The GaelMinn Gazette: May, 2014 http://ezezine.com
THE GAELMINN GAZETTE (#108): May, 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
Tense About Tenses?
GaelMinn News & Announcements
Lessons Learned
Rubber Band Exercises
About Gaeltacht Minnesota
*******
TIPS, TOOLS, & TRICKS
==========================================
----------TENSE ABOUT TENSES?
Seems like we can always use a little more work on our verbs,
especially the tenses (and moods, technically, but I'll just talk about
"tenses" throughout) we don't use as often.
Of course, when you decide to express an action in Irish, you really
have three things to figure out:
1. What "word" is needed
2. What tense is appropriate
3. The correct form of that word in that tense.
So, consider the simple statement, "She eats chocolate every day" (a
dietary decision most readers would at least secretly agree with). The
three parts are:
1. We want to use the verb "ith" for "to "eat".
2. We need the present habitual, as this happens every day.
3. "Itheann" is the form we use for the present habitual third person
singular.
That leads us to, "Itheann sí seacláid 'chuile lá."
Now, I'm going to argue that we tend to skip over step 2. We pick the
"translation", the Irish verb we're going to use, and we try to go
directly to forming the verb.
Sometimes we get the tense wrong, as a result. And sometimes we
consider several options, fully formed -- say, the past and the past
habitual -- wasting a lot of time and mental effort, and, if we're
speaking, putting a pretty good halt to the conversation.
Let me suggest that you get some practice with step 2 all alone,
without steps 1 or 3, to sharpen your focus on the differences in how
the various tenses are used. Then, when you come to a sentence in some
kind of past, shall we say, you can make the tense decision quickly.
And that means you can direct your attention to just one set of endings
and mutations, etc.
After all, the tenses we use in Irish do not map perfectly to the ones
we use in English. Here's how to sharpen your understanding of the
differences:
* When you are going to translate an English sentence into Irish, label
the verb by tense first. That is, mark whether you'll need a past or a
future or a past habitual, without thinking about the actual Irish word
or its form.
* Even better, regularly take a paragraph of English text -- from a
memo, a newspaper, a magazine, a blog -- and label all the verbs by the
tense needed to translate them. Don't bother going ahead with the
translation, just get the tense labeling practice in.
Now, this is not as easy as it sounds, due to those mapping problems.
But it really can be very helpful in figuring out how Irish verbs work.
Start by paying attention to the English verb "to be". Of course,
sometimes that is translated by the copula. But beyond that, this is a
verb that has two presents, a simple one and a habitual one.
Thus, "He is tall" is "Tá sé ard," but "He is often ill" is "Bíonn sé
tinn go minic".
Similarly, there are two pasts, and the habitual past is one we don't
use as much as we might. "She ate chocolate this morning!" (Why wait?)
might be, "D'ith sí seacláid ar maidin inniu!" But if she ate chocolate
every day when she was young, we might end up with, "D'itheadh sí
seacláid 'chuile lá."
The past habitual is often translated by things like "I used to do
...", but it is often needed when talking about recurring situations or
actions in the past. "Bhínn tinn" tells us that you were sick
repeatedly at some past time, even if we don't explicitly say "go
minic."
Even the future has its wiggles. In English we say, "When he is here
tomorrow, I will give him a kiss." But the Irish translation says,
"When he will be here ...". Even though we use a present in English,
both verbs refer to future time, and they are both expressed in the
future tense in Irish: "Nuair a bheas sé anseo amárach, tabharfaidh mé
póg dó."
Indeed, a good addition to your practice is to "adjust" the English
verbs. For instance, replace "she ate" with "she used to eat" or
replace "he is" with "he will be," as appropriate.
Again, if you do this "set up" as a separate activity, you can fit it
in when you only have a few minutes, and any place you find a paragraph
of text in English. No need to look up the words you need or figure out
the endings.
Just figure out the tenses, all on their own, and eventually the rest
of the process will come more easily to you.
*******
GAELTACHT MINNESOTA NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
==========================================
----------BUNTÚS CAINTE SESSIONS
Wes's Class: the review sessions over the conversation text Buntús
Cainte will continue this Thursday, May 29, at Cahoots in St. Paul.
These are great "jump starts" to learning Irish, and it doesn't matter
if you missed one of the earlier sessions in this series.
For more details and exact location, visit Wes's class page on our
site.
----------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 to Illinois. 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.
And we're pleased to let you know the workshop fee will be the SAME as
last year, nominally, $155 (classes, materials, meals and refreshments,
lodging extra), but most people register EARLY and take a $25 DISCOUNT!
We are just updating forms and information, so you can expect complete
details and downloadable registration forms to be available at
www.gaelminn.org during the last week of May.
----------CENTER FOR IRISH MUSIC
The Center for Irish Music in St. Paul runs a great program of
instruction, concerts, and lectures during their annual Irish Music
Weekend, held June 13-15 this year. Notable is a visit from singer
Brian Hart, who will teach songs in Irish, but there are many excellent
activities in this event. Visit their site at
http://centerforirishmusic.org/mim/ for details and registration.
----------CLASS NOTES
No class Memorial Day, May 26.
June 2 will be our last class in Central for the summer, then the three
classes will follow their own schedules and locations. We'll try to
keep the calendar up to date at our Events page,
http://www.gaelminn.org/gaelevent.htm .
*******
LESSONS LEARNED
==========================================
Sharing ideas we learn from both instructors AND students.
----------RUBBER BAND IRISH
What size is a rubber band (or "binder", as they sometimes say in these
parts)?
That depends, doesn't it? A small rubber band can be stretched to
several times its usual size. Or a large one, wrapped around something,
can shrink to a much smaller size when you take it off.
A little "rubber band Irish" can be fun to do, and a convenient way to
get more out of your existing materials. The basic idea is that when
you encounter very simple sentences, you try to stretch them. And when
you encounter very long, complex ones, you try to compress them.
Let's start with the short ones. Harkening back to our old friend
Buntús Cainte, we might observe, "Tá sé dorcha" ("It is dark").
Couldn't you grow that statement without too much work? Try:
Tá sé dorcha anocht.
Tá sé dorcha anois, ach beidh sé geal ar maidin.
Creidim go bhfuil sé dorcha.
Tá sé dorcha mar gheal ar an solas briste.
Nuair a bhíonns sé dorcha, bíonn eagla orm.
You get the idea. For one thing, this can be done at any level.
Beginners can just add -- or change -- a word or two. More advanced
students can get quite verbose. (Indeed, a good class game is to see
who can stretch a simple statement like this into the most overblown,
longwinded version possible.)
And often, when we are working with our texts or exercises handed out
by instructors, we translate a sentence (or fix the tense, whatever the
activity) and move on to the next line in the exercise. Instead, we
could be milking that little bit of text for quite a bit of practice.
In just three or four minutes you can exercise a much wider range of
what you know in Irish, so there's a lot of benefit for a small
investment in time.
And if you do this a lot, you'll find that you know more and more ways
to express basic ideas. Sometimes that will allow you to work your way
around a stumbling block in conversation. And the rest of the time it
will simply make the conversation more interesting.
What about going the other way, shrinking statements? If you go to
online sites like http://www.beo.ie (handy because it will help you
with translation into English, so it's good for focusing on things
other than just meaning) and http://www.nuacht24.com , you can find
nice long sentences that you can break down into component parts, while
stripping away unnecessary stuff.
Take this sentence recently posted on Nuacht24:
"Thug an Rúis le fios ar maidin go bhfuil an tUachtarán Putin i ndiaidh
ordú do na saighdiúirí Rúiseacha a bhí ar theorainn na hÚcráine le mí
anuas dul ar ais chuig a mbeairicí."
("Russia let it be known this morning that President Putin has just
ordered the Russian soldiers who have been on the Ukrainian border for
a month to go back to their barracks.")
Take the first part:
* We don't care that this came out in the morning, so cross out "ar
maidin."
* "Thug an Rúis le fios" might be expressed simply as, "Dúirt an Rúis,"
"Russia said."
Then, break apart the compound sentence, if you will, into separate
smaller sentences. In English (translation to Irish is your homework):
"Putin gave an order.
Russian Soldiers have been on the border for a month.
They will go back to their barracks."
You can also do this sort of thing, naturally, with material you find
in your text or class notes. Strip out adjectives and adverbs, break
apart clauses into stand alone sentences. Replace idioms or turns of
phrase with simpler ways of saying things.
The beauty of making this a habit is that you get a lot more use out of
any material you encounter, AND you can get those benefits while adding
very little time to your study sessions.
Stretch and shrink the Irish you see and hear and you are sure to
stretch your ability to express yourself in the language.
*******
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