Whelp, I didn't get great sleep last night, what with the pain and trauma from the procedure (I am hamming it up slightly), but I feel I have enough mental acuity to talk at least in brief about two acquisitions I got yesterday when I got back on campus.
I was delighted to find the two volumes of Peig Sayer's sayings and stories and the volume of Bab Feirtéar's stories in my mail slot! I figure I'll give my first impressions for any other interested peoples out there.
-I'll start with
Ó Bhéal an Bhab, collected by Almqvist and Ó Cathasaigh from Bab Feirtéar:
The book has a collection of 19 stories ranging in length from a few half a page (story 4) to nine pages long (story 6). All of the stories have accompanying audio on two audio cds. In addition, the (auto?)biographical introduction has a recording as well. There are also three
aguisíní (appendixes) that accompany stories 13, 14 and 18), which seem to add to the story. Unfortunately at this stage in my Irish learning journey I can't exactly say for sure what the purpose of the
aguisíní are.
There are no accompanying English translations for any of the stories, so I would probably recommend this for an intermediate learner (B1-2), or a courageous upper beginner (A2). There are notes, but they seem to mostly to be of a literary nature, rather than of a linguistic/language learning nature. Often citing other folkloric sources and the like. All of the book is
as Gaeilge, with no
Bearla to be found (so if you can't understand what I just wrote, this book definitely isn't for you
). Personally, I can very much envision using this book once I've completed the TY course and started getting comfortable with some other reading material (such as the other two books I'm about to discuss below). I definitely love that there are recordings accompanying the stories!
-Next is the two volume collection of stories and sayings by Peig Sayers, collected (and translated!) by Almqvist and Ó Héalaí:
The full title of the first volume is
Peig Sayers 1: Labharfad le Cách / I will speak to You All and the second volume is
Peig Sayers 2: Níl Deireadh Ráite / Not the Final Word. Just to avoid any confusion.
These two volumes are very similar in scope and format as the Bab Feirtér collection above. Volume 1 has 29 transcripts of recordings made by various recording studios (mostly the BBC and Radio Éireann/RTÉ), and volume two contains 21 more transcripts. What is particularly interesting is that this is not just confinded to stories. Some of the transcripts/recordings relay biographical information, legends, prayers, information about the sources of her stories, sometimes they are exchanges between the recorder and Peig (in the sense that Peig is asked about something and they discuss it). The transcripts vary in length from a few lines (not even half a page) to a few pages. Most are only about 2-3 pages long, but a few are around 5 pages long. And in at least one transcript/recording Peig speaks in English! It's one of the shorter ones.
What I think is most valuable about this collection is the addition of English translations of all of the recordings/transcripts. the commentary are similar to the commentary in the Bab Feirtéar collection; mostly on literary topics, such as folkloric sources and themes. I could see this collection as one of the first pieces of literature/reading/listening I use out side of TY. It's very handy to have the English translations to compare and help with understanding the Irish. I am disappointed that the analysis is of a literary nature, but I don't fault that. Almqvist was in that particular field, so it's no surprise. I was hoping for something more linguistic/language learning styled, but the English translations do go a long way. I will also note that the QR codes do take you to the recordings as posted on Soundcloud by the publisher, but, at least as far as I could tell last time I checked on my mobile, there were not recordings for every transcript present. I'll check again, and it's that's still the case I'll enquire with the publisher.
[Having said all of that, I think I would like to take the ill-advised step of getting back, formally, into studying Irish (and maybe Japanese
soonish, but that's not what this log is for). Even if I steal a page from dEhiN's book and primarily just use Anki (or Memrise, as I do still recall the "course" I was starting to make over there) as my primary learning tool. I think I'll begin splitting the audio apart from the TY course in the near future (be that today, tomorrow, next week, next month, even ever I get the chance). I'll also continue with reconstructing my Anki deck to at least lesson 16. I'll probably add the sentences and audio to Anki (and maybe Memrise, if it's not too much work to do both, which it probably is
).]
EDIT: I also got the used copy of
Seanghaeilge gan Dua I ordered as well! Now I just need to learn some Irish so I can have fun learning Old Irish through Modern Irish! The book condition is pretty good too, just about how the seller described it, so I'm pleased with that as well!