Reviews

Hundreds of resources to help you teach yourself

Isn't This a Bucolic Cover?

Irish, Audio Lessons, Books

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…

Some Free Basic Irish Lessons

Irish, Audio Lessons, Websites

RTÉ stands for Raidió Teilifís Éireann, which I believe literally means “Radio Television of Ireland.” (Is there an implied “and” between “Radio” and “Television”? I don’t know yet; I am writing this on just the fourth day of…

Irish Resources, Free on the BBC Site

5 Irish, Audio Lessons, News, Radio/TV/Video/Film, Websites, Kids

The BBC website offers free Irish lessons. I am only just beginning to familiarize myself with the site, but I believe there are three levels available—Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. I tried the first lesson from Level 1 and liked it!…

Watch Free Television

Irish, Radio/TV/Video/Film, Websites

Learn Irish by watching Irish TV on the Internet! TG4 was established in 1996; the acronym stands for Teilifís na Gaeilge. According to Gabriel Rosenstock in Beginner’s Irish with Audio CD (2005), “Its success has confounded the sceptics, especially the…

Warning: Irish Has a Lot of Consonants

Irish, Books

Irish grammar is just crazy! I have been laughing at how crazy it is! But it is also very, very interesting. I began reading Essential Irish Grammar by Éamonn Ó Dónaill yesterday, and am only on Chapter 2.…

Pimsleur Irish: Only 10 Lessons, But Still Worth It

5 Irish, Audio Lessons

A Pimsleur lesson is a highly interactive, highly effective audio language-learning experience. I love Pimsleur. I am obsessed with Pimsleur. I’ve used it for every language I’ve studied so far. Unfortunately, Irish is clearly not a big source…

You Can Watch Video Clips of Endangered Languages Here

General, Websites, Organizations

Founded in 2010, the Endangered Language Alliance, or ELA, is an “urban initiative for endangered language research and conservation.”  Out of a small office on West 18th Street, in what is known as the Urban Fieldstation, dedicated ELA linguists…

A Slim and Elegant Volume of Irish Information

3 Irish, Books

This book, written by a teacher in Dublin and published in 2002, is described on its jacket as “a solid guide and starting point designed to help even those who as yet have little or no Irish find ways to learn…

For All Your Pinyin Needs

3-5 Mandarin, Audio Lessons, Websites

I read about this pronunciation table in Yong Ho’s book Beginner’s Chinese. Mandarin has amazingly few sound combinations—only around 400 different syllables, versus many multiples of that in English—so they can all be stuck in…

© 2009–2022 Ellen Jovin. All rights reserved.