No Béarla - Amazing but depressing (1 Viewer)

[Scientician 0.8]

Bhí mé ag cuardach ar rudaí as gaeilge ar youtube agus fuair mé an clár nua as Manchán. No béarla "is a four part series in which Manchán Magan attempts to live his life (eat, travel, socialise, find accommodation, shop, etc) through Irish. It is a journey to find out whether the 1.6 million people who claim they can speak Irish in the national census really can and whether one can survive in Ireland today without speaking a word of English. In the course of his travels Manchán gets kicked out of bars, served the wrong food, given the wrong directions, the wrong clothes, the wrong haircut. He gets abused, insulted, treated as an imbecile. When his car breaks down he finds he can’t get a mechanic - directory enquiries simply laugh at him. Likewise, he gets jeered at trying to chat up girls in a nightclub in Donegal. On the Shankill rd, he is warned that he’ll end up in hospital if he continues speaking the language. In Galway he tries busking, singing the filthiest, most debauched lyrics he can think of to see if anyone will understand - old ladies smile and tap their feet merrily as he serenades them with filth. In Killarney he stands outside a bank, promising passers-by huge sums of money if they help him rob it, but again no one understands. He may as well be speaking Kling-on.
In short, No Béarla is a thousand mile road trip around Ireland involving a lot of pointing, miming and desperate gesticulation. It casts a cold eye on the state of Ireland’s first official language - watch it and weep, or laugh . . .
A Dearg Films production for RTÉ
Sundays, from January 7th, 9.30pm TG4, repeated Wednesdays 7.30pm."

 

[Jerry Twig]

Iontach

 

[paula]

ah i :heart: manchán magan. his eu series on rte 1 was deadly. i'll be watching this.

 

[Hair Iron Madin]

ah what a surprise. lets go to dublin and see if they can speak an teanga naisunta.

jesus as if we dont get a hard enough time in the GAA....

what i would hope to see in this series is an explanation of some historical and social reasoning as to why gaeilge isnt as prolific in dublin as in the west of ireland. if i recall my last bit of history class due to political and business climate in 1800's dublin being dictated by the UK anyone wishing to progress in decent work in politics, law, medicine and big business was required to learn english. This proliferation would increase as many of the jobs in this country were coming from english businesses based in Dublin.

Add to that the current climate of imigrant influx in this country being based in Dublin and there is very little chance of gaeilge being used as an efficent form of communication as at a strain even english is hard enough for a lot of people to get their heads around at the moment - polish and chinese seems to be more widely spoken on the northside.

Its a good enough idea for a series but i'll view it as a cheap shot unless Manchan uses it as a forum to call for a subtantial change in education and make people aware that it is a cultural neccessity to preserve our mother tongue in the capital.

Jamie Oliver used his school dinners series as a soapbox to not only target the nations parents but to push them to rally their politicians to make nationwide change in food standards in schools. I think the same should apply here that it is at educational level we should target change.

the horrible experience i had in school with appalling irish teachers focused on grammar drills and little or no spoken practice (other than on several occassions to stand me in front of class and take the piss out of my attempt to speak irish rather than constructively criticise my spoken effort) eventually convinced me to ditch honours and to take an easier route to a leaving cert pass grade that i would one day take up the mantle of attempting irish lessons again.

contrary to that i went to france because of love of the language (well one of many reasons ) and took an intensive one month course where the emphasis was on spoken rather than written. Then 2 months work placement meant i was fluent in the space of a month and a half.

I now have been in touch with conrad na gaeilge and am waiting to sign up for the next irish courses in the new year but there is slight more trepidation for this as just like getting a nasty scare when you first went to learn swimming its often hard to shake off a bad experience when tackling something for the second time.

so go gaeilge go!

 

[Richie]

the horrible experience i had in school with appalling irish teachers focused on grammar drills and little or no spoken practice (other than on several occassions to stand me in front of class and take the piss out of my attempt to speak irish rather than constructively criticise my spoken effort) eventually convinced me to ditch honours and to take an easier route to a leaving cert pass grade that i would one day take up the mantle of attempting irish lessons again.

contrary to that i went to france because of love of the language (well one of many reasons ) and took an intensive one month course where the emphasis was on spoken rather than written. Then 2 months work placement meant i was fluent in the space of a month and a half.

Exactly right - it's taught in schools as a dead language (or at least it was when I was learning it, I dunno if things have changed in close to a decade).. My earliest memories of learning Irish are of having to memorise and regurgitate lists of verb conjugations in front of the class at age 7 or 8 or something.. No wonder people grow to detest it. The slant taken isn't on learning how to hold a conversation, or anything relevant to daily life, but on learning it as a purely academic exam subject, memorising reams of pre-prepared answers so you can do something comparable to the English stories\plays\poems syllabus.. You spend half as long studying French, German or whatever and most people come out being able to speak and understand the European language better.

 

[Jerry Twig]

I remember learning poems for the honours off by heart and I didn't even know what they fuckin meant.
It might as well have been Latin.

 

[Hair Iron Madin]

I remember learning poems for the honours off by heart and I didn't even know what they fuckin meant.
It might as well have been Latin.

cave odes hibernium

 

[Unclealo]

Bhi Manchán ar TG4 oiche deireadh. án suimuil ar fad

 

[figs]

Sundays, from January 7th, 9.30pm TG4, repeated Wednesdays 7.30pm."

There better be English subtitles for this...

 

[Hair Iron Madin]

There better be English subtitles for this...

yes and on the first line it will say:

If you can read this then you're a sasanach earl of sandwich loving jackeen

 

[egg_]

it's taught in schools as a dead language

You're right! I learned Latin in school, and it was taught in a similar manner ... but then all languages were probably taught in this manner in Ireland in our parents' time.

FWIW why does anyone care if Irish dies out? I was good at Irish in school, and could speak it converstationally, and I guess you could say I used to "love the language" myself ... but then I tried to figure out why, and couldn't, and I lost interest. True story

 

[Jerry Twig]

FWIW why does anyone care if Irish dies out?

I mean this most respectfully Egg, but I would have thought that the notion of culture and heritage, despite all the inevitable problems that they also bring, would count for something.

It's expression - like music and all other art. That's one reason to keep it, if not the best reason.

 

[plug]

well.... i always despised gaeilge as a young fella. saw no reason for it all all, and I put zero effort into learning it. i did my last piece of irish homework in first year and I managed not do a single tap after that until I finished school. I failed pass irish in my leaving cert. got an F. then, I repeated my leaving in a private college, was railroaded by the headmaster into doing irish again, and got another F. thought I was done with the language forever, and I was glad.

I always thought I just hated learning languages. did german in school, but I wasn't interested... actually, I suspect my problem was I wasn't interested in school, full stop! anyway. but then, between 1-2 years ago after a trip to spain I started to teach myself spanish. straight away I loved it, it was fun and relatively easy. I started thinking about languages in a different way; languages could be useful. you can communicate with people that you had no way of communicating with before, and you could have a more immersive experiece while travelling abroad, and interact with another culture in a more meaningful and expressive way. pretty obvious point, but I never realised that before.

my spanish is still pretty shit, but I've been able to talk to everyday folk from mexico, guatemala and nicaragua, and share stories about home, learn about their culture, their way of life, attitudes... everything!

I guess the point is usefulness, and relevance. language is a tool. I think relevance is a big thing... spanish is obviously useful; about the same amount of people speak spanish as english, (depending on which statistics you believe), but... look at irish. it's not relevant. not to the average irish person, because it's not used in everyday situations, or in business, administration or in goverment in any real way; therefore it's not useful. don't they use welsh in business and local government? as far as I'm aware they do, and I've been told that the welsh langauge is enjoying a reversal of a long, slow death, and is starting to regain its strength. which is great.

the sad thing about the death of the language, and this has been expressed above already, is that what will die with the language is a huge part of ireland's cultural legacy and history; the music, stories, literature... and everything else that's wrapped up in that. I took a week of one-on-one spanish glasses about a month ago, in this small village in the western highlands of guatemala, with a tzutojil maya woman. we talked quite a bit about language; there are about two dozen actively used dialects of the mayan language used today in guatemala, as well as an amalgamated version. which is amazing. the maya are an ancient culture; the biggest and most prolific in pre colombus latin america. her first language is tzutojil, and her parents cannot speak a word of spanish. but she told me it's dying out very quickly, the current generation of school pupils are not taught anything other than spanish. this is a shame, and if the culture and ways of the maya, which have endured and withstood centuries of oppression and change, are eroded and lost then that is a very sad loss indeed...

but anyway, it made me think about gaeilge a lot; I decided that I would do my very best to learn it when I returned, because it's a cultural legacy that we inherit and in my opinion it's our duty to keep it alive if we can. the problem just keeps coming back to usefulness and relevance... if the irish language could be reistilled into the national psyche in a meaningful and useful way, even gradually, I think it could help a lot. bilingual roadsigns obviously ain't enough! dunno it's a tough one. would love to see that programme.

...

 

[flashback]

What Plug said.
I fucking hated Irish passionately in school, and was furious that I needed it to to get into college to study maths and computers etc.
But, I think it was the day I finished the leaving, I went out on a training spin out the wicklow gap or something, and thought I would quite like to learn Irish.

My whole life, I had this horrible thing inflicted upon me, and I begrudged every second, and then 3 hours after I am finished being forced to learn it, I am thinking about learning it myself.

Irish is taught brutally in school. Its shite. I learned more German in my first year of school than Irish in the last 8. I learned more Spanish in four months in South America than any language I knew (other than English).

It doesnt even take much effort to improve the teaching. If they taught modern Irish history in Irish, Wolfetone, 1916, The Treaty, all that shite, people would be falling over themselves to get into class every day. It's that simple. Teach the language as a tool to uncovering something interesting.

 

[plug]

yes. very good point about the syllabus. one of the last thing I remember seeing on the news, or nationwide, or something else like that was a small feature talking to some irish teachers on their views that the syllabus is antiquated and irrelevant, and is in dire need of an upgrade!

also, this blows my mind and I've brought it up here before; as far as I can see, asn I've looked, there are NO useful online irish language learning resources. I learned practically all the mechanics behind spanish grammar I know online. okay, there's a big difference in demand. but look at the BBC languages site... the have some pretty good resources for a lot of different languages there. seriously, an irish language site. major niche in the market. it could help so many people. secondary school students. online classes for adults. resources. forums etc. etc. etc. etc. and you'd probably be subsidised out the door as well. it's mad!

 

[nlgbbbblth]

most of the short stories we did for Inter Cert Irish were pretty interesting

Díoltas an Mhada Rua
An tÁdh
Íobairt
Eoghanín na Éan
Teacht An Fhir Dhubh

 

[egg_]

Fucken hell nlgbbbblth, look at your rep! It's 666666!!!

 

[plug]

double satanification!!!!

 

[egg_]

I mean this most respectfully Egg, but I would have thought that the notion of culture and heritage, despite all the inevitable problems that they also bring, would count for something.

Don't get me wrong dude, I'm all for culture and heritage but, as plug says (though he doesn't seem to agree with my conclusions) - language is just a tool. You can create art with it, but it's not art itself, any more than a paintbrush or a fiddle is. I guess you could argue that if Irish dies entirely then the man-in-the-street's access to centuries of Irish literature is lost ... but that has already happened, a long time ago

 

[Jerry Twig]

Don't get me wrong dude, I'm all for culture and heritage but, as plug says (though he doesn't seem to agree with my conclusions) - language is just a tool. You can create art with it, but it's not art itself, any more than a paintbrush or a fiddle is. I guess you could argue that if Irish dies entirely then the man-in-the-street's access to centuries of Irish literature is lost ... but that has already happened, a long time ago

don;t anyone touch nggbblth's rep ever again.

I don'd read Plug's statemant like that at all. Nor does saying that culture is already lost (which is not true in any case) provide a reason for allowing a language to die away. That's just lazy. I don't think irish culture should be fossilised - i think we should be able at the very least to understand it so we can tap into it as a way to give inspiration to new culture if we so choose.

As for language as 'a tool for art' - I don't get you. The Irish language is art. Certain sounds and phrases can only only be created in that manner through Irish. They don't translate. If you call that a 'tool' well fine, then that is a tool worth saving.

Ask the Welsh. It's the only thing they've got going on!