Three's Company [deu + pol + gle]

[księżycowy]

Gaelainn
I've completed the exercises from Lesson IV and even read and did the exercises from Lesson V.

I'll post a few notes on Lesson V a bit later.

[jeff_lindqvist]

Compared to Germanic/Romance langauges, Irish grammar is pretty exotic. That's all. I still find it very interesting. I have never come across anything like it (other than in the other Celtic languages, of course).

[księżycowy]

I agree. Most of my linguistic experiences have been with German and Polish (aside from Asian languages, but we'll just put that aside for the purposes of my comments here). Irish (and by extension Celtic languages in general) are quite fascinating, and different from other languages I'm familiar with.

With German, and even Polish to an extent, I can figure out cognates for words, but Irish does not really offer this much. Then there are the changes to the beginnings of words! (fear -> fhear -> bhfear) And the word order is crazy! Which brings me to my notes on Lesson V.

Gaelainn
Lesson V goes over how to say "have" in Irish, which is basically with ag + possessor.
Tá an cóta nua ag Seán. - Sean has a new coat. (lit. There is a new coat at Sean.)

This also illustrates another point. Namely, that adjectives follow the noun they modify.

The past participle is also explained in the lesson. It is formed by taking the verb (which, in TYI, the citation form is the first person singular present tense; therefore the citation form of "break" is brisim) and lopping off the personal ending:
Ex. brisim -> bris-
And then add either te/ta as appropriate (broad and slender wise). It should be noted that this ending will lenite after b, bh, c, g, m, p, r
Ex. briste (keeping the ending slender)
scuabaim (I sweep) -> scuab- -> scuabtha

With the help of the newly learned grammar points we can form the following construction:
Tá an urlár scuabtha ag Seán. Sean has swept the floor. (the present perfect tense in English)

I've also began reading through Lesson VI.

[księżycowy]

Ok, it's been a few days. Sorry guys! I meant to post sooner, but then again, progress has slowed a bit.

Gaelainn
I'm done about half of the exercises in Lesson VI. I need to now start doing some audio drills with Lessons 3-6. Oh, and of course finish up Exercise 15 (the English to Irish exercise for the lesson).

Ænglisc
I've read through Lessons 2 and 3 from Chapter 2, and done Exercise 2.1. It'll take a bit for it all to sink in, but I'll eventually get in ingrained. Up next is Exercise 2.2 and the Reading for the Chapter, which in this case is just some practice sentences.

[księżycowy]

And then add either te/ta as appropriate (broad and slender wise). It should be noted that this ending will lenite after b, bh, c, g, m, p, r
Ex. briste (keeping the ending slender)
scuabaim (I sweep) -> scuab- -> scuabtha

I meant to say this before when I was making these notes, but seem to have forgotten as I was typing them up: in Munster <t> is frequently pronounced "aspirated" (as in <th>) after <l>, but it is still spelled as <t>, therefore a word like caillte is pronounced [kɑl'h'ɪ].

Now, for another update!

Gaelainn
I've completed the exercises for Lesson VI!

As I have yet to do my audio work, I think this week is a perfect time for it. I might even thrown in some Pimsleur as well. I always liked their approach, and it will be good for pronunciation and conversation practice.

As for grammar tidbits, Lesson VI introduces the verbal noun.

The verbal noun is constructed for most regular verbs by taking the verb stem, say bris- (from brisim I break) and adding -(e)adh to the end of the stem.
briseadh - breaking, to break
dúnadh - shutting, to shut

Now, as with any other language, there are irregularities. I won't list them all (as they are only listed and not really explained in this lesson anyway), but some other verbal nouns are:
baint - taking, to take; cutting, to cut
ól - drinking, to drink
teacht - coming, to come

The lesson also introduces the past tense and future tense of tá.
The past tense can be broken down into absolute bíos and dependent rabhas (I was), the future is simply bead (I will be).

Now we can say things like:
Tá Séan ag dúnadh an dorais. (The object in this type of sentence is required to be in the genitive case)
Sean is shutting the door.

or

An rabhabhair ag briseadh an gcloch ar an mbóthar?
Are you (pl) breaking stones on the road?
(I just wanted to try to make a sentence with rabhabhair. That double <bh> is fun. )

Ænglisc
I really haven't done much since my last post, but I thought I'd give a brief summary of what I had done.

Basically Chapter 2, Lesson 2 goes over the strong noun declensions. Interestingly, feminine and neuter nouns are divided into long and short stems. It's pretty self-explanitory as to which is which. If the word have a long vowel and/or two consonants after the vowel in the last syllable it's long.

So, word and and lār (teaching) are long. cear (care, sorrow) and fæt (vat, container) are short. For words of more than one syllable, hēafod (head) is short, because the last syllable is short.

I'm not going to list the whole paradigms for the strong nouns, as that can be easily Googled.

Lesson 3 explains in some detail what the different cases are and what they are used for. There was a lot of information in that lesson, and I'm still wrapping my head around it fully.

[księżycowy]

Gaelainn
I've worked on Lesson III and IV as far as listening comprehension is concerned. I still need to work on it, but I'm going to keep on treking and start moving on to Lesson VII.

Ænglisc
I have completed the reading for Chapter 2, and am ready to move on to Chapter 3! I notice there were a few things off in the answer key (such as noun forms misidentified), but overall it's quite useful.

[księżycowy]

Ok, so in an effort to maximize my time during the pandemic and such (the school I work at is shut down until September, as far as I understand at this moment), I've been thinking of a few things:
1. I really feel that I should be working on German (and maybe Polish, if I can realistically squeeze it in) again.
2. I don't want to abandon Irish yet again.
3. Old English is cool, but just for fun really. So I think I'm dropping it for the moment. I do intend to return to it eventually (hopefully).
4. I want to try to post more updates here. Preferably at least once a day. I'll probably do it in the evening/afternoon (local time, of course). If I have any grammar/vocabulary notes, I'll probably post them in the morning/afternoon. I will give myself one "cheat day" where I don't have to do anything more than Anki (because breaks are important) as well.


Due to past experiences, I also have to make sure I don't pace myself to fast or slow. I've always found myself inevitably picking up the written language more quickly then the spoken (and sometimes at the cost of the spoken) language. I also think this has equated to my past experiences with burning out by getting to far too fast. Therefore, I think I will no longer track my progress based upon Lessons/Units/Chapters/etc., but rather on comprehension of grammar and vocabulary points from whatever lesson I'm working on. So I'll start making goals for myself, once a week (I found this quite helpful in past attempts), and have bullet points of the grammar and vocabulary as my goals. After all, what's important is understanding what the lesson is teaching, and then being able to reproduce it. I'm not necessarily worried about "fluency" or "mastery" in these bullet points, but certainly a good active knowledge of them, and being able to reproduce them well. That's a bit vague, I know.

As far as Polish is concerned, I intend to see how it goes over the next week or so with German and Irish, and determine how viable it is to do three languages at once. In theory, I do have plenty of time for all three, but it remains to be seen in practice.

I'll post my goals for this week in the next post.

[księżycowy]

Weekly goals for 05/18/2020 - 05/24/2020 (That's month/day/year, to be clear)

Gaelainn
☐ Learn the usage of particles with ro- in them (Pg. 47, TYI)
☐ Complete Exercises 16 & 17
☐ Review the audio from Lessons V and VI and work on listening comprehension

Deutsch
☐ Review numbers (especially higher order numbers, like hundreds and thousands)
☐ Review present tense forms of verbs introduced in Kapitel 1
☐ Review possessive pronouns
☐ Review vocabulary relating Exercises A1-A10.

[księżycowy]

Gaelainn
I read through the grammar section of the lesson, and then listened to the audio for Lesson V several times (with and without the book). Overall, I'm very pleased with my progress so far. In fact, I might get to more than I anticipated in my goals for the week.

Deutsch
I mostly reviewed exercises A1 & A2. These two exercises give some introductions from some various people. It was good because it allowed me to review wie, wo, wohin, was and welcher.

[księżycowy]

Ok, I guess yesterday was my unplanned free-day.

I was feeling a bit under the weather, so I didn't do any studying. I even skipped my Anki review.

But today I did some good work on both of my current languages! I've also decided to keep track of the time I work on my languages, just so I can keep track that I'm spending more than 5 minutes studying any of my languages a day.

Gaelainn
35 min.
I worked on the written exercises for Lesson VII. Well, half of them (exercises 16 and 17). Most of them were correct. I just forgot that ním is to wash and glanaim is to clean, which messed me up on one exercise. I also forgot that caithim is to spend. I also tried to add istigh to Exercise 17.10, but at least I was very happy to write sa bhaile mhór correctly in the same exercise.

Deutsch
29 mins.
I reviewed exercises A1 & A2. I also went through and completed exercises A3 - 6, A8 - 9, and A12 - 13. I moved a little faster than I had intended to, but that's what happens when you not only have prior experience with the language, but also the materials.