Beginner’s Irish with Audio CD

I am on page 21 of this book, and if I didn’t already know that the author was a poet, I would be able to guess it.

This is unlike any language book I have read before. It so far strikes me as a love story about Ireland, and it is frankly not as nuts-and-bolts-oriented as the average language learner, especially the average language learner unfamiliar with Irish history, might desire.

But I am amused and laughing, and that is something. Let me give you an example of the type of information I am collecting here.

In a list of some Irish names for girls, I have just read the following description of the name Mór, which means “great”:

Many streams owe their origin, in folklore, to her prodigious urination. Mór dhuit (or Mora dhuit) is a common greeting, especially in Munster. The reply is, Mór is Muire dhuit, “Mór and Mary to you.” An expression to denote the transitoriness of all phenomena is leá mhún Mhóire, “the evaporation of Mór’s urine.”

Language learning is so educational! 

I will return to review this book properly when I have gotten further than page 18, but this can serve as a preliminary glimpse in the meantime.