No Béarla - Amazing but depressing (3 Viewers)

[egg_]

Yes, it does! Why so dismissive of something because it isn't a form of art you personally choose to explore?

Sorry dude, I seem to be rubbing you up the wrong way - I don't mean to be dismissive at all.

It's just ... well, I think (and apologies for philsophising) the essence of art is communication, and to me it seems that with literature from a different culture the barrier to communication that language creates is much less significant than the cultural barrier. Like I could learn Swahili in 6 months, but to understand Swahili poetry I'd need to live in the places where it's spoken every day and to understand the culture in which it is spoken.

Similarly in the case of Ireland I think the cultural barriers between us and our past are far more significant than the language barrier, and therefore if everyone in the country started speaking Irish tomorrow if wouldn't necessarily connect us to our literary heritage any more than we're connected to it now, it'd just change the language in which we express ourselves now - and I don't see where the good in that would be

 

[therealjohnny]

"Like I could learn Swahili in 6 months"

ten quid says you cant

 

[plug]

I can totally see a wager starting here. you could easily learn spanish to a failry usable degree in six months, given the right circumstances, i.e: regular use through speaking and listening. and coincidentally I met a north american guy last week who has travelled all over africa, and saif that swahili is a pretty easy language to pick up, so...

whaddya say. egg_ spends the next six months learning swahili, and we'll get some kind of a kitty together... or something. whaddya say?

back on the subject of the programme, I was gonna ask what the story was with the first episode, but... I just realised that it's not on til next sunday. ah.

must get someone to tape it.

 

[plug]

you know, some people can speak a bit of irish... might be a good idea to stick up a thread where people can offer little bits of, I dunno grammar or vocabulary etc. etc. spread the knowledge. dunno if anybody would be interested...

 

[plug]

so... ca bhfuil, no that's not right, er... um... what was this like then? entertaining, insightful, mocking?

 

[Kid Lovebeach]

so... ca bhfuil, no that's not right, er... um... what was this like then? entertaining, insightful, mocking?

couldnt understand most of what he said

 

[SONYMEGADRIVE]

no subtitles - ha
it was enjoyable enough

he got his own private tour of killmainham gaol in irish...dude in the GPO was helpful...i mean he was never totally stuck, except for when he was asking random people in the street to talk irish with him

 

[hugh]

I can totally see a wager starting here. you could easily learn spanish to a failry usable degree in six months, given the right circumstances, i.e: regular use through speaking and listening. and coincidentally I met a north american guy last week who has travelled all over africa, and saif that swahili is a pretty easy language to pick up, so...

whaddya say. egg_ spends the next six months learning swahili, and we'll get some kind of a kitty together... or something. whaddya say?

Yeah you could learn passable Swahili in six months if you were immersed in it. I know someone who did it. Swahili is like a by-word for "really difficult language" like people say "that's all Swahili to me" but in fact it seems to be a reasonably straightforward one in terms of pronounciation/vocabulary and so on. I can order beer in Swahili but would probably struggle to do so as Gaeilge.

So anyway, we would probably have to send Egg to Africa for six months to give him a fair chance.

 

[egg_]

So anyway, we would probably have to send Egg to Africa for six months to give him a fair chance.

Would ye send the wife and child with me? If so I'll take you up on that tenner bet

 

[muffin]

i thought this was pretty good..twas one of my mates who served him in hmv..

i wasnt a huge lover of irish in school but was good at it..now i have to learn it again for college and i have a total fear of it..i think mostly due to the fact that apart from the orals we were never given the opportunity to actually use the language..

as coraline said the curriculum was revised in order to encourage children to enjoy the language..from what ive seen in classrooms so far it actually works..we were told that if we got through an entire year without having opened a work book but the children in our class could hold a conversation in irish then we would have done better than probably 90% of teachers do..