The GaelMinn Gazette: July, 2016
THE GAELMINN GAZETTE (#133): JULY, 2016
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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) 2016 Gaeltacht Minnesota
CONTENTS
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Tips, Tools, & Tricks
---Fill In Your Own Blanks
GaelMinn News & Announcements
Lessons Learned: From the Classroom
---Vocabulary: Quality Vs. Quantity
About Gaeltacht Minnesota
TIPS, TOOLS, AND TRICKS
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----------FILL IN YOUR OWN BLANKS
A lot of language learning is pattern recognition, learning to expect certain things in certain situations. For example, we work to memorize the rules for, say, lenition. But with enough experience, we start to expect (and produce) lenition when we see certain word patterns or sentence structures, without having to explicitly search our memory for a particular rule every time.
There's a simple way to help you think about patterns in Irish material. It boils down to removing the patterns one day, and replacing them the next. Here's how it works:
First, you need to select a block of text to work with. It should be something you're comfortable with. That is, choose something you're already working with, don't look for something challenging. The source could be a page of exercises in a textbook, or something you are working on reading or translating. It could be a paragraph or two from an article in Tuairisc.ie, the online newspaper.
Next, plan how to block out some of the letters. You can scan or photocopy text from a source, or you can print out a web page, and plan to use a heavy marker to obliterate parts of the text. You could cut and paste into a word processor and replace letters with underscores to make blanks in the text.
At that point, you're ready to eliminate letters, words, or entire phrases. Let's postpone talking about WHAT to remove and finish the outline of the process. We'll come back to ideas for things to turn into blanks.
After you have blanked out some of the text, you take a very important step: you put this aside for a couple of days. Just get it out of sight for at least a day, and a couple of days is better.
After the break, return to your page and fill in the blanks ... but not from memory so much as from recognizing patterns and context, and predicting what would belong in those blanks.
Of course, the last step is to check your work against the original source.
So, what kinds of things can you blot out to practice patterns? Here are just a few suggestions, you will find more options as you get used to the exercise:
* Eclipsis: blot out that first letter that's added at the front, see how quickly you can put the right mutation back in place when you fill in the blanks.
* Verb endings: this is a great way to polish up your knowledge of tenses.
* Prepositions: remove ar, as, le, etc., and then see if you can plug the right preposition back in.
* Words in phrases: when you're at the level where you are starting to notice common phrases, remove a key word, for instance, ar BHEALACH, Níl a FHIOS agam, ach an OIREAD.
* Little words/particles: remove an/nach from a question, remove "a" in a variety of situations, remove go/nach in clauses.
* Whole phrases: sometimes there is enough context for you to figure out where whole phrases, like those just mentioned, belong.
Now, this works best if you focus on one aspect of the language at a time. For example, if you are concentrating on eclipsis, don't also try to handle tenses and phrases in the same exercise. Specialize.
Start out with easy stuff, and then make the game a little harder as your pattern recognition improves. Regular practice with this activity will have you "making the right moves" in the language without always having to come up with a rule, and that leads to more natural Irish ... and more fun in using the language!
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GAELTACHT MINNESOTA NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
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----------IRISH FAIR VOLUNTEERS: EVERYONE CAN (AND SHOULD) HELP!
We'll be doing our usual bit at the entrance to the Irish Fair on Harriet Island, F-Su, August 12-14. That "bit" means answering questions about what it is like to learn the language, your experience as a Gaeltacht Minnesota student. We'll also hand out over a thousand name tags, stamp kids' "Passports" to show they visited our tent, and generally be lovable and helpful.
This is something every student can help with, no matter what your level of Irish! It isn't about speaking Irish, it is about your interest in the language and what you are doing to learn it.
Just go to our Volunteer page at http://www.gaelminn.org/volpage.htm for more information and use our on-line form to let us know when you are available.
----------"INTRO" CLASS OFFERED THIS FALL
Our four-week "Introduction to Irish Gaelic" will be offered through St. Paul Community Education starting at the end of September. This class will get you into our regular Monday night sessions.
Registration is on-line through Community Ed and opens the day after Labor Day. We'll have more information about the class and a link to registration on our site in mid-August.
----------CLASS SCHEDULE
For the summer, the three classes have independent schedules and locations. Check with your instructor.
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LESSONS LEARNED: FROM THE CLASSROOM
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We've learned a few things in our Monday night classes -- from both instructors AND students.
----------VOCABULARY: QUALITY VS. QUANTITY
In a one- or two-hour class, or in a workshop, or even working through a chapter or two of the books you may be using to study on your own, you're bound to encounter a lot of new vocabulary. Naturally, you want to master that vocabulary. But sometimes quantity interferes with the quality of your learning. A little patience, and a bit of focus, can help you learn vocabulary that you will actually use.
Let's say that in a particular lesson, you encounter twenty words and phrases you'd like to master. The typical response is to make a list to review, or perhaps a stack of flash cards, and plan to review them each day for a week.
First, that's a tall order. To really master those words, you probably have to cycle through your deck several times in each session. Busy adults learning a language often have a hard time doing an activity of that magnitude faithfully every day.
Second, you might be better off picking a small subset of items to work with. After all, if you review a list of twenty words, each word or phrase gets 1/20th of your "vocabulary attention" for that activity. But pick, say, three words or phrases, and use each one five times in a day -- that's only fifteen "words" -- five less than one run through of your longer list. Even so, you'll get more repetitions in less time, giving you a better chance of remembering them later.
The first step is to let go, if you will, of those other seventeen words! It is hard to be satisfied with learning just a few words or phrases well. It helps to remind yourself that learning twenty words, only to forget them a week later, doesn't do all that much for your Irish skills.
The next step is to figure out which few words to focus on, and there are many ways to make that selection. Try these:
* Ease of use: just choose the words you feel most likely to use in your own conversation. This is one of the best selection criteria.
* Similar parts of speech: just do nouns, or verbs, or prepositions, and so on.
* Similar or opposite meaning: if words are close in meaning, or even if they are opposites, it can help to study them together.
* Similar grammar: choose verbs that are conjugated the same way, or nouns that form their plurals the same way, etc.
In general, be on the lookout for vocabulary that is really relevant to your life (your work, your hobbies, your weather, etc.). Also keep an eye out for "fillers" like "ar aon chaoi" or "is dóigh", that sort of thing.
Adding a few words firmly to your vocabulary, so you can use them a month from now, is definitely better than learning a bunch of words that you will soon forget. Focus on the quality and depth of your mastery of a few useful words now and then, and you will expand your options for expressing yourself in Irish conversation.
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ABOUT GAELTACHT MINNESOTA
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Gaeltacht Minnesota is a volunteer organization that has been teaching free weekly classes in Irish for more than two decades. Besides free classes, we offer several workshops each year, a newsletter for learners, and participate in a wide variety of community events.
---------- 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 .
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