Greann

Irishionary.com

2009-11-02T12:56:00.000-08:00

While searching online for Irish dictionaries, I came across Irishionary.com (formerly IrishDictionary.org). I think it is perfect for beginners because it is so simple and well-laid out.

It's especially handy when you're on the run and don't have your printed dictionaries with you. I'm often on the web while on my iPhone, and it works great there (or any other modern phone that has standard web browsing capabilities).

Not only is it easy, but it also has modern terms like 'computer', 'mobile phone', and 'gay', that your old printed dictionary probably couldn't even conceive of!

Also, you can download the whole dictionary as a single PDF. And you can contribute new words yourself.

That being said, it has its limitations. It won't conjugate a verb for you, for example, and the list of words is somewhat small. However, as the author states, it's not really meant to be a complete replacement for a printed dictionary. You still need that.

But when you're on the run and need something quick and dirty, it's a great way to expand your vocabulary. And if you want to add words or help validate them, there's a link on the site to participate.

And when you participate, you learn!

"Greann Clock" Irish language (Gaeilge) clock: free download for iPhone & iPod Touch

2009-04-13T21:52:00.000-07:00

Greann is proud to announce our first iPhone/iPod Touch application!

It's a fun little app that will allow you to practice telling the time as Gaeilge.

Just open it up and it displays the current hour, along with a translation, such as "Tá sé a hOcht a chlog". Tap the "Abair é!" button, and it will speak it for you, so you know how to pronounce it.

It's a free download at the iTunes App Store. Just go into iTunes, click on iTunes Store on the left, then enter "Irish Clock" (or "Greann") on the searchbar on the top right and press [Enter]. Choose "Greann Clock" from the search results, and you should see the screen at top left (click to enlarge). Click the "Get App" button next to "Free", and it'll download for free. Then sync your iPhone or iPod Touch, and you're all set!

You can give feedback on the Greann Forums: there's a new subforum just for Greann apps there. Slán!

Book Review: Basic Irish, by Nancy Stenson

2008-10-23T10:45:00.000-07:00

I'm writing a short book review of Nancy Stenson's new-ish book "Basic Irish: A Grammar and Workbook". I'll post the review in the Greann forums soon.

My short take? The book is fabulous!

iPhone now does fadas!

2007-09-29T07:27:00.000-07:00

Good news and bad news.

First the bad news. I don't see any international keyboard selections as predicted in my earlier post.

Now the good news: It doesn't matter! According to Daring Fireball, you can now press-and-hold a vowel and get a fada with iPhone software 1.1.1! Yay. I tried it and it works.

"Tivo for radio": Listen & record Raidió na Gaeltachta

2007-09-28T22:18:00.001-07:00

A fantastic new application.

It's called Radio Shift. Just click on the link to go to Rogue Amoeba's web site and download a free trial.

Here's a screen shot (click to view full size):

Of course, it's only available for the Mac. :-)

iPhone as Gaeilge?

2007-09-13T13:00:00.000-07:00

As much as I love my iPhone, it has one drawback: You can't type in Irish. Well, you can't include fadas. Well, it will display them fine if you go to a web page or get an e-mail with fadas in it. But there's no way to enter them on the keyboard when you're typing.

iPhone Atlas is reporting that the new iPod Touch does support non-US keyboards (and, thus, presumably accents and fadas and whatnot). So the hope and expectation is that an iPhone update will get the iPhone up to the capabilities of the iPod Touch.

"Podcast #2: Irish Alphabet" is out!

2007-05-23T10:40:00.000-07:00

Want a handy reference to the Irish alphabet? You got it--in a PDF, even!

Yep, podcasts don't have to be audio--they can be video or even PDFs. And the most logical format for a podcast on the Irish language alphabet is none other than PDF.

So enjoy our latest podcast (including details on seanchló fonts) now!

While you're at it check out our new podcast logo. We hope you like it; it ties into our blog, forums, and web site much better now. (Thanks to Cionaodh for help in finding some confetti for the logo :-) ).

How to subscribe to our Greann.com Fun With Irish podcast:
http://www.greann.com/podcasts/index.html

Web page for podcasts 1-5:
http://www.greann.com/podcasts/podcasts001-100/podcasts001-005.html

Greann.com undergoes facelift

2007-05-20T11:57:00.000-07:00

You may have been wondering why it's been so quiet on Greann.com, including this blog and my podcast.

Well, I've actually been busy as a bee, creating a new logo, making the various sites (web, forum, blog) look more similar, changing how Hints work on the forums, updating the forum software, changing the web site from RapidWeaver to DreamWeaver CS3, etc., etc.

You should see all the changes now. Let me know if you notice any problems.

Unfortunately, moving from RapidWeaver to DreamWeaver means any bookmarks you might've had to the main web site probably don't work any more. However, the new links make much more sense than before (URLs have logical names like /fun/crosswords instead of /page2/assets, etc.).

Greann Podcast 001

2007-03-18T15:23:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm your host Lou Miranda. I run the Greann.com web site, where students can come together in a friendly, non-threatening environment to learn the Irish language.

We're going to start off the first podcast with a blog entry that pretty much duplicates the podcast exactly. (You can go to http://blog.greann.com to see the blog entry.)

Why have a blog and podcast that are exactlly the same thing? Well the blog allows you to see things about what I'm saying that you can't see through your MP3 player (since it's just audio), like what a "fada" looks like; and the podcast allows you to hear things that you can't hear on my blog (since it's just text), like what "á" sounds like.

OK, let's get started.

Modern Irish has the following letters:

A B C D E F G H I L M N O P R S T U

Note that J, K, Q, V, W, X, Y, and Z do not exist, except in borrowed words.

Consonants

The consonants are--more or less--pronounced as they are in English. Not exactly, of course, and there are other mitigating factors: an effect called "lenition" changes the sound of many Irish consonants, and the concept of slender and broad consonants/vowels can change how consonants are pronounced.

But for your 2 minute first lesson in Irish, making them sound like English consonants is good enough.

(Oh, and the Irish 'C' is always like an English "hard C"--you never pronounce "Celtic" like "Seltic", it's always pronounced like "Keltic", so don't let the basketball team fool you with their idiotic pronunciation.)

Vowels

Vowels can appear two ways in Irish: unadorned (like in English: a, e, i, o, u) or with "accents" on them, called "fada"s in Irish: á, é, í, ó, ú. Pronuncation is as follows (listen to the podcast to hear them spoken):

a: ahhh
á: awww (rhymes with saw)
e: eh
é: ayyyy (rhymes with day)
i: ih
í: eee (rhymes with tree)
o: oh (with a short 'o')
ó: oh (with a long 'o'; rhymes with sew)
u: uh
ú: ooo (rhymes with Sue)

Conclusion
OK, so this is a vast oversimplification of Irish pronunciation, but it's a good start for the few minutes we've spent on it so far. If you have an opportunity to meet with other Irish speakers or students in your area, I'd highly recommend it. There are many locations around the USA (and around the world) that have groups of people who come together to teach each other Irish. Do a web search or leave a message on our forum (at http://forums.greann.com) to try to find a group near you.

That's it for now. See you next week!

Books for learning Irish

2007-03-12T09:35:00.000-07:00

If you're in the US, and you're taking classes at any of the regional Irish language groups*, you're probably using one or both of Buntús Cainte and/or Progress in Irish. The latter is often affectionately abbreviated as PII, while the former is known as BC to those "in the know". :-)

You will soon develop a love/hate relationship with these books.

The good news is they're cheap and widely available. Well, as widely available as Irish language books get in the US. And now that shipping rates have dramatically increased, and we saw--with great sorrow--the tragic closing of Irish Books & Media this year, they may become more expensive.

The bad news is they were written for Irish schoolchildren many years ago. As in 40 or 50 years ago. (Anyone know their exact publication date?--there's no copyright notice in either book.)

If the first words you want to learn in Irish are boy, girl, playing, pounds (as in currency), married, prayers, cows, or addressing elders via "Dia dhuit", well then those are the books for you.

This is all very quaint and rural 1950's-ish "Ozzy and Harriet"-esqe, but we're adults and c'mon it's 2007!

Nary a mention of the Euro currency, iPods (or even the Walkman, LOL), Irish government agencies (most Americans--even those of Irish descent--know little of how Irish government works in general, and how the Gaeltachts work specifically), radio or TV programs, divorce, partner/significant other, kids you have, girlfriend or boyfriend, clubs, rock/pop/trad/world music/groups/performers, driving to work (or taking the bus), apartments, condos, finance, sports, cooking/restaurants, or most other things that modern adults would talk about if they were in a social setting.

The Internet provides tons of ways of learning Irish--everything from Beo to Lá to Gaelport to TG4 to RnaG--but you can't get one paragraph through most stories without encountering some political body or committee or organization in Ireland. PII and BC give you no clue as to how to navigate through this uncharted territory.

In class, we try to come up with "Cén scéal?" ("What's the story/new with you?"). But our books (other than basic verbs) provide almost no vocabulary to work with.

Who wants to talk about boys and girls playing at school? The way to incorporate Irish into your daily life (which, IMHO, is the only way to successfully learn Irish), is to use it in the context of your daily life. PII and BC do not provide the tools for that.

They have lots of other problems (no background material, no pronunciation guides, no descriptive text of what it is you're learning, etc.). These problems are ameliorated by your local Irish group (if, like me, you're lucky enough to have one) or excellent resources like Cionaodh's and Larry's Yahoo groups for the two books.

Sure, PII and BC are cheap. But that's about all they have going for them.

There are other books and resources out there, but no one seems to agree on using them. They're either too basic or too advanced or too tied to a particular dialect or too expensive.

I'm currently working with a Wednesday Night Study group locally to try to ameliorate these problems, in the hope of coming out with a relevant Podcast and--maybe someday--a new book on Irish for American adults. (Which reminds me--another problem with those books is British grammar [no one in America says 'should' unless they're implying some sort of compulsion], British spelling, and British vocabulary [the only chemists in the USA work for chemical industries, not pharmacies, LOL]).

So, if you join a group--either online or live, in person, locally--don't be shocked and disgruntled when you see your new textbook is PII and/or BC. For the time being, you'll have to get used to it. Maybe someday there'll be a new book that's widely used, but for now you're stuck with these two.

If you have any thoughts (or rants!) about what is good or bad about PII and BC, leave a note below. It could be instructive for all of us.

*--I, myself, am in Gaeltacht Minnesota, and I know there are very active groups in Massachusetts & New York among other places.

Fáilte!

2007-02-26T07:02:00.000-08:00

Fáilte go dtí an blog Greann.

Welcome to the Greann blog.

In this blog and associated podcast (coming soon!), I hope to discuss learning and teaching the Irish language. Most traditional Irish language books are geared to elementary/grammar school students in Ireland. As an adult student in the USA, my goal is to help other busy adults learn Irish by fitting small snippets of it into their daily lives.

To learn more about Irish, and practice using it, go to our associated web site ( http://www.greann.com/ ) and click on the Forums link.

"Greann" means "fun" in Irish, and I hope to make learning the language fun, easy, and exciting!