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02/01//12 |
Classes |
last week | previous week |
NOTE: welcome to Wes's students who are working with Mary's group while Wes is teaching the Intro section.
(back to top)Cén dáta é an lá inniu? (an tríochadú lá Mí Eanáir)
We started by reviewing the answers for last week's homework, the translation of the doubling of a kooky little recipe that Wes threw together to keep us entertained. See me or Wes if you missed the answers or have a question.
Next we reviewed how to count with two nouns that use special forms after numbers (instead of the singular form like most nouns do), bliain and ceann. We did some dice drills to practice bliain, again talking about that fictional guy from last week who just can't keep his story straight. This time we disputed how many years ago he'd been to some (unspecfied) place, saying:
"Bhí sé ann (dhá bhliain / trí bliana / seacht mbliana) ó shin." (He was there two / three / seven years ago.)
OR, "Dúirt sé liomsa go raibh sé ann ...." (He told me that he was there....)
Then we looked at magazine pictures and gave general counts of the objects seen therein, using ceann: "sé cinn," "seacht gcinn," "ceann amháin," srl.
There was a question about what form of the special nouns to use after fiche, "twenty." My mind couldn't grab the info from the archives so I checked upon returning home: yes, you go back to using the basic form of the noun. Fiche ceann, fiche bliain. I'll try to remember to pass it along in class as well.
We then turned to the weather and time vocab sheets I handed out (to Wes's students) last week. I had you work with each other to review pronunciations while I circulated to answer questions. We practiced with more magazine photos, and then teamed up again to work on a matching exercise that Wes wrote utilizing statements about weather. We didn't have long enough to finish it so we'll start with it next time.
I sent you home with exercises, a different set for each class:
Please contact me at mary-at-gaelminn-dot-org (argh those silly spammers) if you have questions, or if you missed class and need one of these sets of exercises transmitted to you.
(back to top)As it happens, both classes have been working on topics related to numbers and counting, so that's where we started. We reviewed the standard way to count things, ex:
| one boat | bád amháin |
| two boats | dhá bhád |
| three boats | trí bhád |
| seven boats | seacht mbád |
| eleven boats | aon bhád déag |
| twelve boats | dhá bhád déag |
| thirteen boats | trí bhád déag |
| seventeen boats | seacht mbád déag |
We practiced the patterns in groups by talking about a fictional guy who has problems consistently telling his friends and associates how many things he has two boats, seven houses, eighteen sweaters/jumpers and the disputes about his belongings were facilitated by throwing dice to determine the numbers. We also talked about numbers of things in magazine pictures.
With this practice under our belts, we moved on to a "whacky recipe" written up by Wes which we were to translate into Irish. There were lots of little battles we could have fought but we stuck to the big ones, figuring out word order and word choices (singular vs. plural vs. genitive, etc.).
There were a few nouns, though, that didn't fall into the usual pattern. We rounded out the evening by talking about these nouns, of which there are only a handful in the full Irish lexicon, that have what I call numerical plurals. In other words, you'll use another form of these nouns after the numbers 3-10. Sometimes the form to use is just the plural, but sometimes it's another form entirely. My students talked Wes's students through the filling out of a chart that we ourselves did in the Fall focusing on the three most common of these nouns, bliain, ceann and uair. We'll talk about them a bit more next time.
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(our e-mail address, broken down to reduce spam from 'spambots', is info at gaelminn dot org)