Hi! I'm new here. Sorry if this is not the right place/section to post this. First of all, English is not my first language so I'm sorry about the mistakes.

I've been wanting to learn Irish for quite some time but whenever I tried I got too lazy and gave up quickly. The thing is, everyone learns a different way, and my way is quite strange. While most people find it useful and enjoyable to start learning full sentences like "dia duit", "conas tá tú", and a lot of vocabulary, the numbers, etc, to me all this info is not really useful at the beginning. Basically what I'm trying to say here is that I learn by constructing my own phrases, being able to understand everything I'm saying. Give me a list of 1000 words (colors, dresses, animals, etc etc) and I'll barely retain 4 or 5 in my brain. Give me the resources to start constructing my own phrases and I'll start learning (and practising) a lot. I'd start with a small list of useful verbs (+conjugations), personal pronouns, nouns and very useful words like "but", "and", "or", "if", "this", "here", "now", "yesterday", "my", etc. and also useful combinations like "I want to do something", "I am doing something" or "I like doing something". Basically useful stuff to start constructing basic phrases and to start communicating. Does this make sense to you?

I think this might be the most effective way for me to learn, but Irish is quite complicated so I can't just begin looking words up and building sentences on my own, I need to follow some lessons or something.

So after this crazy rambling I'd like to ask you if you know any website in which I can start to learn Irish for free with audio files.

Oh, another thing. I come from a place the language of which has been minorized for the last centuries, so I know linguistic interferences and linguistic substitution quite well, unfortunately. I mention this because I think I can clearly tell when an Irish speaker sounds "very English" and when s/he does not. Sometimes it just sounds like "fake English" to me, if you know what I mean. Other times I've heard old poeple from the Gaeltacht even doing rolled Rs (as opposed to the English R I hear most of the time). I'm very curious about this topic because of the linguistic situation in my homeland. If I may ask, when/where/why is that "rolled R" pronounced in Irish? Was it once the norme but it died due to the influence of English? Or is it just used in some cases? Or just in some places? Just in the Gaeltacht? Just by old native speakers? Does the Irish government promote this "anglicized" Irish I'm talking about? In my homeland the dominant/foreign language is completely deforming our native language not only phonetically but in all aspects, so I know this is a dangerous thing that happens to minorized languages.

I mentioned above I'd like the lessons to have audio files because of two reasons, I can't read the international symbol system (whatever it's called) and I don't like the "anglicized" way of learning pronunciation at all (things like "ah graw muh kree"). I want to avoid learning an anglicized Irish, as you may have noticed.

So... sorry for so many questions and thanks a míle.

Táim giota beag fiosrach. Carb as duit? I'm a little curious. Where are you from?

if you are talking about the r pronounced with the tip of the tongue (not always rolled, but most of the time it's just a tap behind the upper teeth), it's the normal pronunciation everywhere in the Gaeltacht.



just by the people who pronounce properly...
Thank God the good pronunciation(s) didn't die, it's just that you don't hear it so often in the media because most people in the media don't pronounce properly, but in the Gaeltacht, people do.



as far as I know, there's no recommendation concerning the pronunciation of Irish, even for teachers. If you don't pronounce properly, I think nobody cares. That's why most non-native speakers don't care about their pronunciation.



are you from Brittany?



IPA, international phonetic alphabet. But I don't know many learning resources that use it, because most people, including teachers, don't know it.

bealoideas.com
http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~oduibhin/sf/index.html
...

Good think if you can identify badly pronounced Irish, it'll make you save much time

_________________
Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

I'm from Mallorca. And now I'm curious: do the people over there know that actually Spanish is not the language of Mallorca?



Ok, yeah, I was also talking about that kind of r. In my language we use both the tip-of-the-tongue r and the rolled r. I guess this may save me some time because I don't have to learn how to make these sounds, since I've made them since birth.



Hmm... ok, so it's the way I thought. Then it's a bit of a shame that all of the TV/radio hosts and young people in the media always use the English r, isn't? I'm used to that kind of minorized language phonetic-deformer media over here too. But, really, the English r sound is not used at all in proper original Gaeltacht Irish?



No, but the case of the minorized languages in France proves that I'm right about this. Probably any minorized language you listen to in France nowadays will sound "frenchized", specially from young speakers (also my own language, which is spoken in the south of France as well, sounds frenchized there). The media, the education system etc should really take care of the phonetics of the minorized language, because it's so easily deformable by the dominant language nowadays.



Ok. Wow, the sound files on that link sound like the kind of real Irish I'd like to learn! Thanks.

I know it but I'm a linguist so I'm not representative of what most people know about languages Most people on earth don't know the original language of Ireland is not English



oh aye, it hurts my ears...



nope, but nowadays certain native speakers, especially young speakers from Munster, use the English r although they speak the dialect.



the problem is that there only a handful of young native speakers of Breton, when I say a handful, I mean, maybe 500 out of about 4,000,000 inhabitants.
Btw, most Breton sounds exist in French too, so even native Breton sounds French to people who don't speak French. I made several English speakers (with no French) listen to recordings of old native speakers of Breton, and they all said they sounded French, even though no French speaker would say that. So it depends on what languages you know too, and you can compare it to.



that's Donegal Irish

_________________
Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

I speak Castellano (Latin American dialect). I was curious about your native language. Am I understanding you to say that Mallorca has a language? Would you mind posting a piece of literature, or perhaps post the Lord's Prayer? I'd love to see it.

Go raibh maith agat,
Féabar

I don't know if I ever knew what language was spoken in Mallorca, so like Féabar, I'm very curious. I'd love to know more about it!

Your English is excellent, by the way, so don't apologize for it! I wish my Irish were as good!

Redwolf

Gheobhaidh tú stuif anseo:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallorqu%C3%ADn

_________________
Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

Níl aon Spáinnis agam, ar an drochuair (seachas cúpla focal Spáinnis Meicsiceach).

Redwolf

Bhail, deireann an t-alt gur canamhaint Chatalóinise a labhartar in Mallorca.

_________________
Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne