(Speak lolcat)
I bought the Gaeilge-Béarla brick yesterday, and tried to find Gaeilge gan stró grammar book (possibly a part of a rather expensive multimedia course?) , but Dubray Books didn't have it, and Cúpla Focal was closed. I wonder if they've closed the shop (in Bray) for good? I don't even remember when I've last seen it open, yet their web shop is probably functioning..
The Irish course ended on Wednesday - it was supposed to last ten weeks, but it only lasted nine weeks =( However, it was VERY useful! I learned much more than I expected, and really got a good start for learning more on my own. It still takes me time to come up with sentences (anything more than the basic phrases, like..), and I very much need the support of dictionaries, my grammar notes, and of course, Google Translate is awesome for checking whether the result is correct - although, sometimes it IS correct, yet Google Translate makes a mess of it.. I'd never ever trust auto-translators, especially with languages such as Irish or Finnish.. (I've tested Finnish to English with some stuff I've written, and I wouldn't even recognise my text from the translation, lol..)
The books look great, Stella. I think it is wonderful to be able to communicate in more than one language. Thus far I can communicate in English and francais. :) My third language of choice to learn would be Italian. I have always loved languages. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to learn more Italian as well! I used to take evening classes when I was still at school, but I can't remember much of it.. When we were in Italy, I was able to order food and coffee in Italian, and I'd forgotten my camera cable, so I needed to get photos burned on CD from the memory card, and the lady at the camera shop didn't speak any English - I got that done, though =D Not too worried about making mistakes, in those situations.. (I'd prefer to get it right when writing it, though.)
ReplyDeleteI agree on the writing part. For some reason I find Italian closer to French than Spanish...but that may be just me. I find myself being able to pronounce words in Italian better than in Spanish, as many of the sounds in Italian are similar to French. Great that you were able to order coffee and food in Italian, thus far I can't. :)
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