I'm Probably Preaching to the Converted Here But...

fearcruach

I love Irish and can speak it fluently. Why not speak Irish. Its an excellent language and makes far more sense than english gramatically. Think about it. Irish has 13 irregular verbs. English has more than 100. Even French which is considered one of the more simple languages has more than 20.

smemon

i dont care tbh, im finished wit it in june

should be scrapd anyway, it's dying a slow and stubborn death. by kicking it out of school you'll kill it, and all those leprachauns wouldnt like that.

doonothing

if it was optional no one would do it, except for the diehards or students who wee good at it. which is good cos theyd have to rejig the course to make it more interesting to attract more students to do it...

Muiriosa

Unfortunately, the current education sysyem has led to a current hate of Irish among many people. I think this is terrible. I have a great love of the Irish language. It's part of who I am. It's part of who we are as Irish people. I wish I could speak it fluently, and I believe many others feel the same.

People should stop putting down the Irish language and they should stop putting it down because they have to do it in school. It is a beautiful language and part of who we are as Irish people.

I think Enda Kenny's idea of making Irish a choice after the Junior cert is a great idea. It would improve the language - as only those who love it would do it. And it would also stop people putting it down and whinging about it down as a language. Nice idea, Mr Kenny.

Kwekubo

Muiriosa wrote:

I think Enda Kenny's idea of making Irish a choice after the Junior cert is a great idea. It would improve the language - as only those who love it would do it. And it would also stop people putting it down and whinging about it down as a language. Nice idea, Mr Kenny.

Or better yet, fix the education system. Make actually speaking the language more important in the exam than writing it. Make it so everyone is able to conduct a basic conversation in Irish before they leave primary school. And just watch the numbers of Honours LC students soar a few years later.

Rockerette

NADA wrote:

I would just like to give you a reason why irish is stupid.

• Firsty no matter what,it is a linguistical fact Irish has got a MAXIMUM of 3 generations of left. It is expected to last to more. So what is the point in learning it when it will be gone anyway
• People argue that we are losing a part of our culture anyway. For 99% of the population of this country it has never even been a part and never will be a part of our culture. It's the 21st century. We are going to become more homogenous with the English and Americans due to globalisation. Learning Irish aint going to save it. Get over it!
• If you think that you are going to look stupid in the future by not being able to answer your future kid's homework(as somebody points) you wont. You will be intelligent. The stupid people are the people who waste 13 years of quality education time acquiring something that is utterly useless!
• Don't be fooled by the REVIVAL in Irish. There is none. Viewership of TG4 is going up>TRUE. Is is a fact that this is due to the showing of GAA and Films in English.
• With present rates on immigration it is an absolute certainty that Irish will die out
• We shouldn't be forced to learn anything
• Teaching us about Martin O direan and all the other losers like him ain't doing anything for the language
• Irish is definately dying. In the KErry gaeltacht last year only four families qualified for the deontas( see wikipedia serach gaeilge)
• Is would be much more practical to do a subject with material that we will actually need in out lives or learning another european language especially seen as we may at some time become fedal states
• People who say you need Irish in College are wrong. It is merely an entrance requiement. A tiny fraction have Irish in there content.
• There are people starving in this world and our Government are investing in a DEAD investment. We need to prioritize!
• Irish is the first official language of the State according to the constitution. Dont be fool. This is only a document and if it really were though we would be having this whole debate through Irish
• Life is all about sex and money. Irish can get you money but not as much as any other language
• WHy would I want to learn Irish when all public entertainment is done through English. I can see a decline in the amout of Irish literature do to authors writing throught English to make more profit
• For the minority that do speak Irish good for you. I shouldn't have to learn it for 13 years just as an acknowledment of your existence and the fact that you speak English anyway means I wouldn't need to.
• Did you ever think of the money wasted on translating all the officail documents into Irish that are never going to be read.
• In an age dominated by computer we should be learning programming languages

And those of you who say its our culture. We have no culture. None of us have. It can see it or feel it. It doesn't exist.Its all in our heads. We are all fundamentally the same. everyone is just one big load of biological cells. Where does culture come into it

can you speak irish well?
i dont want to be presumptious here, but with an attitude like that im assuming you cant...?

people who can speak it (based on the feelings here) seem to really like it..
people who find it difficult... hate it... because they cant "work" it.. and find it easier to rant on about how crap it is..


maybe im wrong, and i'll admit it if i am... but..

meh.

NADA

I am okish at it! I could get a b in higer level but I'm not arsed if you get me!

Rockerette

aah ok fair enough, i just had images of you being someone who's irish vocabulary stretched to about 10 words... and cos they cant understand it, they just give about about it instead!

Lord Oz

It's not the speaking part of irish that's bad, it's having to study all those boring poems,stories and stair na gaeilge. How is anyone supposed to enjoy that? It's totally redundant in modern society. It's time that could be better spent elsewhere.

NADA

Lord Oz wrote:

It's not the speaking part of irish that's bad, it's having to study all those boring poems,stories and stair na gaeilge. How is anyone supposed to enjoy that? It's totally redundant in modern society. It's time that could be better spent elsewhere.

Yeah. It don't reallt get much more boring.

proletarian

Irish is something I'd really like to like. I love languages and linguistics, I absolutely revel in it in German, and English is one of my favourite subjects. But Irish, something about it didn't click for me, whether in primary school or around the JC I dunno, I haven't really sat around deconstructing my flailing interest in Irish for a while now.

I'm all of the opinion that it's the way it's taught. I know I got a bit of an overdose at primary school, I was always hoping and hoping we'd do History or English and always it was Irish for two hours every morning. Granted, my primary-school-learned Irish is what's getting me through at the moment (Pass Irish I'm afraid, seriously scalded I didn't do Honours but I hated the teacher and wasn't able for anoher two years, bad, flimsy reason!) but it kind of repelled me from Irish. It was just an overdose.

And the way it's taught - it just, no. I know I would have liked Irish more if I'd been given less of it. I felt a bit strangled by it, and I think it's the claustrophobia -Irish, Irish everywhere - that irritates people. It's - too - bloody - much.

I definitely think making Irish optional would revolutionise it a little bit. I know plenty of people who enjoy Irish, and while I don't know if I would keep it on myself, I would hate to see it go.

Ok, it's 'pointless'. But we lost alot of our roots down through the years - tracing family roots is a nightmare with the whole having had our records - births, deaths, marriages etc etc set on fire at the turn of the century - and with Americanisation slipping its slimy tentacles into every nook and cranny of life, I think it'd be nice to keep a little sense of Irishness about us. I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't tend to go in for vociferous defence of subjects, and I'm not vociferously defending Irish like a mad fluent-Irish-Head- I do Pass after all. But, like I said, I'd love to like it more. And I don't think it's a waste of time, I just think that the Free State b****cked up its teaching in the first place and no one, apparently, saw fit to reform the way Irish was taught. Well, who would do battle with Dev? Imagine how much your ear would be withered!

But yeah, in short, Irish badly taught, but cool anyway, and would be a terrible loss, even if it's not 'important'.

Rockerette

proletarian wrote:

Well, who would do battle with Dev? Imagine how much your ear would be withered!

But yeah, in short, Irish badly taught, but cool anyway, and would be a terrible loss, even if it's not 'important'.

hehe i wonder what Dev would think of the country we live in now....
not many maidans dancing at teh crossroads anyway...!




i like your approach to Irish.. i can completely see where you're coming from, and i think it would be great if more people thought like you - i dont like hearing that people "hate" the language... (but i think im in the minority!)