ErinsWeb.com

[gerard]

its called Irish Now! and it is great , it has features which include recording your self speaking or repeating words and sentences you have heard on the cd. it is such a good tool becuase it is not the easiest thing to have a gaelic speaker with you to practice and this is the next best thing it s by Transparent Language , google it and check it out if you areinterested in more than just known a few words

[Jeff]

Here are two links for the software that Gerard has mentioned, the first being the Transparent Language's site and of course, the second from Amazon.com:

http://www.learn-irish-language-software.com/index.htm

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00006LSWR/qid=1100453880/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-2653926-4223113?v=glance&s=software

[Ardath]

The Learn Irish Now software by Transparent Language has arrived at my local library, so it is the summer Irish practice time - and I had to post some of my thoughts and impressions here!

After a couple of days, I have to say that the Before You Know It application of the programme is very useful, as it facilitates memorisation of the words significantly. One is presented with a card where a picture of the denoted item, an Irish word for it and its English translation are presented, and the word is pronounced by a very kind female voice. One can continue, with some practice, to recognise the Irish words by typing the English translation and then to type the Irish word from seeing the English translation. In my version, there are 45 thematic sets of words, with 6-14 words in each - a very convenient size.

The rest of the programme has been more disappointing, mostly due to the fact that it becomes significantly more advanced very suddenly. The grammar section has all been gathered into a Help file, with no voice examples or exercises to build simpler sentences, just the thoery. The alphabeth section is very buggy in the case of the individual CD I got and the quality of the sound makes it very hard to listen to (the sound is hacked, thankfully only in that part).

There is also a video about Ireland, written in rather advanced Gaelic, and a fragment of a text by an Irish author. These can be read aloud by the programme sentence by sentence, word by word, or one can play the whole text at once. One can see the Gaelic text, its English translation, and the translation of the selected word, so I was very excited about it at first. However, unfortunately, I have not found grammatical information about the words there - e.g., if a substantive is masculine or feminine and which group it belongs to, which is quite sad, since one is left to look them up elsewhere. Thankfully, the "intiail form" of the word is provided, at least.

There are many other opportuinities for training for the more advanced learners, such as crosswords and fill-in-the-blanks exercises based on the existing texts, which are however too hard at this point. I still feel that there is no intermediate level, from learning individual words to building one's own simpler sentences. Thus, the plan is to try and advance to reading about at least the genitive and the verb forms, both in the Help file and on Erin's web, to begin to make sense of it

I would stil recommend the software to people who are struggling with reading and spelling - it really helps a lot - as well as those of you who are rather advanced and are looking for a fun addition to their studies. The claim of learning the Irish language in four easy steps is, however, overrated - as most of these claims are.

Ádh mór ort!

Ardath