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| Colloquial Irish: The Complete Course for Beginners | 
 enlarge | Authors: Thomas Ihde, Maire Ni Neachtain, Roslyn Blyn-ladrew, John Gillen
Publisher: Routledge
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
Buy New: $22.88
You Save: $4.07 (15%)
New (14) Used (3) from $22.88
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 1287382
Media: Audio CD
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 2
Pages: 245
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 4.9 x 0.4
ISBN: 0415381312
Dewey Decimal Number: 491.6282421
EAN: 9780415381314
ASIN: 0415381312
Publication Date: July 30, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Specially written by experienced teachers, this easy to use and completely up to date course offers you a step-by-step approach to spoken and written Irish with no prior knowledge of the language required. What makes Colloquial Irish your best choice in personal language learning?: emphasis on the language of East Connemara, with a clear pronunciation guide and an appendix on dialectal differences within Irish stimulating exercises with lively illustrations effective combination of language points, dialogues and cultural information Irish/English and English/Irish word lists. By the end of this rewarding course you will be able to communicate confidently and effectively in Irish in a broad range of everyday situations. These two 60-minute audio CDs have been recorded by native speakers and will help you perfect your pronuncation, listening and speaking skills.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Great book for beginners! August 11, 2008
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
This book is excellent for a complete self-taught beginner, an adult education class, or Irish 101. After working through this volume, the student can continue on with Basic Irish: A Grammar and Workbook which I have also bought. That volume was also published by Routledge in 2008. The two books teach a standard form of the language with a regional preference for Connacht Irish. The authors of Colloquial Irish are all teachers which is a big plus. One of them is a native speaker of the colloquial form modeled in the book and her voice can also be heard on the CDs along with other native speakers. I have always wanted to learn the Irish of the western part of Co. Galway, but all that was available was Learning Irish. I couldn't make it past Chapter 5 of that book. I guess translating hundreds of sentences from Irish to English and English to Irish just wasn't my thing, yet I realize it works for some. Colloquial Irish has a lot of engaging and fun exercises that make me use the language instead of just analyzing it. I also love the cultural notes in each chapter that I don't remember seeing in any other Irish language textbook.
 Not even near the best Irish courses August 6, 2008
8 out of 18 found this review helpful
Long overdue, Colloquial Irish has finally been published. Unfortunately, it turns out to be a big disappointment. In recent years, Routledge has turned to publishing shorter and shorter books in the Colloquial-series, giving its readers ever less value for the money. For some languages, the person interested in learning it may not have a choice, but that's not the case for Irish. Small as it may be, there are some excellent courses and this new course is nowhere near them.
For some reason, the authors decided to pick the Irish dialect of Cois Fhairrge for this book. That's a brave choice, given that a very good and extensive Irish course (Learning Irish) focuses on exactly the same dialect. So, the learner eager to learn Irish (or Cois Fhairrge Irish in particular) has got two courses at hand, which one should he pick? My answer is Learning Irish, for the following reasons:
- Learning Irish is by far the more extensive of the two courses. While Colloquial Irish will only give a vocabulary of about 800 words, Learning Irish will see to it that you finish with around 2.500 words.
- The grammar is explained in great detail in Learning Irish, making sure that the reader really learns it and reducing the risks for misunderstandings. Colloquial Irish gives a much more rudimentary grammar presentation, and the likely result is that the reader will be more confused than helped. If not in this book, then at least by the time he goes to the Gaeltacht and tries speaking Irish only to discover that he doesn't know all those things Learning Irish would have taught him.
- There are many more excersises (with answers) in Learning Irish, so the learner really has the opportunity to practice.
Having worked my way through Learning Irish, I went to Ireland and managed to live in the Gaeltacht for many months, speaking only Irish. Of course my Irish improved a lot during my time there, but I would never have come so far without the very solid foundation Learning Irish had given me. Colloquial Irish is much to short and basic to come anywhere near that.
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