irish

alic

im not being bad or anything but just want to hear your thoughts.do u think that there is much point in the irish for exam because we dont use it much.im only 15 so i dont know about the job qualifications but u don't need irish for many colleges.im not complaining because i myself like irish but wat are ur thoughts

grimloch

i believe you need if for ucd and most other colleges for entrance, cant remember the heading they come under

if youve got some skill in the language and work hard you can get a very good grade and it will serve you well if youre looking for high points etc

so as it stands there is a point in doing irish

declan_lgs

I think they should ditch it. The only reason we're being made do Irish is so it's kept alive. But what's the point in keeping it alive if it has no use?
Either that, or do some more to make it the primary language of the country. And I'd love if it was made the primary language of the country, but I for some reason can't see it happening.

grimloch

well...yes it should be made compulsory and change a few things around to cater for it but as we stand we have to do it for most cases so theres no point ignoring it because its "no use" - plenty of things are we do are no use

its a subject at the end of the day, that if youre good at, will help get you the points you want for the course you would like to do

Victor

grimloch wrote:

its a subject at the end of the day, that if youre good at, will help get you the points you want for the course you would like to do

Exactly. There is no point in discussing it in the week of the exam. Go study.

Locked.

declan_lgs

grimloch wrote:

well...yes it should be made compulsory and change a few things around to cater for it but as we stand we have to do it for most cases so theres no point ignoring it because its "no use" - plenty of things are we do are no use

its a subject at the end of the day, that if youre good at, will help get you the points you want for the course you would like to do

Very few people use Irish after they leave secondary school, apart from when they need it for college/university/whatever where they no longer use it.

Learning Irish just to get a place in a college/university/whatever where you no longer use it is, IMO, stupit and wasteful. Yet so many people are forced to do it.

Anyhow, if Irish was optional to all students, the colleges/universities/whatever would be unwize if they kept Irish as a requirement. For the reason I pointed out above.


The Irish language is good-as-dead ATM. We'd be better, IMO, to kill it than let it die a slow, painful death. Even better than that: try to make it the primary language in at least the South. I'd love nothing better (even though I'm useless at it).


There's an English person in my year who moved from England when he was nine. He didn't do Irish in primary/secondary school, but he's getting a good-as-default F in the JC and LC (not sure about LC, but I'd assume...), unless he can show up on the day and perform some miracle.
That's evil. If I was forced to do that Hebrew exam-... Good thing I amn't. But this fella is being forced to do an exam that he has no clue about (well he'll likely not be in that day).
Sure, he probably should've picked up Irish when he was nine, but it's too late for that now. And I dunno whos decision it was for him to not-do Irish (I'll check that out tomorrow...).

PurpleFistMixer

I quite like Irish and would not like to see it die. However, I think some adjustments should be made to the way it's taught. At Junior Cert, I think there should be no literature at all to study. I think if we spent more time learning the language itself, then by the time we came to the Leaving Cert we could probably afford to do literature.
As it is, I can barely string together grammatically correct sentences in Irish. That I am expected to talk intelligently about studied literature is just blatantly stupid.

And no, I'm not dropping down to pass Irish before anyone says that.

And strange for that English kid. I know people who have exemptions from Irish and they're Irish themselves.

declan_lgs

PurpleFistMixer wrote:

I quite like Irish and would not like to see it die. However, I think some adjustments should be made to the way it's taught. At Junior Cert, I think there should be no literature at all to study. I think if we spent more time learning the language itself, then by the time we came to the Leaving Cert we could probably afford to do literature.
As it is, I can barely string together grammatically correct sentences in Irish. That I am expected to talk intelligently about studied literature is just blatantly stupid.

Yea I think something should be done about that. Plus, the Irish teachers in our school are crap (about 5 in all), bar one (according to some other students).

Arguably, I know more French than Irish. But I know little Irish, especially grammar-wise.

After sixth year, I will have completed 10 or 11 or 12 years (dunno what "class" we started at in primary school) of Irish in school. That's alot of years. I would hope that, even if I amn't, everyone else in the year is damn good at this forsaken and mostly-useless language.

EDIT: my view on the Irish language is only partly reflected by my crapness at it.
It's more that it's a waste of time, and it's time we're forced to waste. And I'm not fond of wasting time.
The only kudos Irish gets from me is that it is precisely that - Irish.

Diarmsquid

Then again Irish is the primary language in Gaelteach areas in Galway, Donegal and wherever else, imagine if you took a trip ther, in your own country and didn't understand a word they were saying.

I blame the English! :mad:

grimloch

grimloch wrote:

well...yes it should be made compulsory

in case anyone got the wrong idea by what i said there, i meant should be made optional, my apologies

the course could do with a bit of revising though, some of the poems on the LC are written in that old form of irish that needs a good word-for-word translating from the teacher

yes it might be a "waste of time" but no more really than anything else were doing at the moment, with a bit of effort and dedication to the language you can do very well and maybe get an A1 or A2 in the leaving

declan_lgs

grimloch wrote:

yes it might be a "waste of time" but no more really than anything else were doing at the moment, with a bit of effort and dedication to the language you can do very well and maybe get an A1 or A2 in the leaving

I'd rather my efforts go elsewhere

I agree that some the other stuff we do in secondary school is also a waste of time, but I would not go so far as to say that they're as useless to us in life as Irish is.

PurpleFistMixer

I've heard that once you've learned one language, it's far easier to learn more languages. So perhaps Irish isn't a complete waste of time?

declan_lgs

PurpleFistMixer wrote:

I've heard that once you've learned one language, it's far easier to learn more languages. So perhaps Irish isn't a complete waste of time?

I'd say that's probably true.
But we'd benifet more (or we'd actually benifet, heh) if we learned a useful language (or a language that is used ... more).

I've learned a heck of alot of French in the last 3 years. I been doing Irish for... 8/9years? I'd say my French would probably (or very nearly, at least) be ahead already.
Insane.

I don't expect that the situation will change anytime soon. Nobody would have the balls to take responsability for the death of the forsaken language.

Diarmsquid wrote:

Then again Irish is the primary language in Gaelteach areas in Galway, Donegal and wherever else, imagine if you took a trip ther, in your own country and didn't understand a word they were saying.

I barely understand what they say the way it is.


Like I said: kill it, or help it. I definetly don't like the state of it ATM.
Most of us here are doing Irish in school. How many of us intend on using it (as in life kinda using it)?
If they weren't gonna kill the forsaken language, I'd like to see more all-Irish primary and secondary schools. I think they're a cool idea. They get to use the language, and learn English aswel.

Victor

**bump**

Diarmsquid

Irish has a use!
If you got a little sister or brother who hasn't learned Irish yet, you can use it with your parents to communicate when you don't want your sister/brother to hear.
I use it everyday like that. Can't do it with French, my parents didn't do it in school and I'm not much good at French anyway.

It's also useful on holidays for the same reasononly with foreigners.

I heart Irish!

philologos

declan_lgs wrote:

The Irish language is good-as-dead ATM. We'd be better, IMO, to kill it than let it die a slow, painful death

Irish is part of our culture regardless and I really like the language if we loose Irish what are we? What else can really show that we are Irish or not just English. In time we will lose other things that are truly Irish >.< Killing Irish is killing our culture tbh.

declan_lgs

Jakkass wrote:

Irish is part of our culture regardless and I really like the language if we loose Irish what are we? What else can really show that we are Irish or not just English. In time we will lose other things that are truly Irish >.< Killing Irish is killing our culture tbh.

I wouldn't mind seeing a good (serious) effort to revive Irish as the primary language in Ireland.

How many of us will still understand Irish in thirty years time? How many of us will use Irish in thirty years time?

philologos

declan_lgs wrote:

I wouldn't mind seeing a good (serious) effort to revive Irish as the primary language in Ireland.

How many of us will still understand Irish in thirty years time? How many of us will use Irish in thirty years time?

14,000 is still a remarkable figure

declan_lgs

Jakkass wrote:

14,000 is still a remarkable figure

Sure is, but where did it come from?

philologos

that is the population of Irish speakers

Outcast

Since Irish is an official language in Ireland it will most likely become an official EU language (or could be already). So you're far more eligible for a job in Europe because you will have a qualification in 3 EU languages, English, Irish and French or whatever. Surely thats a good reason to learn it.

I love Irish, proud to be one of the 14,000. But the curriculum is crap. We should be given a chance to appreciate Irish for what it is instead of having boring literature, grammar etc. thrown at us. Even the teachers hate the curriculum.

Diarmsquid

Outcast wrote:

Since Irish is an official language in Ireland it will most likely become an official EU language (or could be already).

Yeah, it is. Thay have T-shirts made, celebrating it becoming official.