The GaelMinn Gazette: January, 2017
THE GAELMINN GAZETTE (#139): January, 2017
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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) 2017 Gaeltacht Minnesota
CONTENTS
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Tips, Tools, & Tricks
---Are You Doing Your Daily Mutation?
GaelMinn News & Announcements
Lessons Learned
---Ask An Expert
About Gaeltacht Minnesota
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TIPS, TOOLS, & TRICKS
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----------ARE YOU DOING YOUR DAILY MUTATION?
Not daily meditation, mutation. We don't know if daily mutation will have the same spiritual and stress-relieving effects as daily meditation, but it will sure help your Irish!
The mutations, lenition and eclipsis, are among the, well, weirdest things about this language. And it takes a long time to produce them quickly and naturally. The more practice the better, and opportunities for practice are all around you.
This is another example of one of our pet themes, that touching Irish for a few minutes every day will do you a world of good, and often do more for you than studying for an hour the night before your weekly class. If you can easily slip into the habit of applying mutations, working them into your daily life when you're "doing something else", when you aren't actually studying your Irish lesson, they will start popping into your Irish conversations a lot more easily.
Here are some suggestions:
1. You don't need to lug your books around. You don't need any Irish materials at all. After all, there is plenty of English to practice with!
2. A couple of times a day, put whatever you're reading (in English) into a 'mutated' form. When you read the headline in the newspaper, imagine that it says, "bhFire mBurns nDown mBuilding!", if you're working on eclipsis.
3. Take it easy. Just do this for a few things, a few times a day -- don't mutate the whole front page of your newspaper.
4. Concentrate on one or two specific mutations at a time. Just do eclipsis, n for d, for a day or two, then do another consonant. Just lenite your b and m at the fronts of words for a few days, then try something else.
5. It will really help if you say these things out loud, as you get good at them. The faster you can mentally 'write' the mutation, the more you should be saying the mutated forms you come up with (although quietly, if you're in a staff meeting).
6. Eventually, do it all by sound. When you overhear someone say something at the office, on the radio, or as you are watching TV, pick out a couple of key words and apply mutations.
You may not sound very smart when you speak English with mutations. But you will be getting smarter about how mutations work. And that will make it easier to form mutations when speaking Irish too.
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GAELTACHT MINNESOTA NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
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----------VOLUNTEERS WILL BE NEEDED
We'll have a booth at the Landmark Center for St. Pat's (Friday, March 17) and the Day of Dance the following Sunday. Everyone can help no matter what your level of ability with the language. We'll have more details in class in the weeks ahead. For now, take a look at your calendar and see if you can help us with a few hours of your time on one of those days.
----------JANUARY FUNDRAISING CONTINUES
As we did last year, rather than holding a separate fundraising event, we're designating January as our fundraising month. In recent years, we have found that while people find it harder to fit our event into their schedules, they also find it more convenient to drop off a donation in class or send one in the mail.
We run a very lean volunteer organization, but we do have expenses. And in particular, donations allow us to keep our workshops -- where so many students begin their pursuit of this entertaining language -- as affordable as possible.
If you're a student, please make a donation in class during the first part of 2017. Others can mail a check to Gaeltacht Minnesota at Box 14964, Minneapolis 55414. (We are not an incorporated not-for-profit, so you have to make your own decision about tax deductibility.)
----------SPEAKING OF WORKSHOPS ...
We're starting to work on our annual Saturday workshop this spring. We'll keep you posted, here and on our web site, as details develop.
----------CLASS SCHEDULE
No class on Presidents' Day, February 20.
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LESSONS LEARNED
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----------ASK AN EXPERT
You may have a formal teacher. You may work with a study group of peers. Maybe you collaborate with a 'study buddy.' Perhaps you work alone. Whatever the case, you know someone who has expert knowledge about what works, and what doesn't, when you're attempting "lifestyle change".
Lifestyle? Yes, this is the right e-zine, we're still talking about learning Irish. It's a lifestyle change when you acquire a new habit, and make it part of your daily life. And we know that if you make five minutes of Irish part of your daily life, it will lead to great improvements.
So, next time you're in your class or study group, talk to the student in the next chair about whether they've found any good ways to keep Irish a little more active and visible in daily life. And what they've tried that has NOT worked is just as valuable.
But fellow students aren't the only source of ideas, especially if you are working alone. Regardless of your study situation, you probably know people who somehow managed to make exercise, or relaxation, or other activities part of their daily lives. They changed their habits. There's no reason their experiences, and their success, can't help you get ideas about how to make Irish a little more routine, and a little less of a heroic weekly effort.
And don't forget to look in the mirror! You may have built an exercise habit, or learned to routinely clear your desk and do your filing, or developed a strong routine for menu planning. Look to your strongest habits and see what tricks you can borrow from yourself to build a habit of doing just a wee bit of Irish each day.
Routine is your friend. The Irish-learning lifestyle is your goal. There are experts all around you, so just ask.
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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 ongoing free classes and this newsletter, we offer a workshop and an introductory class each year, publish columns about the language 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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