Tā mē ceart go lōir

One of the many requirements of us as students on the Trinity CertTESOL course is that we spend four hours learning an unfamiliar language in complete immersion classes and then submit a reflective journal about the experience. In itself, this is really quite sensible, as it gives us some idea of how beginners in English feel and watching the teacher gives us some useful ideas on how to teach without using the students' first language in lessons at all.

However, it would surely seem logical, would it not, for this unknown language to be Czech? It's sufficiently scary (7 cases, people) to satisfy Trinity's exacting requirements, none of the students on the course are already able to speak it, and, most importantly, it is the language spoken in the beautiful city we are living in. But no, oh no. That would be far too logical. So, rather than learning basic Czech, we, my friends, have instead had a crash course in Gaeilge, more commonly known to the world as Irish Gaelic.

Whilst I am not altogether sure when my newfound Gaeilge will come in useful, I have to admit that it is a pretty amazing language. Whilst nobody would claim that English is itself a phoentic language, the Irish do not even bother to pretend that the spelling of a word should have any bearing at all on its pronunciation, meaning that for one written sound there are a dizzying and bewildering array of possible pronunciations, each more implausible than the last. How, for example, would you pronounce the word for goat, 'gabhar?' Gab-har? Gabber? Gay-bar? Nope, you pronounce it 'gower.' In defence of Irish, however, it must be said that these phonological idiosyncracies are combined with some pretty fantastic words. My particular favourites are ceart go lōir (cark'ha'lour), which is Gaelic for OK and fēilicheāin (fai'le'horrn), the very lovely Irish word for butterfly. Also good are Irish greetings. Like in many other languages, the standard Irish hello, dia dhuit, literally translates as 'God be with you.' The reply to this, however, is dia's muire dhuit which is 'God and Mary be with you,' and particulary devout Catholics can continue to greet each other indefinitely by simply adding on the names of more and more saints. What's not to love?

Sadly, my adventures in Gaeilge are now over, as our Unknown Language Journals were completed and handed in to Sinēad, our Irish teacher, at 11.15am this morning (no, I did not miss the deadline and yes, I was up until the small hours writing it). I am actually quite sad, and will miss my daily adventures in leprechaun muchly. I should probably attempt to substitute it with a bit of Czech though, or Russian, and Chinese, given that these are languages I will actually need in the short and medium term.

Stay tuned for upcoming posts about sixty-year old disruptive influences, the joys of central European cake (a post that shall be particularly lovingly written), and, of course, the hopeful return of a lost and lonely little bear. There will, I promise mum, also finally be a post about teaching at some point. And there will definitely be new information for Jo about a certain Professor Strawberry.