Gaeilge

I'm very behind on my blogging, but I'll to try to catch up on the highlights of what's happened over the past month or so. It's been a whirlwind. And... I think I'll start with some Gaeilge (pronounced "Gale-guh").

I mentioned a while back (in my Modules post) that I decided to take an intensive beginner's Irish course this semester - because, ya know, why not? I'm here, and when else will I get the chance to learn to speak some Gaeilge? Well, I just finished the whole course on Monday when I took my written and oral exams (and I think they went well). I wouldn't say that I now know how to speak Irish, but I can more or less pronounce the crazy-looking words like "grianghrafadóireacht" (photography), and I know some stock phrases. I can tell you my name, where I'm from, what facilities are in my area, what the weather's like, what my house is like, who's in my family, what everyone's hobbies are, what I'm studying at school, what my job is, and the time. And I know about 35 verbs (but only in the past and present continuous tenses). For example:

Chelsea atá orm, agus is as Méiriceá ó dhuchas mé. Rugadh agus tógadh i bhFlorida mé, ach tá mé i mo chónaí i Nua Eabhrac le mo chlann anois. Tá muid ina gcónaí i mbaile beag, Rhinebeck, agus is ceantar alainn é. Tá ollmhargadh, pictiúrlann beag, siopá, agus go leor bialanna ann. Tá seacht seomra leapa, trí sheomra folctha, seomra bia, seomra suí, agus cistin i mo theach dha stór. Tá teach an-mhor mar tá ochtar i mo chlann: mise, mo thuisimitheorí, mo dhearháir amhain Jeremy, agus mo dheirfiúracha Chloé, Sophie, agus an cuplá Charlotte agus Brigitte. Réitim le mo dhearháir agus mo dheirfiúracha mar sin tá siad mo chairde freisin. Tá go leor caitheamh aimsire agam. Caithim go leor ama ag scríobh agus ag léabh, agus is maith liom a bheith ag snámh. Téim ag damhsa le mo chairde go minic, agus is aibhoinn liom a bheith ag cniotáil ó am go ham freisin. Is fearr liom a bheith ag cócaireacht mar déanim é le mo mhaithair agus le Chloé. Is brea liom a bheith ag ithe agus ag ól le mo chlann. Is mac léinn mé, agus tá me ag déanamh staidéar ar an mBearla agus ar an bhFrancís chun a bheith i mo mhuinteoir. Níl mé ag obair mar tá mé ag staidéar go lánaimseartha. Sin é!

I guess it's fun being able to know at least that much, but I was pretty frustrated with the way the whole course was taught. I really wish I had been able to learn even more than that. I think they need to do a major overhaul on their Irish language education. Kids here study it in schools for seven or eight years, and a lot of people told me this semester that they don't know anything. I heard a bunch of times that I can speak better Irish than they could, even after only two months of learning it. And that just makes me a little sad.

On a slightly different note, I realize that I never actually wrote about my weekend immersion in the Gaeltacht (an Irish-speaking village), called An Cheathrú Rua. As part of my class, they scheduled a weekend (3 days, 2 nights) for us to go stay with an Irish-speaking family and take classes to practice Irish during the day. I think it's a great idea for any language class...however...they scheduled us to go after only 3 weeks or so of class. So our Irish was pretty weak and we really couldn't understand our host family at all when they spoke in Irish. They ended up having to switch to English for us because they realized we couldn't speak anything, so then the weekend wound up being less about immersion and more about a great bonding experience with the other people in my class. I would love to be able to go back now that I feel a bit stronger with my Irish, and maybe I'd get a little more out of it. It was still so much fun, though.

The house (An teach)

The kitchen (An cistin)

Around 30 people went on the trip, but I stayed in a host house with 9 other kids. The couple was really friendly, and their home was lovely.

The dining room (Seomra bia)

The bedrooms were really comfortable, and the bathroom had a skylight and a really modern shower, and they fed us really well. They set up lots of toast, cereal, biscuits, and tea and coffee for breakfast. For lunch, they had us fill out a little form saying what we wanted for lunch and she had our personalized sandwiches ready for us to take with us to class during the day. For dinner, they made us so much food. The first night she made quiche and had salad and vegetables on the side, as well as french fries (chips) - they really do have some form of potato at every meal here. The second night, she made lasagna with the same sides and had apple pie for dessert.

Me, Natalie, Pam, and Alissa

They also had these two adorable dogs, called Paris and Nicole (and they were so FLUFFY! Seriously, I didn't know dogs could be such mini balls of pure fluff). We could ask them in Irish to give us a high five, and they were so well trained that they would stay on that little red bench in the kitchen and not jump off and run around the room at all the strange people. They made me miss Casper, even though he isn't nearly that obedient. I still think he's cuter. 

After dinner both nights, we walked the five minutes into the teeny little town (baile beag) and went to the pub, An Cistin. We decided it looked sort of like a pub you might imagine the hobbits would have. Everything inside was made of wood, and it was divided into four separate rooms. The bar was a big circle in the center that ran through each room so the bartenders could easily go from room to room from behind the bar. They taught us how to order a pint of Guinness in Irish and say thanks, which got some amused smiles from the bartenders: "Pionta Guinness, le do thoil. Go raibh maith agat." 

During lunch on one of the days, they brought in five local kids to perform some traditional Irish music and dancing. It was so much fun to watch and listen to, and they were really talented. I was so impressed, and it made me wish that I had learned to do anything nearly as awesome when I was a kid. Fortunately, they decided to offer us a class that night on either singing or dancing, and my friends and I decided to go with the dancing. They taught us three kinds of céilí, which meant we partnered up and did dance steps and hops clockwise and counterclockwise around the room. Oh my gosh, it was so much fun. When we went to the pub afterwards someone requested one of the songs ("Shoe the Donkey") from the live band that was playing, so everyone who had taken that class got up and started dancing in the middle of the pub - much to the amusement of all the locals. (It was fun, but I mean, we were really bad at it. At least we knew that we weren't good, though!) 

A week or so after we got back from the Gaeltacht, my friends and I went to Monroe's (one of the pubs in Galway) where they have céilís every Tuesday night. They didn't play any of the three songs we had learned, but it was great to just sit there and watch all the elderly couples get up and start dancing wildly together. I hope that when I'm in my 80s I can dance like that with someone. 

That's about all I have to say about Gaeilge for now. I'll get to working on some more updates. 

Slán go foill!