The GaelMinn Gazette: April, 2014 http://ezezine.com
THE GAELMINN GAZETTE (#107): April, 2014
==========================================
The GaelMinn Gazette, a monthly e-newsletter from Gaeltacht Minnesota,
carries helpful items for anyone studying the Irish language, anywhere,
as well as news of interest to local and regional students.
Please FORWARD this newsletter to any friends who may want to learn
Irish. And if you received this Gazette from someone else, go to
www.gaelminn.org to sign up.
To read this newsletter as a web page, go to
www.gaelminn.org/lastgaz.htm .
Content (C) 2014 Gaeltacht Minnesota
CONTENTS
==========================================
Tips, Tools, & Tricks
Adjective Workout
GaelMinn News & Announcements
Lessons Learned
Split Testing Study Habits
About Gaeltacht Minnesota
*******
TIPS, TOOLS, & TRICKS
==========================================
----------ADJECTIVE WORKOUT
Adjectives, obviously, are good things to know. After all, describing
things is a major part of conversation.
But often, when we look up adjectives in Irish, we are just "filling in
the blank" in a sentence we are constructing. We forget (or haven't
learned yet) the word for "long", and we want to say, "The road is
long." We remember, "Tá an bóthar ______," so we look up "long" and
plug "fada" into the blank.
And a day or a week later, we don't know the word for "long"!
Sometimes that's fine, you just need to fill in the blank to complete
an e-mail, or you're in a rush for some reason. But it would be nice to
master those adjectives we look up a little more fully. Engaging in
some activity with the word, other than plugging it in, can help us
remember it later.
And that activity can also help us remember how adjectives work,
especially in regard to adjectives following feminine singular nouns.
In that situation, the adjective is lenited (when possible), but only
if it is following the noun as a direct modifier.
That's different than an adjective in "the predicate," which you might
think of as meaning that the adjective is connected to the verb rather
than to the noun.
For example, if we are using "bóthar" in our sentence above to indicate
"route" or "way", there are a couple of other common words in Irish
that might be used, namely, "bealach" and "slí", the first masculine
(as is "bóthar"), the last one feminine. With our original sentence, we
would say:
Tá an bóthar fada.
Tá an bealach fada.
Tá an tslí fada.
No lenition of the adjective in this use. But if we are looking at a
map, and you want to say, "I see the long way", meaning you see the
longer (scenic) route as well as the shortcut on the map, you could
say:
Feicim an bóthar fada.
Feicim an bealach fada.
Feicim an tslí fhada.
(We aren't going to get into this now, but Irish nouns are essentially
genderless in the plural, although some other rules can come into
play.)
In English, word order helps us out more. We say, "The way is long",
and "way" and "long" are separated. We say, "I see the long way", and
the two words come together.
In Irish it takes a little more teasing out. Then you have to remember
the gender of the noun, if it applies. And then you have to remember
the rule that an adjective used to directly modify a preceding feminine
singular noun needs to be lenited.
Let's practice that rule a bit. Little by little, in your spare time or
during various study sessions, construct a series of sentence pairs
resembling the ones above. Look for nouns that refer to similar things,
but with different genders.
Again, you're making sentences like these:
Tá an bealach _______. Feicim an bealach ________.
Tá an tslí ________. Feicim an tslí _________.
Some other good pairs, in m. - f. order: "fear" and "bean", "madra" and
"muc", and "cearc" and "coileach". Construct the series, and add to it
as you happen to run across words that are similar in meaning but
opposite in gender.
Then, when you want to remember an adjective, run it through the
series. Plug it in and say the sentences out loud, or write them down,
so you pay attention to the gender of the nouns involved. The extra
attention will help you remember the individual word. But it will also
help you get used to plugging in the mutation where it is needed.
Don't worry if the adjective doesn't always make sense ("The car is
eloquent"). But do try to expand your list of nouns to cover more
situations.
And as you get good at this level, you can create more complicated
sentences with noun-adjective pairings. Or you can use flash cards to
generate those pairings for a good little drill.
A little more focus, and a little more activity, when you look up that
adjective can lead to a bigger vocabulary and better grammar. And
that's better than taking "an bealach fada" to learning those words and
rules by looking them up again and again and again.
*******
GAELTACHT MINNESOTA NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
==========================================
----------THANKS FOR A GREAT WORKSHOP!
We had a great time at St. Thomas at our annual spring workshop on
April 5. Thanks for the wonderful work from our instructors, Wes, Mary,
Maeve, and Tom. And thanks to Jim Rogers and the Center for Irish
Studies for hosting us, as well as to poet Catherine Phil MacCarthy for
stopping by at midday and sharing some thoughts and poems.
Thanks also go, of course, to our nearly 40 students, about half of
whom will become new students at our regular Monday classes.
----------OUR NEXT WORKSHOP: WEEKEND EVENT IN COLLEGEVILLE JULY 19-20
Our annual summer weekend workshop offers an opportunity for brand new
students to get started, or, for those who attended the April workshop,
or who have been in regular classes, to advance their Irish skills. The
workshop runs Saturday morning through early Sunday afternoon, July
19-20, on the campus of St. John's University in Collegeville, which is
about 1:20 drive northwest of the Twin Cities
The summer workshop has attracted participants from around the region,
from Wisconsin to Iowa to North Dakota. Some students stay over in the
dorms while others commute both days. It is a fun event, even including
a "mini-drama festival" where short dialogues are performed by students
on Saturday evening.
We are nailing down the last details on fees, etc. Once that has been
settled, full details and downloadable registration forms will be
available at www.gaelminn.org.
----------INDIANA WORKSHOP MAY 2-4
The Bloomington Celtic Culture Weekend features language learning for
all levels and related Celtic events and activities. Levels from
absolute beginners to the advanced.
For more information, visit
https://www.facebook.com/groups/526984723984562/ .
Or contact Devin at IndianaDevin@gmail.com .
----------CLASS NOTES
No class Memorial Day, May 26.
*******
LESSONS LEARNED
==========================================
Sharing ideas we learn from both instructors AND students.
----------SPLIT TESTING STUDY HABITS
Could direct mail marketers -- those people who send you junk mail --
be smart? Could you learn something from them?
The answer to both of these questions is "yes", at least, for the most
successful marketers. It turns out that the best of this lot are very
hard-nosed and systematic about choosing what to say to you to get you
to buy new windows or subscribe to a few magazines or whatever.
When you get that sales letter or flyer or postcard, it probably tells
you about something wonderful you could pay for. It urges you to act
quickly, and it throws in a bonus -- why not get two whatchamacallits
for the price of one, along with a set of steak knives?
What you don't realize is that out of all the people who received that
mailing, half of you probably received one version, and half the other.
The bonus or the price or anything that could make a difference could
vary. For instance, half of the people might be offered steak knives
while the other half receive a mailing that offers a nuclear-powered
garlic press as the bonus for placing an order.
When the mailing is done, the company that sent it compares the
response rates of the two versions. They then make the winner of the
contest their standard version, and create new versions to test against
it in future mailings.
Now, in these (e-)pages, we have heartily encouraged you to think about
managing your study behavior. In other words, we have often discussed
ways to get in more study time, or more frequent, smaller sessions, or
just to get more "touches" of Irish in your day.
But people differ, and you have to find the solutions that work for
you. Fortunately, with a little experimentation and log keeping, you
can do just that.
Do you stick with it better when you study in the morning, or at lunch,
or in the evening? Well, schedule a week of morning sessions, followed
by a week of lunch sessions, followed by a week of evening sessions.
Keep the sessions the same, the length of time and types of activities.
And if the week of morning work doesn't pan out, don't shortchange the
other two weeks. Be rigorous in maintaining similar conditions and
parameters.
The key is tracking the results. Keep a strict log: How many of the
scheduled morning sessions did you actually pull off? Lunch? Evening?
There's a good chance that after three weeks of this, you have a better
idea of what works. You probably have a clear idea of at least one plan
that does NOT work, and that's good to know.
Do you handle your study materials more often if they are near the TV,
or at your desk, or on your phone? Is it easier to listen to Irish
sound files -- really listen, not just play background noise -- on your
phone, or on your mp3 player, or on your computer? Are you more likely
to listen when you are exercising, or are you actually less likely to
listen then?
When you come across a new "study trick" that sounds promising, you
probablly "give it a try and see if it works." All we're suggesting is
to be a little stricter about the data you collect to "see if it
works". How will you know if one approach is better than another? If
you don't compare data from two different "trials," you may just be
working off impressions that have more to do with your mood and what
else is going on that week than they do with your study success.
Time to be a bit of a scientist about this. The direct mail marketing
industry puts huge sums of money on the line, and they have learned
that split-testing can do a lot to produce a good return on that
investment.
You invest something even more valuable -- your time -- into learning
Irisih. A little rigor in figuring out what works will help you get the
best possible return on that investment.
*******
ABOUT GAELTACHT MINNESOTA & THE GAZETTE
==========================================
Gaeltacht Minnesota is a volunteer organization that has been teaching
free weekly classes in Irish for more than three decades. Besides free
classes, we offer several workshops each year, publish a printed
newsletter for learners, and participate in a wide variety of community
events.
The GaelMinn Gazette is distributed to our subscriber list on the 25th
of each month: Will Kenny, editor.
---------- CONTACT US
You can stay up to date with Gaeltacht Minnesota at www.gaelminn.org ,
or drop us a line anytime at info@gaelminn.org .
---------- MANAGE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION