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The Starting to Learn Coursepack

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The Starting to Learn Coursepack 1 Coursepack for the course at Scoil Ghaeilge Ghearóid Tóibín and Cumann Carad na Gaeilge called RÉAMHRANG - AG TOSÚ A FHOGHLAIM PRE-COURSE - STARTING TO LEARN An Aid for New Students of Irish CLÁR ÁBHAIR / TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Réamhrá / Introduction 01. Fáth, Cuspóirí, agus Ábhair Fhoghlamtha An Chúrsa Seo / The Reason For, The Objectives Of, And Learning Materials For This Course. p. 2 II. Téarmanna Ghramadúla / Grammatical Terms (Review as needed.) 02. Sainmhínithe Eagartha in Ord Aibítreach / Definitions in Alphabetical Order. p. 5 III. An Bunsraith / The Foundation 03. Conas Síntí Fada a Dhéanamh / How to Make Fadas. p. 15 04. Forainmneacha / Pronouns. p. 16 05. Réamhfhocail / Prepositions. p. 17 06. Aidiachtaí Sealbhacha / Possessive Adjectives. p. 18 07. Séimhiú / Aspiration a.k.a. Lenition. p. 19 08. Urú / Eclipsis. p. 20 09. An Treoirlíne D,N,T,L,S / The D,N,T,L,S Guideline. p. 22 10. Na Pairteagail / The Particles An, Ní, Má, And Dá. p. 23 11. Na Dobhriathair Cheisteacha / The Interrogatory Adverbs. p. 25 12. Déanmhais Abairtí / Structures of Sentences. p. 26 13. An Briathar / The Verb. p. 27 14. An Briathar Rialta ‘Bris’ / The Regular Verb ‘Bris’. p. 28 15. An Briathar Rialta ‘Tóg’ / The Regular Verb ‘Tóg’. p. 29 16. An Briathar Neamhrialta ‘Bí’ / The Irregular Verb ‘Bí’. p. 30 17. An t-Ainmfhocal agus A Thuisil / The Noun and Its Cases. p. 31 18. Ainmfhocail agus a nAidiachtaí / Nouns and Their Adjectives. p. 32 19. ‘Seo’ agus ‘Sin’ / ‘This’ and ‘That’. p. 34 20. An Cairt Díochlaonta agus A Tábhacht / The Declension Chart and Its Importance. p. 35 21. Cairt Díochlaonta Samplach / A Typical Declension Chart. p. 37 22. Achoimre agus Deireadh / 22. Summary and End. p. 38 AGUISÍNÍ / APPENDICES A. Ogham. p. 39 B. Aibítir Ghaelach / The Gaelic Alphabet. p. 40 C. Aibítir Ghaelach - Sampla / The Gaelic Alphabet – Example. p. 41 Copyright (c) 2018 by Gerald A. John Kelly. All Rights Reserved. 2 1. FÁTH, CUSPÓIRÍ, AGUS ÁBHAIR FHOGHLAMTHA AN CHÚRSA SEO 1. THE REASON FOR, THE OBJECTIVES OF, AND LEARNING MATERIALS FOR THIS COURSE A. The Starting Point. The Absolute Basis. Without this it won’t happen: This coursepack is based on your desire to really learn the language and your commitment to follow through on that. B. This Course’s Reason for Being Here’s why this course exists. Irish has a very different phonetics system. This is easy to learn if you apply yourself for several hours and if we help you for several hours. Mistakenly, we used to put our students right into the main body of our curriculum without giving them the opportunity to master Irish phonetics. We assumed that our students would pick these up as they went along. We were wrong. That didn’t work. We discovered that you can’t master a different language’s very different phonetic system by treating it as an afterthought only for a few minutes during an hour of class once a week. Therefore, I will help you master Irish phonetics right up front in this pre-class so that you don’t continue to stumble over Irish pronunciation as you go forward in the language and into the main body of our curriculum next term. We also discovered that providing an overview of the structure of Irish right up front helps the student orient himself/herself to each new topic in our main body of curriculum. In other words, it’s better to have a student saying “Sure, I remember we talked about that / It’s no big deal” than “What the heck is this and how many of these do I have to face in the lessons ahead?” So, I will give you an overview of the structure of the language right up front in this pre-class before you move into the main body of our curriculum next term. C. Resulting Objectives 1. phonetics. Please take the time to master Irish phonetics. This won’t be difficult if you spend the time. Specifically, I will teach you how to say whatever you see and spell whatever you hear. 2. overview of the language. We’re going to give you an overview of the language. Don’t memorize it. You’ll have plenty of time to do that later. Just appreciate the differences. You’ll soon learn that Irish is a much more elegant, efficient, and expressive than certain other languages which shall (for the moment) go un-named. Copyright (c) 2018 by Gerald A. John Kelly. All Rights Reserved. 3 D. Learning Materials 1. (free) Phonetics Go to http://philo-celtic.com/pronunciation/how-to-pronounce-irish.html Watch the phonetics videos. Memorize them. Irish phonetics are radically different from English phonetics but they’re not that tough. You need to do this so you don’t spend the next many years fumbling and stumbling over how to pronounce your vocabulary or trying to use English phonetics to understand someone speaking Irish. 2. At about week 4, I’ll ask you to buy a detailed dictionary with grammatical charts. These four have the best charts and are currently (or usually) in print and on Amazon: Oxford Pocket Irish Dictionary Foclóir Scoile English-Irish / Irish-English Dictionary (publisher: An Gúm) Collins Easy Learning Irish Dictionary (Don’t buy the “Gem” version – it’s too small.) Easy Reference Irish-English English-Irish Dictionary (Roberts Rinehart Publishers). This one has the most extensive noun and verb charts. It’s more advanced than the preceding three. You might want to get one of the three above and this one at a later date. 3. (free) for listening comprehension, pronunciation, and expansion of your vocabulary, Duolingo. This is free online at www.duolingo.com . E. Additional Resources (all free) Just for fun, consider exploring these. Nuacht TG4 (news on TG4) with transcription at http://vifax.maynoothuniversity.ié Pota Focal – a pot of words – examples of how words are used at www.potafocal.com Google's machine translator (which can't be trusted): http://translate.google.com/ Abair.ie (a speech generator!!!): http://www.abair.tcd.ié Mozilla Firefox as Gaeilge (in Irish): http://gaeilge.mozdev.org/ Teilifís na Gaeilge Bealach 4 = TG4 (Irish TV!!!): www.tg4.ie Raidió na Gaeltachta: http://www.rte.iérnag/ Copyright (c) 2018 by Gerald A. John Kelly. All Rights Reserved. 4 Raidió Life: http://www.raidionalife.ié Raidió RíRá: http://www.rrr.ié YouTube keywords: Coláiste Lurgan: www.youtube.com YouTube keywords for films in Irish: scannán gaeilge: www.youtube.com F. Some of our Tradition (all free) CELT - Corpus of Electronic Texts: http://www.ucc.iécelt/ An Bíobla Naofa (the Holy Bible): http://www.anbioblanaofa.org/en/pdf Altú roimh bhéile (Grace before meals): http://www.irishpage.com/prayers/grace.htm Béaloideas / Folklore - Edison wax cylinders: http://www.bealbeo.ié TG4 sean-nós songs with words! http://old.tg4.iéen/programmes/archive.html Copyright (c) 2018 by Gerald A. John Kelly. All Rights Reserved. 5 2. SAINMHÍNITHE EAGARTHA IN ORD AIBÍTREACH 2. DEFINITIONS ORGANIZED IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER This list is organized in alphabetical order (rather than by topic) for quick reference. This list is intended to include all the grammatical terms used in this coursepack. If it’s missing any, please let me know! a – an abbreviation typically used to indicate an adjective a1 – the abbreviation typically used to indicate the 1st Declension of adjectives a2 – the abbreviation typically used to indicate the 2nd Declension of adjectives a3 – the abbreviation typically used to indicate the 3rd Declension of adjectives accusative – the form (spelling) of a noun which is usually used as the direct object of a verb (e.g., John hit the ball.) It has the same spelling as the nominative so it usually isn’t displayed in declension tables. Additional Information – In both classification and identification sentences, this is any additional information the speaker or writer wishes to provide. In the copula’s sentence structure, it comes after the subject. adjective - describes a noun (big soldier, Tall John, steep hill, hard rock) adverb - describes the verb (did well, hit hard, ate quickly, etc.) An, and its variations (used before a verb at the beginning of a sentence or phrase) – This particle demonstrates that the sentence or phrase is a question. aspiration – another name for séimhiú, which see Autonomous form of the verb (passive voice, ‘free verb’) – This is called the saorbhriathar (‘free verb’) in Irish because it doesn’t have a subject. Instead, it has an object. Example: Tógtar é – present tense - It is being taken (in the present but we’re not saying by whom). ‘é’ is the object of the verb, not the subject. broad consonant – consonant for which the closest vowel is a broad vowel broad vowels – a, o, u buailte – the dot over a consonant in the Gaelic alphabet demonstrating aspiration, a.k.a., lenition. To save money by using English and American typewriters, the Irish government replaced the buailte with an h after the consonant in 1958. Use of the Copyright (c) 2018 by Gerald A. John Kelly. All Rights Reserved. 6 Gaelic alphabet (including the buailte) is now increasing due to the availability of computerized Gaelic fonts. Classification Sentences – These are sentences which classify the nature of the subject of the sentence. Examples: He is a man. That was a good table. We are people. These sentences use the verb called the copula, which see. common noun - any person, place, or thing (a man, a hometown, a volcano) comp. – comparative form. This is used to create comparatives like “more clever” and “most clever”. It is formed form the genitive singular feminine form of the adjective.
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