Teach Yourself Irish Conversation - Booklet and 3 Audio CDs
Brand New
: Booklet and 3 Audio CDs
This stand-alone, all-audio course can be used by those who have little or no knowledge of the language, by those who want to learn or brush up basic conversation skills, and by more advanced learners who require extra audio material to complement their current courses.The ten units or 'conversations' cover the situations you are most likely to find yourself in while on holiday or on business abroad. They are divided into two parts, with a dialogue in each part. The dialogue in Part 2 reuses the vocabulary and phrases from Part 1 in a slightly different context. Both parts start with an introduction to the words and phrases you'll need, followed by the dialogue. Finally it's 'Over to you': you take part in the same dialogues following the English prompts, playing all the roles in turn. So you get lots of opportunity to practise! Frequent track markers divide the CDs up into short, easy-to-use clips.
Vocabulary and phrases in the first two CDs are kept to the basics and are introduced gradually with lots of opportunity to repeat and practise, to improve your confidence in both speaking and understanding. The third CD concentrates on helping you improve your understanding, so that you will be able to hold two-way conversations with people who speak very fast or use words and phrases you do not know.
The course comes on three 75-minute CDs and has an accompanying 48-page booklet which gives the dialogues and the translations of the dialogues, for those who like to see the written word or want additional practice. The booklet also provides a basic glossary of the words and phrases used.
* ALL-AUDIO COURSE – use anywhere
* TEN REALISTIC CONVERSATION SCENARIOS – the words and phrases you'll need
* LOTS OF OPPORTUNITY FOR PRACTICE AND REPETITION – improve your confidence
* HELP IN UNDERSTANDING WHAT IS SAID BACK TO YOU - strategies for understanding what you hear, so you can have true, two-way conversations and not be thrown by the replies you get
* NO GRAMMAR – make progress fast, without learning boring rules or unnecessary vocabulary
Table of Contents:
1. Meeting and Greeting
• Greeting people
• Introducing yourself
2. This is my sister
• Talking about your family
• Introducing members of the family
3. Socialising with friends
• Having a drink with a friend
• Saying goodbye
4. Eating out
• Book a table
• Order a meal
5. Knowing the way
• Asking the way
• Getting directions
6. Leisure time activities
• Past-times
• Likes and dislikes
8. Travel and holidays
• Talking about the travelling that you have done
• Talking about where you intend going in future
9. Transactions
• Buying groceries
• In the post office
10. Small talk
• Weather
• What time…?
About the Authors:
Dónall Mac Ruairí is a native speaker of Irish from Rann na Feirste, County Donegal. He has a breadth of experience as a teacher of Irish in an Irish medium education environment. He is a regular contributor to Raidió na Gaeltachta and BBC Radio Ulster. He has also created various multimedia teaching resources for the rapidly developing Irish Medium Education sector. He regularly contributes to multimedia self-instructional courses most notably Colin and Cumberland and Bite Size Irish, two BBC productions.
Dr Máire Mhic Ruairí is a lecturer in Irish at the University of Ulster in Belfast and member of the Higher Education Academy. Her responsibilities include the design of syllabi and materials for the teaching of Irish at university level and teaching Irish to undergraduates on the BA Hons Irish Language and Literature course and to beginners on the Diploma in the Irish Language course. She previously held the post of Literature and Publications Officer with Bord na Leabhar Gaeilge (Irish Government Irish Language Publications Body).
About the Irish Language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken natively by a small minority of the Irish population – mostly in Gaeltacht areas – but also plays an important symbolic role in the life of the Irish state, and is used across the country in a variety of media, personal contexts and social situations. It enjoys constitutional status as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland and it is an official language of the European Union. Irish is also an officially recognised minority language in Northern Ireland.
Irish is the main community and household language of 3% of the Republic's population Estimates of fully native speakers range from under 20,000 up to 80,000 people. The Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs estimated in 2007 that about 17,000 people lived in strongly Irish-speaking communities, about 10,000 people lived in areas where there was substantial use of the language, and 17,000 people lived in "weak" Gaeltacht communities; Irish was no longer the main community language in the remaining parts of the official Gaeltacht. However, since Irish is an obligatory subject in schools, many more are reasonably fluent second-language speakers. Furthermore, a much larger number regard themselves as competent in the language to some degree: 1,656,790 (41.9% of the total population aged three years and over) regard themselves as competent Irish speakers.
On 13 June 2005, EU foreign ministers unanimously decided to make Irish an official language of the European Union. The new arrangements came into effect on 1 January 2007, and Irish was first used at a meeting of the EU Council of Ministers, by Minister Noel Treacy, T.D., on 22 January 2007.
Many English-speaking Irish people use small and simple phrases (known as cúpla focal, "a few words") in their everyday speech, e.g. Slán ("goodbye"), Slán abhaile ("get home safely"), Sláinte ("good health"; used when drinking like "bottoms up" or "cheers"), Go raibh maith agat ("thank you"), Céad míle fáilte ("a hundred thousand welcomes", a tourist board saying, also used by President Hillery to welcome Pope John Paul II to Ireland in 1979) and Conas atá tú? ("How are you?"). There are many more small sayings that have crept into Hiberno-English. The term craic has been popularised outside Ireland in this Gaelicized spelling: "How's the craic?" or "What's the craic'?" ("how's the fun?"/"how is it going?"), though the word is not Irish in origin, and the expression "How's the crack?" was widely used in Ireland since at least the 1960s before the Irish-language spelling "craic" became the common journalistic style.
Bilingual sign in English and Irish in Tesco store, Ballyfermot, Dublin.
Many public bodies have Irish language or bilingual names, but some have downgraded the language. An Post, the Republic's postal service, displays Irish place names in both Irish and English is equal prominence outside its offices and continues to have place names in Irish on its postmarks as well as recognising addresses (as does the Royal Mail in Northern Ireland). Traditionally, the private sector has been less supportive, although support for the language has come from some private companies. For example, Irish supermarket chain Superquinn introduced bilingual signs in its stores in the 1980s, a move which was followed more recently by the British chain Tesco for its stores in the Republic. Woodies DIY now also have bilingual signs in their chain of stores. In contrast, the "100% Irish" SuperValu has few if any Irish signs, and the German retailers Aldi and Lidl have none at all.
In an effort to increase the use of the Irish language by the State, the Official Languages Act was passed in 2003. This act ensures that most publications made by a governmental body must be published in both official languages, Irish and English. In addition, the office of Language Commissioner has been set up to act as an ombudsman with regard to equal treatment for both languages. A major factor in the decline of natively-spoken Irish has been the movement of English speakers into the Gaeltacht (predominantly Irish speaking areas) and the return of native Irish-speakers who have returned with English-speaking partners. This has been stimulated by government grants and infrastructure projects: "only about half Gaeltacht children learn Irish in the home... this is related to the high level of in-migration and return migration which has accompanied the economic restructuring of the Gaeltacht in recent decades". In a last-ditch effort to stop the demise of Irish-speaking in Connemara in Galway, planning controls have been introduced on the building of new homes in Irish speaking areas. Thanks in large part to Gael-Taca and Gaillimh Le Gaeilge and two local groups a significant number of new residential developments are named in Irish today in most of the Republic of Ireland. In several counties there are a large number being named in Irish. |
