“Go north two blocks and then turn west.” 

Compass Rose at the NE corner of Powell & O’Farrell Streets, San Francisco, CA  http://www.flickr.com/photos/ecastro/354578085/

“He came from the south.”

“The wind is blowing from the east today.”

Last week I wrote a post about the different uses of “up” and “down” in Irish (“Up, Down…In Irish, It’s All Relative!”).

In that post, you learned that how you express these concepts is relative to your position, and depends on whether the thing you’re talking about is moving away from you, toward you, or is in a static position.

You’ll probably not be too surprised, then, to learn that there’s a similar system for the points of the compass: North, South, East, and West.

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Welcome to another installment of our Irish Learner Profiles series! In publishing these profiles, we hope to showcase the diversity of the international Irish learning community.

Earlier this month, we introduced you to Marina, an Irish learner who lives in Russia.  Now we’re going visit a country that’s a little bit closer to Ireland, to a place where another Celtic language  — one closely related to Welsh and Cornish — is spoken.

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Think you could figure out how to pronounce something like this without help? Photo: 2008 by Audrey Nickel

One of the first challenges of learning a new language is learning how to reproduce the sounds of that language correctly. That’s why often the first question a new learner asks when seeing an Irish word in print is “how is that pronounced”?

A related challenge faced by those of us who communicate with newer learners on-line is how to  CONVEY the sounds of the language in such a way that, in the absence of a recording or a live person to emulate, the learner can at least come close to the correct pronunciation.

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Now, now…don’t be upset! That’s not the “f” word you’re thinking of! What comedian Des Bishop says in the hilarious (for Irish learners) video above is focal suas: “word up.” As he points out, though, it’s not QUITE correct!

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It’s time for another Bitesize Irish Gaelic lesson highlight!

From time to time, we’d like to offer you a little taste of what the Bitesize Irish Gaelic on-line learning program has to offer by highlighting one of our lessons.

(I guess you could call that “a nibble”!)

In this highlight, we’ll look at one of our grammar lessons: Word order in sentences.

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Have a look at this nice new recording, and then read on for the story and lyrics

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Welcome to the second installment of our Irish Learner Profiles series! In publishing these profiles, we hope to showcase the diversity of the international Irish learning community.

Last month we introduced you to Fabrizio: a student of the Irish language who lives in Rome, Italy.

This time we’re going to take you all the way to Russia!

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Here comes summer!

May 1 is the traditional first day of summer (why American officials decided to place the official start of summer on the summer solstice, or midsummer, I never have fully understood).

In Ireland, and throughout Europe, May Day (Lá Bealtaine – pronounced “lah BAL-tin-yeh” — in Irish) is among the oldest known celebrations.

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A very handy skill to cultivate in any language is “word building.”

For example, take the English word “walk.” Think of all the different words you can make from it:

• Walking
• Walker
• Sidewalk
• Catwalk
• Walk-up
• Walkabout
• Etc. Continue reading →

We learners of the Irish language are a diverse bunch. Some of us live in Ireland; some have never yet visited the Emerald Isle. Some of us have clear Irish ancestry; others are called to this beautiful language for other reasons.

I think it would be fun, from time to time, to profile people throughout the world who are learning Irish. How did we get involved with the language? What paths are we following toward learning? What advice would we give to other learners?

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