Hey

Hank,

When I first got your text, I thought I had an easy answer, but after spending like 10 minutes trying to fumble out a response, it occurred to me that it was something I should probably think about before just throwing out there. Then, I ended up writing a several page essay of a sort of language learning manifesto, but I think thats really just as unhelpful.

After doing some brief research about Irish, I have since been inspired to actually go about learning Irish. What Im sending you here is some quick rambling about how I learn languages, and some useful tools. If youd like, Ill send you the actual curriculum for how Im going to go about learning Irish. Thanks for pointing me in this direction!

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The most important (and for me the most difficult) attribute in a language learner is persistency. Studying hard all day only once a week is not only useless, but in the long term is actually immensely harmful. Its a great way to burn out, and a great way to turn language learning from something fun and useful into a chore and an imposition on your time.

! !

The only way to really learn a language is to treat it like a flower; water it a little bit everyday, not too much, not too little. Patience is a virtue! In this spirit, language learning is not just something that can be funif you want to be successful, it has to be fun, otherwise itll be hard to maintain. The second most important attribute in a language learner is confidence. Never be afraid about practicing your language in the beginning. Oh, Ill start speaking with people once I get fluent enough is an easy trap to fall into, and once you start thinking this way, youll never get fluent enough. With the possible soul exception of Parisians, people will love to hear that you respect their culture enough to try to learn their language, and will respond with nothing but praise and encouragement. This goes doubly for languages that Anglophones typically dont make any effort to learn, like Chinese or Irish.

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In this spirit, its also really really important that you actually practice speaking with native speakers. In the age of the internet, its never been easier to do this from the comfort of your own computer, for free, without even showing your face, if you dont want to. Here are some language chat sites that I think are particularly good: My favorite is http://www.italki.com/. Just poke around the site a bit, and the way it works should be clear. Here, you can find somebody to just talk to informally. You can even join a group chat, so you can listen to others talk for a bit, if youre feeling

timid, or dont want to be singled out. Theres also http:// www.mylanguageexchange.com/, which Ive never used, and http:// livemocha.com/, which I think is awesome. There are all sorts of other sites that will find you a Skype partner, which personally sounds awkward and unnecessary to me.

Of course, the purpose of speaking with natives (at least from a cold-hearted pure language learning perspective), is to practice, understand, and contextualize what youve learned. To actually be able to use this sort of practice productively, its necessary to have a course that you can follow, and chip away at day by day. Ill be working on one for myself, and Im happy to share it, if youre interested, but otherwise Ill point you in the following directions:

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If you want to buy a (cheap) book or course, here are the ones that I would recommend: Teach Yourself: Complete Irish (with Audio) 23$ The Teach Yourself series, in addition to Assimil, are the only language learning series that I would ever recommend. Assimil, while better, unfortunately for English speakers only offers particularly common languages in Englishmost of its courses, including the Irish gaelic book, are only available in French.

Bunts Cainte 13$ This is what Anglophone Irish kids use to learn Irish in school. I imagine that there are a lot of resources online centered around this book, so if you want to shell out 13$, this may be your best bet.

! If you dont want to spend money, which is fine, here are the courses Id suggest: ! !

Gaelic Galore This website has a full curriculum, looks professional, and looks great for beginners. This is probably what Ill be using, combined with the other assorted resources below: http://www.rte.ie/rnag/ (National radio channel) http://www.abair.tcd.ie/index.php?page=synthesis&lang=eng (An amazing site that will read out any Irish word to you in a perfect accent) http://www.reddit.com/r/gaeilge/ (An amazing forum filled with helpful people and links. They also have other sections, or subreddits, centered around anything you could imagine.) http://unilang.org/ (A great polyglot community, with forums, a list of courses, and all sorts of other resources.) http://www.daltai.com/forums/ (A website centered around learning Irish, filled with helpful people, information about grammar, phrases, and even games.)

Anyway, hope this is helpful, good luck Hank! Jack