The GaelMinn Gazette: August, 2015
THE GAELMINN GAZETTE (#122): August, 2015
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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) 2015 Gaeltacht Minnesota
CONTENTS
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Tips, Tools, & Tricks
---Curses! The Subjunctive
GaelMinn News & Announcements
Lessons Learned
---Blast from the Past
About Gaeltacht Minnesota
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TIPS, TOOLS, & TRICKS
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----------CURSES! THE SUBJUNCTIVE
RELAX! If you have struggled with the subjunctive in languages like French or Spanish, cheer up — you’re going to find it a lot easier to handle this ‘mood’ in Irish.
Very simply, the subjunctive of the verb is a form that is used to explicitly express a wish for someone. Expressions like “May you always be happy” and “May you never have an itch you can’t reach” are expressed with the subjunctive. We are stating, very clearly, what we want to happen to someone. Go raibh maith agat – "May you have good", for "Thank you" – is a common example of this use.
This is much less complicated than the subjunctive in some other languages, where you have to worry about probabilities and possibilities. In Irish, it is quite straightforward — the subjunctive is pretty much reserved for these deliberate statements of our desires for ourselves and others. (It used to be used more widely, but you will only need it for these blessing/curse situations.)
WHY BOTHER?
You can use the subjunctive to craft very specific, individual blessings, say, for a wedding. For a status-obsessed couple, you might say, Go raibh Porsche nua agaibh!
It is perhaps even more fun to make unique curses. When a squirrel steals your bird seed, you can yell "Go ngreamaí na blaoisc idir d’fhiacla!" out the window. ("May the shells stick between your teeth!")
HOW IS IT FORMED?
Honest, forming the (present) subjunctive of a verb is easy. Here are the raw ingredients:
1. The root form of the verb, or the stem, what you see when you look up a word in the dictionary, forms like bris or ceannaigh. It is what is left when you strip away the ending from the present tense — which is important for irregular verbs, so that you know that the root for the verb tar, “come”, is going to be tag-, and for tabhair, “give”, it will be tug-.
2. The conjugation of the verb. First conjugation verbs have a one-syllable root, like bris, or they are two-syllable words ending in áil, like pacáil. Just about all other verbs that have more than one syllable are second conjugation verbs.
3. Whether you will use the verb in the affirmative — “May you . . .” — or negative — “May you not . . .” Note that this is a question of the verb, not of the general feeling of the curse of blessing. You can have a blessing with a negative verb — “May you never be ill!” — or you can have a curse with an affirmative verb — “May there always be a tack on the seat of your chair!”
Armed with these raw ingredients, you can now cook up a nice blessing or curse! Here is the recipe:
1. Start your blessing or curse with Go if you are going to use the verb in the affirmative, and with Nár if you are going to use the negative.
2. Add an ending to the root of the verb.
a) If it is a first conjugation verb, you just want to add an “uh” sound to the end of the root. You do this by adding an –e to a slender ending, or an –a to a broad ending. So bris becomes brise, and ól becomes óla. The –áil verbs end in –ála in the subjunctive: Go sábhála Dia sinn! One syllable verbs with root forms that end in –igh behave a little differently. If there is a long vowel before the –igh, just drop the ending. (Dóigh becomes dó.) If there is a short vowel before the ending, turn the –igh into –í. (Suigh becomes suí.)
b) If it is a second conjugation verb, you just want to add an “ee” sound to the end of the root. Add –í or–aí , as appropriate, so that ceannaigh becomes ceannaí, and éirigh becomes éirí. Note that many endings like -ir, -il will collapse before the ending, so that oscail will become osclaí.
3. Make the appropriate mutation to the verb, and complete your sentence.
a) If you started your blessing or curse with Go, eclipse the verb: Go mbeannaí Dia duit! Go n-ithe tú arán liath (‘moldy bread’).
b) If you started your wish with Nár, lenite the verb (if possible): Nár phós tú duine dána! Nár ithe tú arán liath.
As you might expect, bí (tá) behaves oddly. Raibh is the subjunctive, as in Go raibh maith agat. And nár drops its r before raibh: Ná raibh tú tinn.
HAVE FUN!
The subjunctve is fun to practice. Create curses and blessings for every occasion!
And think of how you’ll impress all your friends who are taking French and Spanish when you tell them you learned to use the subjunctive in Irish in no time!
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GAELTACHT MINNESOTA NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
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----------GAELIC CLASSES THIS FALL IN ST. PAUL
During the fall term, Gaeltacht Minnesota will offer our four-week Introduction to Irish Gaelic. This class will get you into our regular Monday classes. Four two-hour Monday classes start September 21.
In addition, we will also offer an Overview of Scots Gaelic, or Gàidhlig, four one-hour classes, starting November 2.
Registration is on-line through St. Paul Community Education and it opens September 8.
For more information about these classes, and a link to registration, visit our Community Ed page: http://www.gaelminn.org/commed/ .
----------GREAT FALL WORKSHOP IN MADISON, WI
If you're anywhere around the upper Midwest this October, find your way to Madison the weekend of October 9-11 (Fri-Sun). That's when the Celtic Cultural Center hosts their annual Irish language workshop.
Dineen and her crew always assemble great students and interesting instructors to teach the language at several class levels. For more information on this highly recommended event, visit
http://www.celticmadison.org/events/irish-weekend.html .
----------THANKS TO OUR VOLUNTEERS AT IRISH FAIR
We probably had the best turn out of volunteers we have had in years, and we're grateful to everyone who pitched in. We had a busy time, with names, questions, and general conversations, and having a full staff made it easier -- and more fun -- for all.
Special thanks to Shari for putting in long hours, and doing lots of hauling!
----------CLASS NOTES
Our first fall class in Central will be Monday, September 14.
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LESSONS LEARNED
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----------BLAST FROM THE PAST
As we head into the fall, there's a certain back-to-school feeling in the air. And at Gaeltacht Minnesota, we regularly find the fall term to be our most productive. For some reason, people return from the summer rarin' to go, and there's just better focus, better attendance, and more attention to homework during autumn.
Even if you mostly work on your own, you may feel that urge to gather yourself, so to speak, for a renewed effort to learn the language. And one great step to take, at this time, is a step backwards!
One of the great challenges for most students is seeing their own progress. After all, few students are in courses where they are receiving grades. Even if they start that way, perhaps in a college class, they don't continue in that environment year after year.
One way to get a feel for your progress is to look back a year, if possible. What were you working on a year ago? What lessons were you doing in your text? Or what might you have been reading and translating at that time?
Can you come up with actual exercises or homework that you completed back then?
Rummage around your study materials and generate with a snapshot of your studies a year ago. It doesn't have to be exact, of course, but you should at least be looking at a gap of several months before now.
Then, do the lesson, or homework, or exercises again!
Naturally, this provides some review of an earlier topic, and that's always good. But that's not the main benefit.
The best thing that happens when you look back at an old topic or past materials is that you realize that some of it is now familiar, instead of simply mysterious.
Now, don't expect that that past exercise will be a snap, the second time around. Sure, you'll still make mistakes, or have to review a bit to get things right.
But you won't be starting from scratch. And instead of taking that fact for granted, celebrate it! It shows that you ARE making progress, it shows that you ARE learning Irish.
We recommend you create a kind of archive file, and every six months or every year you put a copy of what you are working on in the file. That makes it possible to conduct this kind of progress review every now and then.
When you look back at something you struggled with a year ago, or even two years ago, it is easy to fail to appreciate the advances you have made. Some students pay too much attention to the mistakes they still make, with these old exercises. They need to pay explicit attention to how they are doing better, on how they are making fewer mistakes, on how much less time it takes to do well with the topic, compared to the first time through that material.
So keep in mind the point of this exercise: to appreciate the progress you have made. Relearning the topic, or filling in some gaps, is good, too, but that's gravy. It is the recognition of progress that helps keep you going.
By the way, if you've been studying less than a year, go back to your very first lessons and exercises. Again, it will be both great review and a source of encouragement, as you realize that some things make a lot more sense now than they did in those early days.
Given human nature, we just don't notice the progress we have made, in the face of what we have yet to master. Deliberately manage your progress review, set up a system to make sure it happens on a regular basis, and you'll find ample motivation to continue in your studies.
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ABOUT GAELTACHT MINNESOTA & THE GAZETTE
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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.
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You can stay up to date with Gaeltacht Minnesota at www.gaelminn.org , or drop us a line anytime at info@gaelminn.org .
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