!
Tá do gramadach ar fheabhas fam
@Cáca Milis sa Seomra Spraoi Tá, cinnte ☀️
What's great about Irish is that it only has nine (!) irregular verbs: abair (to say), clois (to hear), déan (to make), faigh (to get), feic (to see), ith (to eat), tabhair (to give), tar (to come), téigh (to go).
Irregular means a hundred-ish forms in Irish, though.
Very interesting,but its actually 11,you forgot bi(to be) and beir(to grab)
Actually it has 11, you missed bí (to be), and beir (to grab/to catch)
And those happen to be the most used.
Those just happen to be the most important verbs in any language. lol
Speaking as an Irish person who has a fierce love for the language and recognising my bias, it's so much easier than French (the other language I did for the Leaving). There's a lot of rules, but not too many exceptions (and only 11 irregular verbs)! Plus a lot of the "complicated rules" are much more straightforward when you take the grammatical gender of a word into account. The biggest hurdle for learners in my experience is the phonology - it's difficult to see "teach" and not think "ah yes, like the verb in English", once you can switch to Not reading with English pronunciation spelling conventions and pronouncing words you've never seen before! And for any new learners, or those considering learning, no one is expecting you to know all the grammar immediately right off the bat!
there are a ridiculous amount of ru
ules in irish
This is just not true. French is absolutely much easier than Irish, although it does have its tricky parts too
Dia dhuit! I am an Irish learner, and answering your questions:
It's tough and challenging to learn it, but you get to understand some of the mentality behind Irish people's perspective of the world, what'd be a simple "thank you" becomes something similar to "may you have goodness" in "go raibh maith agat", or with "I'm sorry" being "there is sadness in me" and it also means "I'm sad" with "tá brón orm".
The most challenging part, in my opinion, is the amount of rules for the mutations and when you try to focus on one dialect to be you center of pronunciation but sometimes you only find a subject in one of the other dialects. The most interesting part I've mentioned before in the first question, about the way that some expressions sound like proverbs or has another ways to be understood.
I hope this was helpful... Slán!
@Frog I stopped a while ago... it`s to hard to keep going without a proper teacher or material lol
@Frog Lol I found it really beautiful
You will NEVER learn Irish from books - spend time on your holidays in the Gaeltacht, listen to people and keep using what you have.
OisinmacFionn I noted that 😅 I was listening podcasts in Irish and watching kid's tv shows to get the pronounciations, but it wasn't enough.
@@OisinmacFionn couldn't be more true.
The only reason I would say I'm conversationaly fluent in irish is because I've always went to an irish school. Since I started till now
The famine was genocide against native Irish. This isn't conspiracy, it's true and understood in the historical record. Also, I'm English so it's not like it's in my interest to make this statement. I, as a lover of languages and also being against the viscious imperialism of my country, would love to see Irish much more widely spoken.
Too bad your kind fucked up a lot of cultures.
I’m irish and I can tell you at this point no one really blames the english. I mean we know what happened but we’ve sorta moved on.... in the republic anywayyy
@@johnhishon4795 'Your kind' we're still humans, we're not a different species
@@benjayi8989 Your kind as in your nationality dumbass.
Do you know how much effort the British state and people put into countering the famine when it hit Scotland, Ireland and the rest of western europe? The food supply in the south collapsed so food was shipped in, paid labour was instituted on government funds similar to what Roosevelt did during the new deal, using the poor and unemployed on civil works projects such as road building, charities brought in soup kitchens and other relief projects and finally when the economy and food supply wasn't recovering efforts were made to give cheap passage to the new world where there was food and work.
There's bitterness because people had to be moved off their land, theres especially grudges because the conditions loading starving, unwashed unhealthy people on overcrowded ships was a recipe for disaster (they're called coffin ships for a reason) and there are really bitter historical biases because the government chose to go for exporting the people rather than stopping food exports from the unaffected north into the starving south and destroying the northern economy to aid the south.
Genocide implies people planned it, while theres groups and people tried to take advantage and profit from the disaster and others who got charity fatigue after years of paying to support Ireland and cut the relief off there was never an attempt to destroy Ireland and the Irish.
It could be self-defeating after all, where do you think the British state got its best soldiers from, its industrial workers, the Navvies who built the canals and railways and the entrepreneurs and merchants who ran the Empire?
How did this learn more about my language for a single video than I learned during my 14 years in school? I don’t know how you found this information or how long it took you, but you’re a genius and I cannot compliment this video enough
Because we had no will to learn it in school.
@@boru1982 No, because the school system doesn't give a shit about our language.
@@svendinsvinderlin4569 Most will blame everything but themselves for not learning Irish. If you don't want to learn something you won't learn it. I didn't learn much Irish in school, not because of poor teachers or the system. It was because I didn't really want to so I didn't apply myself to learn it.
@@boru1982 Firstly I'm relatively fluent in Irish, so don't go assuming that I just don't want to blame myself.
Also yes, I agree that if the kids wanted to learn, the problem would probably be fixed. But why are you blaming them for not wanting to learn? It's up to the teachers to make them want to learn. Your idea of education is like that of a catholic nun in the 50s.
@@svendinsvinderlin4569 You should read my post again. It seems you're replying to a post in your head. I never even implied you weren't fluent nor did I imply children were to blame.
What I am saying is that many adults who look back and bemoan their inability to learn the language while at school will blame teachers, systems and everything else for not applying themselves to learn. There is only one person who can do it. You even touched on it in your last post - you even said it's a teachers job to make them want to learn - utter impractical romantic nonsense. This isn't the land of Dead Poets Society. The teacher is there to get through a wide-ranging syllabus and teach in a short amount of time- they don't have the time to make 25-40 students want to learn individually. The attitude the student brings to school is made at home not the classroom.
The fact of the matter is that school is just a basis for learning. The majority of learning takes place while studying for exams or revising outside of school hours. I'm not saying the syllabus is adequate nor saying the teachers are good. The reason I didn't learn much Irish at school is because I (along with my fellow classmates) didn't apply myself to do so. The fault was purely my own. I didn't have the discipline to do so which is likely common to most people at that age. The teacher could've been brilliant, the system could've been perfect. It wouldn't have changed anything.
Most Irish people want to learn Irish by the time it's too late and they're well finished with school. Unfortunately there are many, as if it's human nature, that will blame it on everything they can other than themselves. You've now blamed the system in your first comment and the teachers for students not wanting to learn in your second. Unfortunately there are many that share your lack of accountability.
Learner of Irish: The overpowering resentement towards this language amongst my class mates in school (Dublin)combined with the absolute disastrous teaching methodolgy(the dreaded 'projector' and foaming-mouthed múinteoirs) has done a lot of damage to the language's image and has left a deep sore in the psyches of a lot of people, not to mention being associated with second gen Connaght speaker civil servants D4 kids called Fionn Mac C. Having a global language as your first tongue doesn't argue the case much better either when growing up in 80s recession hit Ireland. That said, thanks to the internet and TG4, having studied languages abroad and sufficiently distanced myself from these hangups, I have regained my interest in Irish and hope to get better over the next few years. Also, ironically perhaps, this is one of the best produced videos on Irish I've seen on RUclips. Go raibh maith agat agus is breá liom an video!
Gawd, those D4 types mangle the language with the way they squeeze their vowels too (posh English vowels) . Sounds awful. Irish uses pure vowels like the old culchie accents.
I think you hit the nail on the head there, I believe the single biggest contributor to the fall of Gaeilge (since 1916) is the education system. Most teachers only need to perform a basic exam in Irish to become a teacher, and thus the majority of teachers are shite at Irish. So you have a shite teacher, which causes you to dislike the subject.
@@cuppaaCoffey It isn't possible to keep a language alive if it isn't preferred in daily use even if you teach it well. English is so much easier to use day to day that it is hard to imagine Irish making a genuine comeback in anyway.
Irish is a pretty language as its creator made it into a very unique and distinctive language with mostly pretty words and used a lot of Norse words and sounds, so Modern Irish is very elvish, but it has a category 3 spelling which is not easy to get used to or use on a daily basis - most ppl don’t care about the languages that they were made to learn and most ppl also don’t look at the artistic value of languages that are pretty and they are generally going to use the language that’s easier to use, and English being one of the prettiest languages ever and also the easiest language ever created in every way, I can see why most switched to English and stopped learning Irish, because English is the easiest to use and type on any device and the easiest to learn etc, but anyways, I am learning Irish and Gaelic and Manx etc for their pretty and poetic words 2gether with Norse and Icelandic and Dutch and Norwegian Gothic and Faroese and Danish and Welsh and Breton and Cornish and Forn Svenska and many other pretty languages, and I highly recommend learning them 2gether, as these are one of the prettiest languages ever, as pretty as English, so, even though the spelling of Irish and Gaelic are a bit complicated, they are very pretty, and they aren’t really that complicated, especially when compared to truly impossible category 10 languages such as Chinese languages and Japanese which have impossible characters and tones and mostly words that aren’t pretty, so Irish and Gaelic are still on the easy side (tho they are the hardest languages that I am learning) and are just slightly more complicated than Hungarian and Latvian and Finnish and Estonian which are category 2 languages, though the easiest languages ever are the Germanic languages and the other modern Celtic languages Welsh / Breton / Cornish / Manx (and Gaulish too) and the true Latin languages Galician / Latin / Gallo / Portuguese / Spanish / Catalan / Walloon / Guernsey / Occitan / Venetian / Esperanto / Pretarolo / Sardinian / Italian and the other Italian-based languages and Slovene which are all category 1 languages!
In a way, it makes sense that English is to become the language that’s used by all as the main language as it is the easiest to use and most practical, and it is also pretty and one of the prettiest! In general, all should focus on the pretty languages which include the Germanic languages and the Celtic languages and Latin and a few others, and the pretty languages should be an option in all schools everywhere, so that the ones that are naturally interested in them can choose to learn them at school, so technically, instead of just trying to get ppl from one region learn Irish and Gaelic etc that don’t have an interest in learning them (even though they are pretty languages) they should start teaching them and the other Celtic languages on yt via videos and tons of vocab videos etc and videos explaining every aspect of their grammar in detail, so that the ones who are truly interested in these languages can easily learn them! There are many that want to learn pretty and poetic languages, even the ones that are a bit more complicated, but one cannot learn the Celtic languages easily because there just aren’t enough resources and there aren’t many vocab videos on yt that would have over ten thousand words!
Paul, this video is really spectacular. I'm an American whose father speaks Irish, so I was exposed to it a lot growing up but have only really become conversational as an adult.
To experience Irish as a living, breathing language is to fall in love with it. This can be difficult to find even in Ireland, but is not impossible. I was very lucky to get a taste of this growing up and later experienced it on both sides of the Atlantic as an adult. It's very easy to be intimidated by the millions of rules we have in Irish, but the important thing is always the blás - the sound and flavor of the language. The blás is what makes Irish sound like home.
Have been watching and enjoying your videos for a while so I was thrilled to see a new one about Irish pop up! Go raibh míle maith agat :)
Coinnigh bhur misneach a chairde! ✊☘️✊
Whattup fellow real-name user... ;)
Farley Kelly-Masterton hahaha Cad é mar atá tú a chara?!?
Joseph = Seosamh
Seán McCluskey Wow! You are a rare breed of Irish-American. I play Hurling in New York and worked with a lot of Gaeligors in the Irish media and there are a select few Irish-Americans that even know there is an Irish language. Well done to your da and you as well!
MY experience of learning the language was really bad. REALLY BAD
Absolutely none of the students in my school (and I mean NONE) knew that slender and broad consonants were pronounced differently other than s
When I asked why they were written as broad or slender in one of my Irish classes they just said "it's just the way it's written" pretty much every time
The thing is, almost all Irish teachers have learned Irish this way, anglifying the language and just plain ignoring anything that's too difficult.
They then teach upcoming Irish teachers this and it produces a vicious cycle.
You can be absolutely terrible at the language yet the tests and exams are so easy, it just builds on the problem, any oral exam completely doesn't take into account if you can even pronounce half of the consonants correctly cause the government is too afraid to say that what 2 million people know as "Irish" is incorrectly pronounced.
What you learn in Irish, is so painful, it's poems, rhymes, nothing about actually speaking the language, so any sort of exam or homework leaves you staring at the paper in bewilderment, google translate is now the writer of I'd bet, hundreds of thousands of Irish essays in school, and you can immediately tell cause it's all wrong.
There's 3 types of numbers? naaaaah just let them learn a few more really basic sentences off by heart and we'll get to the grammar "later" , then the teacher gets angry at you for not correctly doing something you weren't taught how to use.
I got an exemption from Irish, I went, said I had aspergers and got an exemption so I don't have to learn the language because I was so fucking sick of coming into school and being yelled at by my teacher because I didn't do my homework, yet when I asked how, none of my questions were answered, they gave sample sentences but when I used them they grammatically didn't make sense, but I wasn't taught how to use them. I know many others who have done the same, people who are fully capable of learning it, but drop out cause we're not taught to use it correctly.
You have the most beautiful, interesting language, a proper national treasure, but because of the way it's tought it kills the students interest. That's just sad :/
Reading all the comments here, Looks like all schools in the world teach language in wrong ways, In my country only two languages are taught at school level. those are the native language Bangla (Bengali) and English as a foreign language. After 12 years of English lessons at school most students in my country cant speak a proper English sentence. The condition of Bangla is even worst.. most students cant find any interest in the rich Bangla literature because of the boring teaching method.. they just memorise answers and pass exams..so sad
@@syedhosneyjahab1941 And then the language degrades. It's a common occurrence...
That is so sad QwQ
This is the core of the difficulty with trying to keep a dying language alive. The teachers aren't fluent speakers so there is a limit to how well they are able to teach Irish to their students. My daughter's French teacher is French. Most Irish teachers are neither native speakers nor fluent. Irish only continues to be taught because there is a legal requirement to do so. It is neither taught nor studied with any enthusiasm.
You’re correct. A lot of the time students in school do not learn the authentic pronunciation. Just like all languages, Gaeilge has tricky yet very interesting sounds and pronunciations, the same as having to roll your ‘r’s’ in Spanish.
I’m 15 and personally I loveeee Gaeilge and have been lucky with the teachers that have taught me.
Which of the three pronunciations is taught in school?
@@sarco64 It depends on the region. All are needed in the aural exam for the Irish Leaving Cert but usually the most emphasis is placed on the dialect of the region. Most textbooks are written in a mix of all dialects.
@@sarco64 whatever dialect your teacher has. Sometimes you’ve to start learning another dialect with different pronunciations if your teacher changes. There is really no emphasis on pronunciation since we all have Irish accents. This is bad because our accents are becoming more American every year so Irish sounds less Irish every year.
@@NegativeAccelerate Often the teachers don't have native pronunciation either, which means there's little chance of them teaching them.
Even with an Irish accent most people of English speaking backgrounds pronounce it very badly because the phonetic systems of English and (real) Irish are very different
Irish English has a similar phonemic inventory to the English of other regions and, as you alluded to, outside of stronger regional dialects does not have much relation with the Irish language at all, particularly among the middle classes and younger generations
So you cannot rely on an Irish 'accent' to skip learning the native sounds (which don't exist in English) and stress patterns (learners tend to use English stress patterns in Irish, rendering the native Irish -se and -ne endings to denote stress defunct) of the Irish language
"loveeee" - How the hell do you pronounce a _repeated_ *silent* letter??
I'm currently brushing up on my Irish my son will be going to an irish school also I'm gunna make sure this language has a lifeline at all times..it'll be a generational thing, and I might even adapt it for everyday family speech while only using english as a secondary or in public with non Irish speakers🇮🇪🇮🇪
I go to a full Irish school and it's great.
here now children who attend irish schools apparently do better in their leaving so,,, good on you! have fun learning irish with your son :”)
Ar fheabhas ar fad!! - absolutely excellent. A video full of great detail and lots of positivity. It’s so nice to see a well-researched and positive video about The Irish Language from a purely objective source. Go raibh míle maith agat - a thousand thanks.
Thank you Paul for this amazing video! I'm so glad to see a video on our language :)
Unfortunately it's true that students here really love complaining about learning the language, but like mentioned in many comments it's merely because of how it's taught in schools! You don't learn the language properly, at least in my experience. It's more rote learning stories, poems, phrases etc. without actually knowing the grammatical rules and correct pronunciation. For example, I didn't even know how the genitive (tuiseal ginideach) worked until I went to study Nua Ghaeilge in university! The teachers don't tell the students anything like this and it's a shame since they don't know how the language works at all. There's no strong emphasis put on speaking the language as well, which is a shame, because actively trying to speak the language helps immensely. I hope to be a teacher in Irish one day and I'll certainly be trying out other methods than what is used.. no doubt about that.
Ach tá a fhios agam nach bhfaighidh an teanga álainn seo bás sa todhchaí!!
Can you teach me Irish 🙂🙂 plz💖💖💖
Ar fheabhas. Bhain mé taitneamh as é. I've been studying Irish for over 10 years...and still haven't mastered it. I do feel that I have an edge on the spoken part of the language because I learned from native speakers. Many native speakers are impressed with my vocabulary and correct grammar. (most of the time.) The most difficult part of learning in the beginning was the strange words, lentition, mutations, etc. I was impressed with you including the Norse and Norman words in Irish. This is one of the best introductions to Gaeilge I've seen. Well done!
Irish has been a 22-year old love story for me. Like most relationships, the things that attracted me initially are the things that frustrate me, and the things that frustrated me are the things that attract me. It is NOT an easy language to learn, but its complexity is its beauty. I've always considered Irish a fun language if you let it be, but tough one if you expect perfection from yourself too soon!
I am pretty sure this video gonna help many irish people that speak english to start learning irish , thanks for this video.
When I Found Out What 7 Was In Irish I Was Seacht
I'm actually crying i-
Biracial Boy, it looks like they styled it as a clickbait headline, which sometimes will have initial caps.
*insert comedic drum sound effect*
shit joke
Seachd is 7 in Scottish Gàidhlig
It’s at times like this where I wish my ancestors weren’t forced to speak English, but I’d still love to learn Irish
Wow. One of you best videos. Completely mind blown. 100% score at delivering something so complex in an interesting video.
Thanks! I’m glad it was interesting. I wasn’t sure if it was interesting, actually (I mean the video, not the language), but it seems lots of people like it.
I once had the chance to contract at the European head office of a company in Dublin. At lunch, the people around me spoke many European languages but I heard Irish in great part. It delighted me to hear it chosen by its speakers, who could of course have spoken English together. Of course they may have been using it to prevent eavesdropping but the fact that it was actually being used was fantastic. I hope it continues to grow, just as Welsh is. 👍 Happy New Year, Langfocus, and to all Langfocians 😊
When I first started learning Irish, trying to figure out how to pronounce many words was a challenge. Serious challenge. I think especially for an English speaker. You have to throw out so many known English language rules on pronunciation and pretty much start from scratch. It will restrict your learning to pronounce the Irish words correctly.
You addressed one aspect with the eclipses/lenition that affects the words and pronunciation in different ways and the slender/ broad letters.
If you don't understand why letters work how they do in Irish, you would never know that this word ----->" bhfuil" is pronounced as "will" LOL It has been the vest journey in language learning, to be sure. I have loved every minute of it. there are a lot of good resources out there. Although I long for the day I get to go to Ireland and learn to speak it properly.
Yeah Irish spelling is really confusing, but I kind of grew up with it. For instance, my name is Aoife. I was living in America for a while and nobody had a CLUE how to pronounce my name. (It’s pronounced ee-fa, it means beauty or something idk) So for the craic I got a few friends together and gave them some Irish names/words to pronounce. It was HILARIOUS.
As a fluent irish speaker I really admire this video, very well educated
Please never stop speaking Irish!
Ok, thanks@@BrassBoy-ot4sy
Wow, finally a fluent native speaker of Gaelic on RUclips! It's great to finally hear somebody who actually knows how to pronounce the words correctly - thanks!
Yes, after a couple of mishaps with heritage learners doing the audio for previous videos (the Celtic Languages video and a Mystery Languages episode), I was determined to have a genuine native speaker help this time.
Patrick is actually the same guy who recorded the audio for the little “correction” video that is linked to from the Celtic languages video. So I knew he was reliable, but this time he really went above and beyond the call of duty by helping during the holiday period. 👏🏻
Wait it wasn't google?
I am french Canadian, with Irish origins. I started to learn Irish a few weeks ago. This video only makes me want learning the language even more.
Tu devrais t'exprimer en français pour exposer tes idées, pareil quand tu apprendras le gaélique irlandais, cette dernière langue a vraiment besoin de gens motivés comme toi pour survivre.
Bonjour de France !🇫🇷
I'm really interested in learning Irish but mostly the reaction I get when I tell people is "why waste your time learning a dying languange?"
I've already learned portuguese (brazilian wife) and i'm wanting to add something both more challenging and to connect me closer to my ethnic roots.
Timothy Murray Irish sure is very challenging. Tá sé dushlánach. Ach, it really is beautiful to know
I can help you = Is féidir liom cabhrú leat ('Iss fayder lum cow roo lat') ... Irish isn't dead yet = Níl an Ghaeilge marbh fós ('Neel an ghwail geh marv fowss').
it was dying hard but recognized as a world language again I think a decade ago. Many people are taking pride in learning it again. Its not a waste of time and Although I moved from Ireland I'm learning again because I love it too and want it to survive
irish is not a "dying language". it's the language of every true irish, while english was impossed while they killed native irish speakers. this is not an attempt to revive a language, but recover what ireland lost.
Don't be put off!
I’m ethnically Irish and lately I’ve been very interested in my ancestry and learning about Ireland specifically, as my (American) family has always been very proud of our Irish blood. I thought I’d try my hand at learning Irish since my dad mentioned he was learning in passing conversation. I think it’s real important to help preserve this culture and language especially considering its history, and videos like these are amazing at doing that ❤
Bain sult! Tá sé an-deacair ar fád! Ná bí ró chrua ort féin nuair atá tú a chlactadh 😄
@@ConMan97 go raibh maith agat!! that’s about as much as I can remember 100% hahaha. but I’m getting there, very slowly but surely
Damn, I don't know how you do it, but you make me fall in love with every single language you talk about, thanks to that, I've decided to study linguistics.
I'm not sure, but I definitely go deep down the rabbit hole when I make a video like this. I basically forget the world around me for a couple weeks. And just like when you watch a movie and you empathize with the characters (feel what they feel), when you watch one of my videos, you might feel how I was feeling while making the video.
Langfocus Oh my stars that's it, I haven't thought about it but yeah, that's how it feels when I watch your videos.
(Thanks for answering btw)
Go raibh maith agat, an-mhaith Paul!
I’m an Irish Canadian. I learnt Irish throughout primary and secondary school and by the time I finished I was close to fluent. I moved abroad in my 20s so have forgotten a lot, but I still love the language (grammar and all) and think it’s really important to keep it vibrant. During the promotion initiatives of the 1950s, regular typescript was introduced, and while it certainly made Irish more accessible, the old Irish script was so beautiful.
Bhliain nua sásta dhuit!
Gerarda Cronin I learnt writing in seanchló (standard and cursive), in the late 90's/early 2000's, when I learnt to write. Some people still use it today, myself included. I teach it to my Irish students over in Ceanada... it's a lot faster to write with ponc than it is to spell everything the modern way if you're writing things out by hand
@@macho.nacho.01 Tá sé sin chomh maith! Ní raibh fhios agam go raibh daoine i Ceanada ag caint Gaeilge!
Irish seems a really interesting language to learn and it brings people close to the ancient celtic culture which is one of the most important in Europe. Also the celtic language family has influenced all languages of the British Isles and indirectly the entire world. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone, from Thessaloniki Greece! (Καλά Χριστούγεννα και Καλή Χρονιά! )
It is nice to know that a Greek wants to have some knowledge of Irish!
Some Irish words are just like Greek!
@@fergusfitzgerald6936 Thank you, i appreciate your interest and your comment 😁. I believe that leanring each others languages and cultures, no matter your ethnic backround, is a really beatiful and important thing for all of us, because it gets us closer to one another and makes us clear how many things we have in common than to take apart.
@@ionladopoulos9131 I agree and I am passionate about linguistics!
Thanks for the nice message and the comment on learning each other's languages and cultures Ion Ladopoulos! I am Irish and was in Greece just once but hope to go to it again and the Irish have a lot in common with the Greeks we have to remember!
As a native speaker, I thought this video was really well put together! Very informative and showed a lot of respect for the history of our language!
Your analysis is so good! One of the best channels on RUclips indeed. Thanks for the new year gift ❤️
I’ve been learning Irish for 10 years and I’ve learned more in this than me teacher ever thought me
FuzzyGGs I've been learning Irish for years and I don't know what slender and broad vowels are
@@estheriooo just shows the state of Irish in schools atm, I'm the same, hardly know anything in Irish while me teacher is piling exam pressure on us
@@Jake_05_ me too
Celtic languages are so cool. All languages are so cool. Thanks for making these videos, Paul!
As a basque speaker i use to think that my language was one of the most difficult languages in Europe but after watching this well :) bye
(btw what a beautifull language you have!)
The first settlers on Ireland were from the Basque region after the Ice Age. It's probably where our black hair came from.
Uralic languages are the hardest languages that’re spoken in Europe, which aren’t in Category 5 of the hardest languages in the world. (Most of them are asian languages.)
@Iraitz Lizarralde yes basques rapped many native's in my country and many ppl in my country with basque last names are blue eyed.. but isnt that racial profiling mombo jumbo ?? I am colombian by the way.. and what the british did to the irish u did to our natives and blacks :) ...
Milesius ‘ Galamh ‘ , from brygantia, 3500 bc ,, married ‘Scota’ an Egyptian pharaoh ‘nemphet’ daughter & had children by her , heremon , Ir & milesius brother Heber , these arrived & killed , in retaliation, the Tuatha de danan and gave their wives to the picts, in turn Sent to ,,, Scotaland
Some ‘Ir’ish share the same blood (DNA)as the Phoenicians , ( descendants of the tribe of Judah’ similarities in languages etc , these milesius descendants deforested large swathes of Ireland and introduced farming the land.using skills learnt from the east ,,, just to clarify , your welcome.
@Ir liz lo que dice es verdad, tienes en Azpeitia la tumba de Nicolás Sáez de Elola, que ayudó a capturar a Atahualpa, el último emperador inca, por ejemplo. Es de Perú y no de colombia, pero de aquí fueron pallá y nadie se libró de ser un racista y mucho más
Go raibh míle maith agat for making this video. Irish rarely gets talked about in the grand scheme of European linguistics which is sad, because it's one of the most unique and creative languages in Europe.
I extend your remark to the whole Celtic family of languages.
the celtic languages aren't more creative than any other european language group
Irish peopl are english noew, why they denys it? I hav no idea vhy.. In realiti they speek englands languag, so they is englishmen.
@@turkoositerapsidi an bhfuil tú ceart go leor? (Are you alright?)
@@jp106gti5 Eire?
I couldn’t thank you more! Impeccable timing because I just started learning Irish after I’ve studied Scots Gaelic for months, and now I’m going to the Gaeltacht in May!
are you from Scotland?
ayon dash no, but I’m staying there in May
A bheil trioblaid agaibh eadar an dà channain bhon a tha iad cho dlùth? Bu toil leam Gàidhlig na h-Éireann ionnsachaidh.
I'm studying Scots Gaelic too! I guess I'm the only one in my country .___. (Italy)
And you... where are you from?
@@brendansweeney7468
I'd advise you pick one and learn it fairly well before trying the other. At least to use it actively. Knowing one will allow you to passively understand a fair bit of the other. (And then there's always Manx ;-) )
Sárjab, an-mhaith! My experience in primary and secondary school was quite poor, it is very difficult for teachers to encourage students to learn and speak the language. But during the summer I went to summer camps in the Gaeltacht (irish-speaking parts of Ireland) and fell in love with the language. I chose to study Irish in college and now live and work through Irish everyday. I consider myself very very lucky. The biggest things learners of Irish should look out for is that Irish doesn't follow English orthograpy or phonology. Initial mutations are a big one as well. Something that wasn't mentioned in the video is that Irish has two grammatical genders, which dictate many of the mutations, depending on number and case. All in all, Paul did an excellent job. Go n-éirí libh agus athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh.
Grammatical gender is a pretty universal Indo-European trait, though, and many languages such as German even have 3. Maybe Paul thought that anyone who watches his channel would already assume that grammatical gender is playing a part? English is the only language that's totally lost it, although it's quickly fading away in Dutch, and it's one of the first things you'll learn in any language lesson after hello/goodbye, please/thank you, mom/dad, etc.
I visited Ireland last year. It was amazing. But, everyone was speaking English. I only encountered spoken Irish in a pub on the outskirts of Dublin. I hope the language does not disappear or go extinct.
Dublin isnt really ireland anymore
@@seandemhairr4572 why? Where do most Irish people speak in Irish language?
DOMBRA MAX in the west of ireland
@@seandemhairr4572 what is it then
@@dombramax6926 Gaeltacht areas along the west coast. Mist famous would be Connemara in Co. Galway but theres plenty more gaeltacht areas around the country
Good grief. I've heard a lot of Irish people complaining about having had to learn Irish at school and now I know why.
You have to be born to learn this thing not go to school.
I loved it and many more too, only the progressive cynics uneducated and shallow dont ... Every country have a fair few idiots , ireland is no different
I'm delighted to finally see a full video on my beloved language. Irish is such a beautiful langauge and it would be the worst thing ever for it to die out. I learnt Gaeilge in primary and secondary school and I am now studying it in college. Gaeilge is such a unique language and shares so many similarities and rules with other European languages that English doesn't. I'm currently also studying German in college and starting to learn French aswell and I have found it so much easier to grasp these languages because of the similar rules I've learnt for Irish. I think it's so important for our country to have our own language and I wish the government and the people of Ireland did more to promote it. Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam.
I would rather it become optional for the leaving or even better, have it off the curriculum from primary to secondary entirely! If that happened that would honestly be the best day of my life. Irish is a fucking shit language that almost everyone I know hates and never speaks outside of school.
My native language is German, I learned English and a bit fench in school and now I am trying to learn Irish (just started)! I find it the most beautiful language (in sound and in letters)! I discovered it through Clannad and Enya and wish to learn it now, but it's so difficult to pronounce! Hopefully I can master it one day!
Viel Glück mit Deutsch!
@@Buecherfreak16 Danke schön!!! That’s amazing you’re learning Irish! I’d love to help you in any way I can. My Instagram is @cormacredmond if you want to message me if you ever need help, have any questions or want to practice 💚
@@cormacredmond7438 that's so very kind of you! I just send you a request on Instagram (though I am not that much on Instagram), I hope I had the right profil. If you need any help with german, feel free to contact me :)
Irish is so beautiful, I hope it stays alive. 🇮🇪🇮🇪
FINALLY!!! I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS FOR SO LOOOOOOONG
Holy molly, this is a Irish Langs 101. It'll take me a semester to absorb it all. Exquisite job, as usual.
As a learner, what you have in your video is so familiar, but with the proper linguistic terms. I’d definitely agree with your comments on learners’ pronunciation. I try my best to replicate how a native speaker would speak, but it does take additional study and practise, something many students simply aren’t willing to do. The syllabus is jam packed with texts, prose and poems to learn so ultimately something has to give, which tends to be true conversational skills and pronunciation. Very informative video, Hope you have a happy new year!
Hannah 1234 Have you any online resources for irish? I am interested in learning it, and I only know very little, but I want to eventually know enough to have a conversation with an Irish friend some day.
Privet Digit Duolingo is a very helpful resource, though it is lacking thorough grammar exercises.
Here’s a list of some (hopefully) helpful resources: www.thejournal.ie/readme/irish-for-new-year-4415144-Dec2018/
I’d recommend the podcast Motherfoclóir. It’s all about Irish, though spoken in English, and will immerse you in the culture and politics of Irish along with including lots of vocab.
Here’s a video explaining the sounds in Connacht Irish: www.reddit.com/r/gaeilge/comments/a9r9rw/42_phriomhfhuaim_chonamara/?st=JQCWRBCV&sh=3f759bd5
Connacht Irish is different to Munster Irish and Ulster Irish, and different resources will focus on the different dialects.
If you’re willing to spend a bit of money, I’ve heard lots of good things about the textbook “Learning Irish” by Micheal O Siadhail. The book focuses on a type of Connacht Irish. I’ve also heard of a free pdf of the book floating about, if the book is too pricey.
Depending on where you are in the world, you might be able to find Irish speaking events in your area. Keep an eye out for those as speaking Irish is the best way to learn. If you can’t find anyone to speak with in real life, even talking to someone online will do you good.
Hope this helps!
@Privet Digit www.tg4.ie
An idea for your consideration : start videos such as this with an extended sample of the language being spoken, either orated or in conversation. I would love to hear these languages being spoken for a minute or two to get a feel for them before the analytics.
Thanks for the feedback. I’m take that into consideration.
Amazing, I'm Irish and learnt Irish at school but I never recall one teacher explaining Irish like you have. I learnt and recalled so much in 20 minutes. I like to listen to the news in Irish and try to work out what was said by listening to the English news straight after. Great video
Beautiful! I hope with all my heart that Irish people preserve their amazing language
I learned Irish in Dublin, but would spend a month living with a family in the Gaeltacht during the summer to improve fluency. I remember the great music and craic, but somehow, my accent always remained more Rathmines than Rosmuc.
The fact that you used Celtic Impulse in the background makes me feel true joy.
Langfocus is one of the Top five spots on RUclips for me! Parli un pauc lenguad'oc. Happy New year!
Thank you for the history on Ireland. On my moms side my maternal grandmother had Scottish, Welsh & some Irish but I didn’t know they are all considered an Gaelic language until you said so
Athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh! Happy New Year, all! Go raibh maith míle agat for the video!
Hi Paul! Thank you for another brilliant video.
I have two things to add:
1) "Is" is a copula and the difference between "is" and "bí" can be compared to "ser" and "estar" in Spanish.
2) Use of the t-prefix is not that complicated. Basically it is used a) in nominative of definite masculine nouns starting with a vowel, b) in genitive of definite masculine nouns starting with "s" and c) in nominative of definite feminine nouns starting with "s" followed by a vowel, "l", "n" or "r". Also it may be used with definite "s" nouns after many prepositions, but this depends on the Irish dialect.
Regarding your question to people studying Irish, to me the most difficult part of the learning process was to get used to initial mutations and to VSO order. Understanding anything spoken was a nightmare to me for a long time. :)
Athbhliain faoi shéan is faoi mhaise duit!
Happy New Year!
Greetings to Irish people from Kosovo i love your culture and i hope you retain the celtic language 🇽🇰🇮🇪
wrong flag bud
RAVIOLIEO THE DISGUSTING SUPERMARKET DESTROYER Nope sir it’s not the flag of Ivory Coast 😄 it’s the irish flag
@@Currrri1 well on my screen its the flag of micronesia so i dont know what to tell you
In my phone is the flag of Kiribati 😂
Beannachtaí - Greetings to you in An Chosaiv! Happy and Peaceful New Year - Bliain Úr faoi shéan is faoi shuan.
you weren’t kidding when you said that irish learners often dig deep into the subject when learning it. i’ve had to learn a lot about the study of linguistics as a whole in order to understand many of the grammatical concepts in irish, being so different from what i’m used to in english. i’m glad i did though, it’s opened up a real passion for linguistics in me.
I think Irish is THE language for poetry because of the great subtleties of meaning which are possible.
Yeah. Now we just need more than a few thousand people who can fucking speak it.
Having studied Irish for 14 years in the Irish system I have learned more in this video than in all my time in class. We need more grammar instruction in Irish and English language classes at school. I am taking lessons in Irish Paleography.
I'll be hitting the grammar with due diligence.
For many kids Irish was a school subject growing up, not a language. For a lot of people where was no practical use or no need to use it. All the good media is in English, all your friends spoke English, everything was written in English. You would have to go out of your way to apply it. You can make someone sit in a room 40 minutes every school day for 14 years and they can (and will from personal experience) just leave with knowing nothing. It is actually impressive to manage to be that unsuccessful at something.
And your point is ...
He meant that the british tyrannic supremacy and imperialism obliterated the Irish language. Those fuckers always do the same anywhere they arrive on.
my favorite thing about the language is that you can do so much with a small vocabulary since small sounds and short phrases can transform the meaning of a sentence so much it’s like verbal semicolons. I really love how easily the language give’s you context.
The vocabulary isn't small the structure of words is just more concise
I'm from England and I think it's sad that the Irish language has declined so much. Irish people should be proud of their heritage. Irish people should learn Irish and revive the language like Israel revived Hebrew. I'm a quarter Irish and the Irish language is beautiful. I heard an Irish person speaking it a few weeks ago (in England of all places lol). This goes for people of Northern Ireland too. Stop with the British nationalism and hating Catholics for no reason. You're Irish. Anyway Irish people were all the same religion at one point before Christianity.
@@haziqmir1 Wtf is your problem?
@@haziqmir1 Are you even Irish? I'm literally praising the Irish language and how it's sad it's been declining. You should be happy about that. Ireland and Britain need to get along. We should be friends and make sure not to repeat the horrible history. Hating on people for being English will just make things worse and will achieve nothing.
Correction: they were still all the same religion before Henry VIII created Anglicanism. Plus, the Presbyterians in Ireland come from the Scottish settlers who, again, only became a thing when Knox founded the Presbyterian Church.
If only the language hadn't been suppressed for centuries by foreign occupiers. Not blaming you, but there are reasons for the decline, and the use of English means there isn't as much of an imperative to find a new lingua franca as there was with the formation of Israel.
@@GD-jc3wx A native English speaker's greatest curse was the British empire.
Happy New Year, Paul and the watchers! I hope this channel will reach 1 million subscribers in 2019. :-0
Challenge accepted!
@@Langfocus HAHAHHAHA :-0
If we all make a second fake account... hm.
Paul's a celebrity among language geeks and learners, it's just a matter of time.
Maybe if he did a video on the Kelen language ;)
Wowww this was such an enlighting video!! Extremely interesting. Im blown away wow
This is my ultimate language goal, the language of my ancestors. I really hope to learn it to get a better understanding of my roots.
Learning Irish doesn't make you Irish, if you don't have an Irish Passport then you're not Irish! Plain and simple
american’s searching for an identity and culture like:
It was really tough learning Irish in school, especially if you had a harsh teacher or a teacher that didn't know what they were doing. You didn't really start using Irish in conversations in school until you were about 16, this was for an oral exam where you speak Irish with s teacher on your own. I wish the government created a website where we could learn to speak Irish fluently.
Finally, more on those wonderfully exotic Celtic languages!
Yn wyr! Cymru am byth!
@@PewPewPlasmagun Cywiriad cyfeillgar iti, dylsech chi wedi sgwennu, 'Yn wir', nid 'Yn wyr'. Mae 'Yn wyr' yn golygu 'In men.'.
Probably the Indo-European languages with the least phonetic spelling. While I find it difficult, it's still so interesting and would love to see them more widely spoken. Will be interesting to see the status of Irish and Welsh especially in 20-30 years.
Paul DaSilva Welsh is the most phonetically written language.
@@5batsupertourer Maybe among the Celtic languages. Is it more phonetic than Italian or Spanish?
I’m very proud of my language.
Have a healthy and happy New Year everyone. 1❤️
I'm Scottish (engaged to an Irishman) and started dabbling in the Irish Duolingo course just over a year ago. I ended up getting really into it, and I finished the course. My speaking leaves a lot to be desired, but it's amazing to be able to read, write and hear new words! Irish made me fall in love with learning languages, something I decided I was terrible at during my high school French lessons and have never even attempted since. Now, I'm actually revisiting French, learning some Spanish and even a bit of Scots Gaelic (which, no, I didn't speak a word of growing up). I find it beautiful to hear how people express themselves in different languages. In Irish, emotions and feelings are "on" you ("Tá brón orm" / "I'm sorry" literally translates to "there is sorrow on me") and if you enjoy something, you say it "shines" with you ("Taitníonn sé liom"). I really love that! Irish numbers are a bit of a nightmare to wrap your head around, plus the sentence structure can be a real headscratcher, but that's part of the challenge. Well, sin é - is aoibhinn liom Gaeilge! Go raibh maith agat, agus slán!
I am afraid you have just "cured" me from wanting to learn Irish. I've always thought what a nice sounding language it was, and it would be cool to learn it - but it is so freakin' complicated!!!
I was in Berlin on a school trip and we were getting a picture With a guy dressed as a Soviet soldier at checkpoint Charlie, he asked where we were from and we said Ireland and he asked Cónas atá tú.
Cómo estás tú, eso es español
Suddenly the german language which I am currently learning seems quite simple and easy to me after seeing video about irish gaelic.
Yes. Now I can understand why German is only described as having "slightly more complex grammar than the level 1 languages"
I feel so cool rn bc I speak fluent irish
i am doing both german and gaeilge, and i tell you honestly, german’s nouns are always what trip me up. for soem god-given reason, i’ve no trouble remembering irish genders, but german genders want me dead.
This is a very good video. Well done to anyone from outside Ireland who is learning our language. My first language is English. I am from the east of Ireland and there are very few native Irish speakers here. Everyday conversation is almost exclusively undertaken in English. I was required to learn Irish until the age of 17 at school. I have a cupla focail.
currently I am in a coffee shop and people around me are conversing in a Slavic language and other people in French and a few in English.
I’m Australian but I have a lot of Irish blood in me and I want to learn how to embrace my culture and ancestry more and this was very helpful. To everyone reading this, have a great day
I had no idea Irish grammar is so similar to Hungarian, for example with these slender and broad vowels and consonants, it reminds of vowel harmony, and the prepositions act the same - you add personal pronouns to them. Even the endings are the same in 1sg (m) or similar in 2sg (t in Irish, d in Hungarian). It's also the same with showing possession. Hungarian also have 3 types of numbers, used in different situations, but they're not as complicated as Irish, I think.
An addition similarity to Hungarian: one of a pair is referred to as "half", e.g. "ar leathchois", lit, "on a half-leg" describes a one-legged person. I am told that this is like 'fél lába" in Hungarian - forgive me if I spell it incorrectly.
indul = departs ... ag dul = going :-)
It's worth noting that the great potato famine was a man made famine and is commonly considered a genocide. The Irish Catholics, the native population, was specifically targeted and oppressed by the protestants and the protestant English and this caused the conditions that created the famine. Then, once the famine was under way, these policies continued and continued in a way that was particularly vicious to the native, Catholic Irish. Some Irish consider the term 'famine' in this context to be dismissive and apologetic of what can and is often argued to be genocide.
Thank you for the additional information.
Sean Sultan British government policy has always been to eradicate the Celtic peoples' language and culture - more latterly using subtle means. Cornish people are still being hammered in this way.
You're confusing greed and neglegence with malicious intent. Irish people suffered a lot from English crown but what you are saing is a conspiracy theory, not helping a better understanding of history.
@@FlymanMS No, I'm not peddling a conspiracy theory. I base what I said on economic and political facts. Things like deliberately underfunding schools compared to English schools. Like encouraging people from outside of Cornwall to buy up Cornish housing stock as second homes (empty 11 months of the year) by giving them a 10% discount on council tax (it used to be 50%!) which degrades the local economy and drives local people out of Cornwall. You could write a book on this. The government doesn't say, "We are doing this to eradicate Cornish people," but that is the logical and obvious outcome.
If you're in any doubt about this, just check the local newspapers' websites whenever there is a story about the Cornish language - the comments section is heavy with hatred and abuse from English people. As a Cornish person, I have been insulted a great many times for being Cornish - sometimes in the nicest possible way but insulted nevertheless.
All this is sad but true.
FlymanMS nope it's true. Look at the figures of the grains exported from Ireland during the 1840's and 50's. Those grains were taken from Irish farmers at gunpoint even though the british knew well what it was like for ordinary people. It started off as greed when Irish people were left with just the potato to subsist on but when they had full knowledge of a famine due to a disease they brought over from America, it is then malicious intent to still take those same farmers food from them
Can't believe I this video 2 and a half years later- as an Irish speaker, Im still learning so Im glad to learn a bit more about the irish language!
I am learner of Irish from Germany.
I think that while you pointed out all the interesting aspects of the language, you should also have mentioned more that not all of them are difficult at all. Personally, I think Irish is a language of medium difficulty. It may seem to be difficult because it is quite different from what other indoeuropean languages but it has many features that make it easier than most.
Example: The pronounciation rules may seem complicated at first, but in fact they are relatively simple once you get into them because they are very regular. (except from some dialectal variations) In that regard the language is much easier than for example English.
Other example: Irish has lost most of its cases. Only Nominative and Genitive remain, with some traces of the Dative in one dialect.
In general, the grammar of Irish is not really hard.
What makes the language difficult IMO are two things: First, the initial mutations. Not their formation or pronounciation, but there are tons and tons of circumstances when they are formed with many exception rules.
The other hard thing: Not the grammar, but how it is used. Native irish speakers tend to have a strange, somewhat poetic, form of indirect speech. This takes some time getting used to and seems to be nearly impossible to learn. That way I was able to tell native writers from non-native ones very easily quite soon.
BTW, that number of native speakers using the language daily seems to be a bit on the high side. I have read numbers of about 40000.
So in other words, it looks difficult because there's a tonne of rules, but it's actually easy because unlike a tonne of other languages, it actually follows the rules it lays out?
@@Jotari There's more to it than that, but that's certainly part of the reason.
Yup the language isn't that hard but the curriculum and teachers are really bad so the language is endangered
Yes it's on the high side, his figures come from a recent census I think, on it you could tick yes/no to whether you had Irish or not so any Joe Soap who remembered a few words from school could tick yes if he/she wanted.
A more accurate picture would have been gained if the question was 'Can you listen to RnaG and understand everything? Yes/no.'
Fick dich aus Irland
We have been living in Ireland for just over 3 years now.. My granddaughter has to learn it at school. She is not happy about it. I am so glad that I don't have to learn it - it's a complicated language. The Irish people are so friendly and funny. I love them.
I have never clicked on a video as quick in my life.
Físean iontach é seo, a Phól. What a wonderful overview of the oldest written vernacular language in Europe. As someone who learned it in school many years ago I've two comments... the teachers I had had excellent pronunciation (Gaeilge na Mumhan... Munster Irish) but it was metaphorically beaten into us so the day we left school at 18 we all dropped it. The advent of the internet has changed everything and has made it accessible and normal for those who are interested, whatever their standard. Your videos are well made, informative, introductory for many languages, and a pleasure to watch. Go raibh míle míle maith agat (",)