Nick's Class

Last Class (May 5) (back to top)

THIS WEEK

We added a bit to our recent review of food vocabulary by looking at a few familiar and a few new and unusual words. Sinsear and Seabhdar (ginger and chowder!) caught our attention, as did the term garlic mushrooms. Next, we played a rousing game of Who am I? in Irish in which we guessed our identities (posted on each players back) by posing questions using the copula. We had almost universal success, and I dont think it was any lack of Irish preventing anybody from successfully guessing.

In the second half we started a new reading passage entitled Pictiurlann i nGaoth Dobhair, taken from a recent Foinse. We read the first four paragraphs and translated them cold, but I asked that for next week, you skim the remainder and look up any words you dont know. Then, well tackle the rest together on Monday.

Previous Class (April 28) (back to top)

Last Two Weeks, actually . . .

On our April 21st meeting, we tried a new repetition exercise using the phrase “Dúirt sé/sí go . . .” to practice both indirect speech and eclipse of verbs. Everybody took turns saying a simple sentence in the present tense using Verb + Subject, then responding to my question “Cad a dúirt sé/sí?” by answering “Dúirt sé/sí go + eclipse + Verb + Subject.” Although this made it seem as though I was hard of hearing by constantly asking in Irish, “What did he/she say?” it was a good way to practice making that mutation to the initial consonant of verbs.

April 28th we had a combined class with Mary’s folks (thanks to Mary’s class for being such good sports!). We took this opportunity to play “$25,000 Pyramid,” as Gaeilge. Thinking up ways to encourage team members to say a word in Irish using only Irish was quite a challenge, I think, but I was impressed with how hard everybody worked not to use English. We had a close contest for 1st and 2nd place, with our first place team managing to seize the prize by a score of 38½ to 35½. Our third place team trailed, but should be commended for scoring points with a three-person, rather than a four-person, team!

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