There has been some discussion on Irish in another thread which could be useful to people following this one - Reading Second Responses
I have Questionsā¦ I will get around to buying an Irish grammar book at some point, but in the meantime thereās a couple of things Iāve been wondering about. (BTW, Iām totally happy with āthatās just the way it isā as an answer - thatās part of the beauty of languages, IMO.) It would be amazing if anyone has got any information on these (apologies for lack of accents - Iām working on a Welsh keyboardā¦)
So thereās Ta se [adjective or verb] for He isā¦ , and thereās also Is [noun] e for He isā¦ Is this like āMaeān Xā and āX ydy eā in Welsh (i.e. identification sentences)?
Then for possession, Iāve heard both Ta X agam and Ta agam X. Are these structures interchangeable (again, the Welsh can be flexible like that) or is there some other consideration to bear in mind?
Iām sure there will be many other questions to come, but these are just the most pressing two.
Thanks in advance for any information!
Ooh, what an interesting distinction between permanent and temporary! Iāve never considered that from a grammatical perspective! Thatās a really helpful observation.
With the Ta agam construction, thatās what I thought (that the agam comes after the object) but then some of the sentences have the object after agam. But perhaps thatās when thereās a long phrase that makes up the object rather than a simple word or two? Iāll try to listen more carefully and see if I can come back with an example of when that is done.
Absolutely! Thereās a certain amount of that in Welsh, as well, so it isnāt a completely new concept to me (and we have conjugating prepositions as well, so thatās all good).
Once I worked out that āTa me chunā¦ā was āI am toā¦ā (rather than the verb āto goā), that opened a whole load up for me.
In fact, thatās one of the things I really like about the SSi method (and that i know other people donāt like) - I love the detective game of working out these structures, and making connections, and following the clues that lead to the knowledge that, for example, āanā is the singular definite article but ānaā is the plural. It just makes the whole thing more addictive for me
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I know what you mean. I still remember when I was learning Welsh with SSi and those moments would come where youāre puzzled about something for a while, but you just go with it, and then hey presto! The light bulb comes on, you make the connections, and you get a real buzz from the fact that you figured something out without it being made specific. Sounds like weāre very similar in that way @sara-peacock-1
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Tacking onto the end here, but how are people enjoying the Irish course? I reached Orange + Black belt just a few minutes ago and Iām having a grand time 
I know a fair bit of Irish from years ago but SSiIrish has been a really nice course so far! (Iāve already learned plenty). Iām curious if anyone knows: do the Belts have a standard set of vocab / themes across each of the SSi courses? e.g., does Orange + Black belt for Irish contain the roughly the same new words / themes as in Orange + Black belt for Spanish?
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These guysā sketches are really funny and this is probably my favourite one 
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They are heading that way. As the courses are being fine-tuned, the most useful phrases to be introduced are becoming apparent and unless the target language has specific reasons for introducing things in a different order, they will often end up being quite similar.
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Started Irish more or less cold (apart from a bit of Duolingo) in January, and am also have a āgrand timeā with it 
Iām nearly half way through blue now, so Iāve reached the point of going āahhhhā¦ so thatās a different tense of thatā and then ābutā¦ but whyās it like that?ā The hardest thing so far (as with every language) is the prepositions, but theyāll come in the end, Iām sure. Oh, and saying āSaturday nightā 
Iāve just invested in a couple of grammar books, so Iām now trying to get my head round the spelling rules alongside what I consider to be the important part (the speaking).
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I recently revisited the Irish course after some months away and my brain is better able to understand the prepositions! Definitely took some effort but here we are
Which grammar books did you get?
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To start with, I got the Collins Irish Dictionary and then Teach Yourself Irish Grammar. Think I might shell out on the Routledge āBasic Irish Grammarā, because I found the Welsh one so useful. Iām hoping theyāll have one of their sales soon!
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One of the hopes SSi has moving forward is that when our income levels increase from the major languages, that DO have an excellent choice of AI voices available, weāll be able to engage first language speakers of the lesser spoken languages to do the recording for us.
Using AI voices for the Irish is just an intermediate step so that we can offer a course for people to learn from, but supplementing that with as much listening to native speakers as possible is important for learning correct pronunciation.
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In an ideal world weād have a variety of dialects available from native speakers giving learners a wide choice of genuine pronunciations to learn from, however when the actual choice is between offering something that is less than perfect but will give people the chance to start taking part in conversations and contributing to the revitalisation of the Irish language, OR, offering nothing because what we have isnāt perfect, I think the first option is better.
It will be obvious to any first language speaker that someone who has done the SSi Irish course is still learning, but the reaction of most first language Welsh speakers is delight that someone is making the effort to learn their language, and I imagine it will be similar in Ireland.
Donāt worry about subtleties of whether a consonant is ābroadā or āslenderā or youāll never speak! Just dive in and do your best, and if you have the opportunity to talk to native Irish speakers, your pronunciation will gradually adapt to sound more like them.
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Iām finding the Teanglann.ie app very good for pronunciation (and itās possible to choose between the three dialects on that), along with videos/podcasts from Learn Irish Online (although I havenāt worked out what his dialect is yetā¦) Off to Galway/Connemara in April, so hoping to thrash out further detail while Iām out in the Gaeltacht 
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Iām really looking forward to hearing how you get on in April! Iām sure youāll make a great impression over there. 
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There are a lot of interesting studies on the effectiveness (or lack of) of immersion learning from around the world comparing methodologies etc. I havenāt seen one from Northern Ireland though, so go raibh maith agat. Iāll take a look!
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I canāt remember the specifics now - it was a few years ago when I was doing an MA in Bilingualism and Multlingualism with a Welsh university - but I do remember that there is some evidence to say that a new dialect may be developing in the south east, based on the Welsh spoken by young adults who have gone through the Welsh medium education system, but come from non Welsh speaking homes. Itās something for sociolinguists to study
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IIRC they found similar results with French immersion schools in Canada.
I donāt really think that we can blame SSi for not (currently) being part of the solution to what is being lost as Irish changes, as itās really not SSiās responsibility; but I can definitely understand your point of view. Like you, I also think something beautiful will have been lost. You can compare Cornish to Welsh in that respect: Cornish is still beautiful, but the way most of its speakers speak it (there are rare exceptions), it is clear that much of its beauty and character has been lost.
What I would say is that if you are as passionate about this as you seem to be, present some of this stuff to relevant Irish language bodies and try to secure some funding so that SSi can become the solution you want it to be. I imagine everyone at SSi would probably be thrilled to have the chance to do that. If you succeed, you could literally save the language you love.
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Another lovely dream would be to have a Slack platform and online chat groups like we have for Welsh, but led by first language speakers from the Gaeltacht - different groups for the different dialects. Can you imagine how amazing that would be? Unlikely in the foreseeable future, but you never know!
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I watched No BĆ©arla in 2014 or so and itās well worth a viewing. I should watch it again.