So today I actually sat down and did something. I've gotten the "Practice Makes Perfect" series (as well as the Uso del español one), and decided to start at the preliminary chapter of the vocabulary book and chapter 1 of "Complete Grammar". I did all the exercises in those, and did well when I checked my answers. I'm not sure how much I really like practice makes perfect, as they give you some things with no explanation (for example, giving
le da un ambrazo a su amigo without explaining the
le) which frustrates me when I miss it later on. But I'll stick with it for another chapter or two -- definitely can't hurt as review, and I can always turn to the Schaum's book I have as well (which I'll probably do for more reinforcement). I also don't like their focus on Latin America, though it makes sense given the books are marketed for those in the USA; I just wish they'd give me some practice with
vosotros!
That said, I'm not sure if I'm going to keep with chapter 1 > chapter 2 like my original plan was with the complete grammar. I've covered the present tense already, and know when to use it well enough. I think I'll move on to the chapter which distinguishes preterite and imperfect just for some additional practice, then move up to the future for the same reason. Then I'll start the conditional chapter, which is where the B1.1 book I bought in Malaga starts. I'm also going to be going through my Spanish book from college to fill in some gaps, like placement of the object clitics in relation to the verb, etc.
I didn't do any listening, however, which I seriously need to do. And I need to find a tutor on iTalki and perhaps set up something. I have found one from Malaga, as I think I mentioned, but I've just been procrastinating on setting things up. I do, however, have one question that I haven't been able to get answered to my satisfaction --
when is the simple present used as a progressive. I asked a native-speaking acquaintance on Discord about it, and he said go with the gerund form most of the time, but then PMP used the simple present; I mentioned it to him, and he said he definitely would've leaned towards not using the progressive as a translation. The sentence was
Louis llega a la puerta -- Louis is arriving at the gate/door, which he would've parsed as 'Louis arrives at the door', and not with the progressive. He also knows linguistics, so I'm inclined to listen to him, but I dunno. Is it something that has changed that quickly in Spanish, perhaps? I also really need to get my alveolar trill down. I just can't do it, though I can do the uvular one and other ones! It's quite frustrating, and I'm putting off improving the rest of my pronunciation until I can do that. Any tips would be appreciated there, as well.
And, while I haven't read any more in
An Béal Beo, I did read a book called
Colourful Phrases in Irish by Micheál Ó Conghaile. It was an interesting list of Irish idioms and was an entertaining short read. I'm definitely going to have to incorporate some in use of the language; they're quite entertaining. Perhaps I'll share some later, it's on Scribd afterall
I still want to share some of
An Béal Beo, however. Unfortunately, none of it relates to star-names this time, but the times of the day.
Tómas Ó Máille wrote:An chéad tráth a bhí ann an mhaidin (Laid. matutina), timpeall is a sé a chlog. Trí huaire ina diaidh bhí an teirt (Laid. tertia hora) timpeall a naoi a chlog. Idir sin agus an meán lae bhí an t-eadra ... Timpeall is a deich nó leathuair tar éis a deich, atá an t-eadra.
Tar éis an mheáin lae tagann an trathnóna (tráth-nóna = nōna hōra, Laid.), i.e. an naoú huair tar éis a sé. Ionann sin ó cheart agus a trí a chlog. Trí huaire ina dhiaidh sin bhí easparta ag an sé a chlog. Feasgar an focal atá in Albain air; 'bia an fheasgair' atá acu ar bia deireadh lae.
Trí huaire ina dhiaidh sin aríst bhí coimpléid, i.e. ag a naoi a chlog. Ina dhiaidh sin bhí iarmhéirí ag a dó dhéag san oíche. Midnocht ainm eile a bhí ar an tráth céanna. Bhíodh ar na manaigh éirí arís ar a trí a chlog ar maidin. Tiughnáir a bhí ar an tráth sin, i.e. an tráth deiridh(?)
N.B. My translation is going to use military time, just to make it more specific. The actual text uses a 12-hour clock.
Tómas Ó Máille, trans. Galaxyrocker wrote:
The first period was an mhaidin (Latin. matutina), around 06:00. Three hours after that was the teirt (Latin tertia hora), around 09:00. Between that and midday was an t-eadra ... Around 10:00 or 10:30 is "an t-eadra".
After midday comes the trathnóna (tráth-nóna = nōna hōra, Latin), i.e. an ninth hour after 06:00. That is correctly at 15:00. Three hours after that easparta was at 18:00. Feasgar is the word in Scotland for it; 'food of the feasgair' is what they call the last meal of the day.
Three hours after that again was coimpléid, i.e. at 21:00. After that was iarmhéirí at 00:00. Midnocht was another name for the same period. The monks used to have to rise again at 03:00. Tiughnáir was the name given to this time, i.e. the last period of time(?)
It's quite interesting to see how Irish traditionally divided up time, and to think how many of these words have fallen out of use. It's also no surprise that so many of these words came from Latin, either as a direct borrowing ( .i. maidin, teirt) or as a calque ( .i. trathnóna). I am interested in how many of these would still be understood in the modern langauge. Obviously
maidin and
trathnóna are both used, but the latter now has a meaning stretching from after-noon until the end of evening; I once heard it said it's
trathnóna anytime between 12:00 and dark, when it finally turns to
oíche. Notice how
that word was not mentioned at all by Ó Máille in this section. There's another section right after it, where he gets more specific, where he does mention
oíche, which pretty much is full dark. I might have to quote that one at some point, but it's longer and I don't want to translate the entire thing, really. Sorry y'all, as it is super interesting how they divided up the day.
One thing I did realize is that, shortly after reading this, I started noticing hte word
easparta in
Ag caint linn féin, that I just finished reading. So that one was known by Joe Steve, at least, and it's likely that it would still be recognized by at least the older group of Gaeltacht natives. Quite fun!
Other than that, I've just been doing my normal chatting with friends in irish via text. Sadly, not much voice practice, which sucks as I really need to work on my pronunciation. I asked someone from /r/languagelearning who I know has tricks to work on pronunciation how to improve, and he suggested finding someone with a strong Connemara accent (easily done, thanks Mairtín Tom Sheáinín!) and shadowing them for 5 minutes at a time while recording yourself. Then struggle through it and see where you sound off and try to mimic him better. Since there's a decent backlog of MTS's podcasts from his radio show, as well as from the TV show he hosts,
Comhrá, I think I'll get started with that as soon as I can find the discipline.
