Summer Classes

We will continue to have our regularly scheduled classes throughout the summer. Please feel free to join us at any time or contact me at learn.irish.dsm@gmail.com with questions.

Yes, we still have study group!

We are ongoing at the same location on the same days every month. I've been lazy about posting. We're still digging into lenition and eclipsis, so we're pretty tired by the end of the evening. To relax, we're watching TG4 television shows before we go home! Please join us.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig

Today is St. Patrick's Day and in the IowaLife section of the Des Moines Register on page 5E, there is a short article with Irish phrases featuring one of our group students. Check it out!

Slide concert at Holy Trinity Parish Hall

Our group had a good time at the February 13 concert. Please join us for the March 6 concert to see Slide, brought to Des Moines by the Celtic Music Association at www.thecma.org.

Talk Irish word a day

I have been getting the TalkIrish word of the day since last February and about a week ago I realized I got a word in my inbox that I have seen before. All the emails I get go into a TalkIrish folder in Outlook, so I went to the very first email I received and sure enough, I had already gathered about four duplicate words.

If TalkIrish only has roughly 365 words that they circulate, how can I use that to my advantage? The answer came to me this morning.

I often look for sentence structures I can use for building dialogue and this gives me that opportunity. For every duplicate word I get, I forward the email to myself and replace the subject line with the actual sentence used at the bottom of the word-a-day email. Now I have not only a searchable list of words, I will have a searchable list of sentences I can use and reuse.

Join the clan at http://www.talkirish.com

February 6 Class

Tomorrow's class will build on what we learned last time about mutations. This topic should help move you forward in your learning. I will also talk a little about studying hints and tips along with finding your own particular style and needs as an Irish learner.

Keep in mind the difficulty of the language: Praise yourself for what you DO know and just have fun with it! There's no pressure!

Place Names in Ireland

Here is a link for a directory of place names in Irish. There is a button up in the upper right hand corner for the English version of the page.

http://www.logainm.ie/Do.aspx?uiLang=ga