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MORE THAN 6,000 people have signed up to a new Irish course on Duolingo, a popular language learning course, since it was made available last night.
The course, which is currently in beta mode alongside Danish and Dutch, is only available on desktop for now, but includes the same features associated with the service.
If you’ve studied a course on Duolingo before, then you will be familiar with the format. For those who aren’t, lessons are broken up into small games, usually involving pronunciation, spelling, and matching words to pictures.
All users start out with the basics although those who have experience can take a placement test which evaluates how proficient you are with the language.
The service has more than 25 million users with the most popular language being Spanish, which has 18.6 million users signed up to it. The service originally announced it would be looking for Irish language tutors to help contribute back in March.
No date has been given for when the course will be officially launched on Duolingo’s iOS and Android apps.
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As a contributor to the course, I’m delighted to see it being reported on! Yay!
2%!
Ye slacker. [/joke]
Well done!
I might add, I only joined the team a few weeks ago ;) I’m getting there :p
Is maith liom bainne
Agus milseáin
Agus cupán té.
Agus caca milis
An bhuil cead agam dul go dti an leatruas
Agus Sharon Ni Bheolain.
Agus geansei nollaig
Chuaigh mé faoin tuath don mo leathanta saoire!
Ag piocadh sútha talún
I’m glad to see it’s successful. Voluntarily learning the language is the way forward.
Yes voluntary learning. Not getting it rammed down your throat forcefully. The sooner they make this language optional the better.
Really wish they re-examined how this language is taught in school. Considering the money we invest we should all be bilingual with some proficiency in a 3rd or 4th language to boot. We must be the poorest country in the EU when it comes to language skills!
There’s the thing… Irish is taught as a subject, not a language. Likely why it fails as a language spoken. Teach as a language, same way French, Spanish, German etc. are taught and perhaps the gap between the ability to speak it, and other European languages, may close.
Dee , totally agree with you , it needs to be taught as a language . Why they can’t see this after all these years is beyond me !
I have a friend who is a teacher and who teaches in a non-Gaelscoil but uses Irish to teach PE and drama. The children are initally unsure but after a few weeks all really enjoy it as it gives them an opportunity to actually use the language with each other socially.
However the reaction some of the older, more “experienced” teachers gave when they found out about this simple innovation was less than happy. I think that attitudes from teachers and parents are equally as important as the way in which the language is taught!
Ryan , children absorb so much through play , that’s a fantastic way to learn and use the language ! If only more teachers were like that .
Didn’t know about this app until now. Hope it becomes available to my iPad very soon. I did the intro test and scored 60…… I have almost no irish at all and was very please at what I picked up from looking at the toilet signs in peadar o’donnells in Derry…..
At first I hated it but I grew to love it through secondary school, Peig and the life they had on the Blasket Islands was fascinating…love social history.
I have been using this app the last few weeks for German and Spanish and it´s great!! Was waiting for the Irish course to be launched so it´s great news. Will hopefully help kids in school and show them that the terrible way Irish is taught in school isn´t the only way to learn!
Apart from a form of sick torture the Christian Bros enjoyed from teaching this language.I find at best its a hobby language.
Teach something more productive to the life path of a student!
So, what you are saying is that students should be taught what you think is valuable. We all know other languages are important. Especially in the world of international business and commerce. But, who chooses which language to study? Is it French? German? Spanish? Portuguese? Russian? Japanese? Arabic? Cantonese? Mandarin? At least Irish exposes kids to the concept of another language with links to this country’s heritage, and they can then choose another language later on. True, the delivery of language courses needs to change. Being an Irish speaker never stopped me from learning French and Russian. One of the things that always amazes me, anecdotally, is that those most vehemently against Irish also tend more often than not to be monolinguals, while those most in favour of Irish tend to have a third or fourth language.
Poor Bob. He had to learn the Irish language and now he’s not very ‘productive’.
The usual argument from the Anti-Irish is that learning the language made them academic failures. They really need to look a bit more critically at themselves.
Amadán!
I dreaded Irish at school hated it never stuck couldn’t grasp or understand it most pointless language , I have never used it since school !
Why did you have such a bad attitude towards it? It’s part of your culture and heritage, no?
Says the guy who can’t string a couple of sentences of English together. Maybe it’s not Irish you have the problem with, but language in general.
Certainly a difficulty with punctuation.
irish = exams
Duolingo very good for French. Also Memrise.com.
How about learning Luro …. Language for the United Regions of Europe (auxiliary common second language for Europe) … avoid having to learn all 27 member country languages! I’m sure a few Irish words will be useful in Luro.
Is mise Bart Simpson
This is wonderful news! I’ve just started learning again :)
This is the best irish language app out there
Check out this app on iTunes
Lingua-App
Lingua-App Teoranta
Education, Books
Jun 12, 2014
View Item
Lingua-App is a unique learning tool for teachers and students of the Irish language as well as being an excellent assistant for parents.
There are three main sections. Topics: presents the user with keywords, using pictures and sounds. Grammar: de-mystifies grammatical terms and tenses. Written language: puts the language into practise. Pages are linked.
Test yourself and this app keeps the score!
Now they can stop bleeding the country dry for financial support. Stop teaching it in schools and save Billions.
Again, Mindfulirish spouts off his/her lies. There would not be a saving of billions (the entire cost of Irish, including teaching, translations, court proceedings, documentation, etc. is actually only slightly over €1 billion. But that doesn’t factor into account such sums as the cost of hiring teachers who would otherwise be required anyway, and what financial return the Irish language gives). The only way you could save billions by not teaching Irish is by cutting school hours and sacking thousands upon thousands of teachers (who would then have to be paid social welfare). How much are you willing to spout this time? The first figure you ever mentioned was about €500 million per year. You increased that to €1 billion, then €2 billion. Your last figure was €6 billion. Realistically, we know the true figure of Irish language education is actually closer to €780 trillion. It costs more money to teach Irish in schools than the entire budget of the US. If we could stop teaching Irish we could invent time travel and the never-ending gobstopper.
The Department of Education needs to implement new reforms to the way Irish is taught , but in typical Irish fashion the government will be banging its head against the wall waiting for a miracle.
The Department of Education needs to implement new reforms to the way Irish is thought , but in typical Irish fashion the government will be banging its head against the wall waiting for a miracle.
English syntax has been used in computer programming languages for the last 50 years (Fortran, Cobol, C, Java, HTML, Ruby … just to name a few). Unfortunately you can’t write software code in Irish. Nice hobby though!
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