Literary Tour of '07-'08 During the 2007-08 school year, we are spending more time sampling literature from the three dialects: Ulster in the fall, Connaught in the winter, Munster in the spring.

Learning Tips & Standards

Translation: Efficiency Counts!

Given the amount of material we want to cover this year, being efficient -- and less than perfect -- is just as important as being thorough. Here are some ideas about how to keep up with the translation homework:

• Accept Reasonable Standards. Give up the idea that you'll get every word and phrase figured out perfectly this year. Be ready to get most of the meaning and flavor -- this is a sample of a large body of literature, after all -- and keep moving.
• Read a passage out loud twice before trying to translate anything. Just TURN OFF your "translator" for a few minutes and simply read the words on the page. Do this in small units -- about one page of Grásta would be perfect. You'll be surprised at how being a little familiar with the text will help meanings pop into your head when you go back to look at it more closely.
• Look for what you don't know. Consider just going through a paragraph, or a page, and marking the words you don't recognize. Then go back and look things up. Again, you're doing some pre-processing that will help you see patterns you'll miss if you just start cold from the beginning of the passage.
• Work in teams. We could consider having one team of students focus on the first page, one on the second, and then 'assemble' the meaning of the pages in class.
• Don't try to catch up, use the shortcuts on this site. If you miss a class or don't get anything done for a week, come here and read the summary of the plot in English, and then move to the next assignment. Do the current week's translation assignment first, and then go back to work on stuff you missed only if you have time. Note that I will try to post summaries for larger works, like the Grásta story or the play for winter term, as we go, but I will NOT post individual poems and that sort of thing.
• Collect a file of things to work on over break. If you miss the occasional poem or song, the shorter bits, just put them in a file and assign them to yourself as homework when we shut down class for several weeks.

Any questions or comments, drop me an e-mail.