The GaelMinn Gazette: August, 2014 http://ezezine.com
THE GAELMINN GAZETTE (#111): August, 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
Prepare Your Fall Vocabulary
GaelMinn News & Announcements
Lessons Learned
Pat Yourself on the Back More Often
About Gaeltacht Minnesota
*******
TIPS, TOOLS, & TRICKS
==========================================
----------PREPARE YOUR FALL VOCABULARY
More production -- more talking and writing -- is a need for almost
every student of Irish. We often spend a disproportionate amount of
time listening and, especially, reading and translating from Irish to
English.
Then, when it comes time to express ourselves in Irish, we struggle. We
haven't practiced the production side enough.
If you want to talk more in Irish, though, it helps to have something
to talk about. Especially in the early years, when you are building
vocabulary, it can be hard to start a general conversation and keep it
going very long.
The secret, then, is to start a FOCUSED conversation, one where you
have a specific topic. That gives you the opportunity to prepare and
practice without having to rack your brain for vocabulary. It gives you
some control, you have an idea where the conversation is going.
And when that topic is something that you'd want to talk about anyway,
that you talk about with your friends in English, so much the better!
For instance -- with apologies to our Australian readers -- most of us
are headed into autumn.
The basic strategy is simple. Think about the things you talk about
every autumn. Go so far as to write lists of words, and some typical
sentences, that are part of this annual, seasonal conversation.
Then look up the vocabulary you need, and spend some time learning it,
working into those sentences, and so on.
With that done, when you want to comment on the colors of the leaves or
the changing temperature or the shortening days, you'll be able to do
so. That's much more satisfying than having something you want to say
about the season but not having the (Irish) words to express it.
(By the way, if you have a study group or regular class, you can
prepare a few statements for each session. If you're working on your
own, try writing a diary entry in Irish once a week -- not daily, that
goal will just frustrate you, once a week is fine.)
You need to develop your own list, based on your own interests (and
your own climate!). But we can give you some hints to get you started.
INDIVIDUAL WORDS: You'll want to know the Irish for:
autumn
tree
leaf
color
fall(ing)
cool
wet or dry, depending on your climate
SENTENCES: Again, roll your own, but you probably want to be able to
say:
The leaves are changing color/falling from the trees.
My flowers are dying.
It is getting cooler.
The days are getting shorter.
There was a frost this morning.
I saw my first snow flurries.
I love the weather in autumn!
Your list doesn't have to be all that extensive to give a boost to your
conversational skills. It is just so much more comfortable to talk
about things you've already studied a bit, instead of trying to say
them and flailing about for the right words.
And those conversational/writing successes will embolden you to produce
a little more Irish, creating a virtuous cycle that will improve your
Irish even as you enjoy speaking it more.
*******
GAELTACHT MINNESOTA NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
==========================================
----------FRANK JOYCE
Frank Joyce, longtime instructor with Gaeltacht Minnesota, passed away
a couple of days ago. A native of Glenamaddy (Gleann na Madadh) in
County Galway, Frank learned Irish before he learned English, from
foster parents who learned their Irish in Mayo. But he lived many years
in the U.S. before he had another chance to use his Irish, when he
became the second instructor to join the Gaeltacht Minnesota team,
about a year after Denis Clarke started the group. Frank retired from
teaching several years ago.
Everyone loved being around Frank. Unfailingly cheerful, incredibly
enthusiastic not only about the language, but about life, he was always
quick with a laugh and a wink. You couldn't be around him more than a
couple of minutes before you would hear him humming or whistling a
tune.
We will be posting an audio clip of Frank singing one of his favorite
songs, "Contae Mhaigh Eo", on our home page.
----------THANKS, IRISH FAIR VOLUNTEERS!
We really appreciate the individuals who contributed their time to our
booth at the Irish Fair. Thanks to Robert, Séamus, Magda, Caoimhe,
Beatrix, Sue, Kerry, Colleen, Connie, Brandi, Keelin, Johana, Linda,
Mariah and Jim.
Special thanks to Shari, Maureen, and Mary, who put in many, many hours
at the booth. Add on top of that our additional gratitude to Shari and
Maureen for handling things like the volunteer schedule and the parking
arrangements.
From name tag data, we know that our volunteers had at least 1500
individual conversations with the public over the weekend!
(Note: we need more helpers to keep this going, so some of these people
don't have to work as hard as they do.)
----------Great Workshop in Madison, WI
If you can be anywhere near Madison, WI, the first weekend in October
(Fri-Sun, Oct. 3-5), you can take part in a first rate Irish language
workshop. You can visit the Celtic Cultural Center's site for more
information, including registration forms, at
http://www.celticmadison.org/events/irish-weekend.html .
----------WANT TO JOIN GAELTACHT MINNESOTA? FALL "INTRO" CLASS
We require students new to the language to complete one of our standard
events before joining our Monday evening classes. The good news is that
once you join, you can keep taking those classes free forever!
We will teach our "Intro to Irish Gaelic" class on four Mondays,
running Sept. 29 through October 20. Registration is through St. Paul
Community Education, and opens September 2. Fee: $35.
There's more information about this course on our Community Ed Page at
http://www.gaelminn.org/commed/index.htm .
----------CLASS NOTES
Classes resume in Central on September 15.
*******
LESSONS LEARNED
==========================================
----------PAT YOURSELF ON THE BACK MORE OFTEN
At our annual summer weekend workshop in July, held at St. John's
University in Collegeville, MN, we had a "tip sharing" session among
our students. Very simply, instead of the instructors always being the
experts, we had a wide ranging, very informal discussion of how
students keep their studies going, how they make progress, what works
for them.
We won't go into a lot of details here about specific tips. Indeed,
some of those ideas will be popping up in future issues of The GaelMinn
Gazette.
But we do want to address perhaps the most striking feature of the
conversation, namely, that many excellent students, who are doing all
the right things, wildly underestimate how well they are doing!
It was amazing how many of the students focused on what they did NOT
get done, on how they fell short. Yet this was a group in which most
students had kept at the language for years. Just the fact that they
gave up a weekend and traveled to central Minnesota to work on their
Irish makes them stand out. (Take our word for it, we have met many,
many students who "mean to" take in a workshop "one of these days".)
This pessimistic view is, perhaps, part of their success. They set
challenging goals for themselves, and inevitably they fail to reach
some of them as quickly as they hoped.
Most importantly, they sometimes fail to see their progress and their
good efforts. The session started out with a lot of "true confessions"
of not working hard enough at the language. But, for instance, when
asked where people kept their language dictionaries, most students had
multiple dictionaries stashed in all kinds of places so one would
almost always be near to hand ... hardly the way a "poor student" would
go about it.
As one student said, "When I miss a study session I beat myself up
about it." Again, high standards are nice, but they can be too high.
Those high standards lead to a "glass half empty" perspective that can
wear you down.
A good antidote is to work explicitly at measuring your progress "over
your shoulder", seeing how far you have come, not how far you have yet
to go. But that takes deliberate effort.
Let's do a thought experiment. You circle each date on your calendar
when you do something, anything, in Irish. At the end of a week, you
look back and see that four days are circled. What do you say to
yourself?
"I studied four times this week, that's great! I'll try to do the same
amount again next week."
"I missed three days, three days with no Irish. I'll have to do more
than that if I'm ever going to learn this language!"
Recognize when you do more than you could (and than many people do)
instead of latching on to when you think you do less than you should.
And focus on maintenance, on strengthening habits before growing them.
If you get up to three days a week, try to keep that steady for a month
before moving to four.
Too many good students worry about putting the roof on their Irish
language house without taking the time to appreciate the beauty of a
good foundation.
Start by being aware of the good things you do, and by being aware of
when you "beat yourself up" over your study habits. Bringing that
emotional side of your studies out into the light of day will help you
see your successes, to notice the steps forward you take, and
ultimately to learn to measure your progress against the starting line,
not some imaginary, unrealistic, perfect finish line.
Most readers of this e-zine do not have tests or grades to show them
their progress. That means that you have to work at seeing that
progress.
Patting yourself on the back a little more regularly is one of the best
antidotes to frustration and discouragement as you learn Irish.
*******
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 introducing the
language to readers of columns in regional publications, 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