I bought an Irish Dictionary. Now what?

I couldn't resist buying an Irish dictionary in a gift shop on the road from Galway to Clifden, in the Connemara Region of Ireland.   My husband, Wayne, and I were on an unforgettable road

trip in Ireland, and our spirits were soaring.

The clerk at checkout looked at my purchase and said, ""Ah, you'll have to come back in a couple of years and tell me how you are doing with Irish." How many such dictionaries had he sold to enthusiastic tourists with similar high hopes of learning to speak Irish?  

I told him I had already been studying Irish for about two years on a regular basis.  Granted, the study is on my favorite online language learning program, Duolingo, for probably less than fifteen minutes a day (I study other languages as well), but I wanted him to know that I was well aware of the complexities of the Irish language.

The sheep outside the gift shop paid no attention to us as we hopped in our rental car, stored our purchases,  and headed to Clifden.

Now I am back home in the States with my Irish dictionary joining other foreign language dictionaries between the bookends on my desk.  Will this new addition help me make progress in Irish?  Hope springs eternal in the language learner's heart.

I wish I could honestly say that I am going to examine in detail the dictionary section on phonetics (pronunciation).  Even with a degree in Linguistics, the charts with Irish letters, IPA symbols, Irish examples, and nearest English equivalents look formidable.  But since the Irish sound system has proven elusive to me so far, maybe I should take a closer look at the charts and learn a few sounds a day.  That's doable, right?

The Irish-English, English-Irish word entries look more promising. 30,000 words are included, many with usage examples.  The entries also include a phonetic pronunciation guide.  Ah, that phonetic chart I was dissing in the paragraph above may be useful after all.

At the back of the dictionary are tables for regular and irregular verbs, sure to strike fear into the hearts of language learners.  I can still remember being required to conjugate pages and pages of Spanish verbs in my very traditional high school language class.  Through the years, I have come to believe that verbs are best learned in context, not in verb tables. But I suppose having verb tables readily available can serve as a useful reference.

As I picked up the Irish dictionary for the first time the very straightforward lists of geographical names and languages caught my eye.  Búdaipeist, Iostanbúl, Lucsamburg were all comforting by their familiarity.  And it was fun to identify the languages I study—Spáinnis, Portaingéilis, Fraincis, Iodáilis (Italian), Rómáinis (Romanian), Breatnais (Welsh) and Gaeilge (Irish).

And finally, perhaps best of all, the dictionary lists four useful web sites as linguistic resources, one which promises "full pronunciation guide with sound files."  I can certainly use those!

Despite my moaning and groaning, being a beginning Irish language learner has been an exciting challenge.  I'll probably never be able to strike up a friendly conversation in a pub with an Irish speaker, 

but just experiencing a language very different from English, my native language, has been satisfying. 

I hope in several years, when we return to Ireland, that my Foclóir Póca (Irish Dictionary) is well-thumbed and annotated with my notes in the margins.  And maybe I can return to that gift shop and dazzle the clerk with a short conversation in Irish.  Wouldn't he be surprised?

Language Adventures in Ireland

Travel is at the top of my list of exciting adventures.  My husband, Wayne, and I just returned from fifteen days of travel in Ireland. I am still feeling the glow that comes from living in a new culture, viewing unforgettable scenery, and meeting all manner of people. 

Irish landscape

But, linguistic nerd that I am, the language experiences I had in Ireland are the ones that inevitably bring a smile to my face.  

I don't speak Irish (Gaelic) yet, so I am a bit reluctant to mention that Irish is one of the languages I study every day on my favorite online language learning platform, Duolingo,  But I still believe that knowing a little Irish helped me enjoy our trip even more. 

Immediately upon arrival in Dublin, I noticed that public signs were bilingual, Irish and English. As we drove up the Wild Atlantic Way (west coast),  I entertained myself looking for words I recognized and trying to pronounce the Irish names.  

Road sign in Ireland

So that's where the names of many Irish towns come from!  They are the original Celtic names pronounced and spelled in English.  And with the help of my Irish dictionary, which I bought in a bookstore on the road from Galway to Clifden, I was able to hypothesize about the original meanings of several towns.  Doire (Derry) means oak wood, grove, or thicket. Dun means fort, haven, or residence.  Gall means foreigner. Could Dún na nGall mean residence of the foreigner? 

The status of the Irish language in Ireland intrigued me.  It is an official language, along with English. I met a teacher who taught Irish to middle school students and a high school teacher who explained that Irish is a compulsory subject in public schools and that she had studied it for many years.  I got the impression that the Irish regard the Irish language as part of their cultural inheritance.

Not all of my language adventures were in Irish, however.  Irish English provided noteworthy vocabulary.  Garda is what a policeman is called in Ireland.  ( I already knew that from the Netflix series. Jack Taylor, filmed in Galway.)  All of the guidebooks mention the word for fun, or a good time, craic, and I saw pubs advertising craic along with drinks and food. And we already knew petrol, chips and crisps (three essentials of life) from visits to the United Kingdom.

It was perhaps the conversation of the Irish themselves, though, that I cherish.  The taxi driver who took us to the airport at 4:00 am and shared information about himself and his family, saying that he always slows down his speech rate for visitors to his country.  Another gentleman in a cafe guessed from my accent that I was Canadian!  I was pleased that my Texas accent wasn't too noticeable.

Soccer game in Galway

And then there was the gentleman at a soccer match, sitting behind me, who expressed his displeasure with the game, when necessary, by saying "Sugar!"   I was charmed.  I found that if I needed to strike up a conversation in Ireland, remarking on the weather, past, present, or future, always got a response.

I am convinced that my interest in Ireland was sparked many years ago by a handsome bartender in an Irish bar in Glasgow, Scotland.  Wayne had sent me up to the bar to ask if they had any non-alcoholic beer. The bartender said, "No, darlin', we don't have anything like that." Funny how one conversation that send you down a new road in life.  And I am very happy that road led us to Ireland.

My favorite mode of transportation