Comments on: Irish Proficiency Test

By: ebby

ebby — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 13:48:18 +0000

yeha, I guess everybody has different ‘tricks’ that work for them – especially in relation to language.

I’ve been actively working on my written Irish for the last few years, though, which helps a lot. But I didn’t thinik my grammar was so good at all. I was pleasantly surprised with my result

By: maca

maca — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 13:30:53 +0000

I always get suspicious when people start with “the trick with…” because these tricks never work for me
You’re right though Ebby, it’s a mistake to think in English what you need to write in Irish. Much better to just have a stab at it as Gaeilge.

By: ebby

ebby — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 13:09:42 +0000

the trick with writing in Irish is not to think of what you want to say in English and then translate, but rather try and write in Irish first, and the translate back if you need to. I’ve been trying to do this to improve my Irish. Of course sometimes you just don’t know the Irish word for something, and think of it in English, and have to work the other way around. But it’s easier I suppose if you speak Irish with any sort of frequency.

Thanks for the link back, by the way.

By: United Irelander

United Irelander — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 16:23:36 +0000

Uh-oh! I got 46%!

My Irish has certainly deteriorated. Alot of those were guesses!

By: maca

maca — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 09:47:15 +0000

Just tried the test, got 95/150, 63%. Though, being honest, I had to guess quite a few. In the 4 sections I got 4, 6, 4, 2 questions wrong.

By: maca

maca — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 09:17:28 +0000

I hope you poked them in the eye and told them to shut the heck up?

By: Gerry O'Sullivan

Gerry O'Sullivan — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 09:06:42 +0000

Incidentally, I have similar problems with French. I can read French, no probs and hold a conversation. But any time I have to write something in French to send to one of our suppliers, I run it by one of the French work-experience students we have here. They usually fall off the chair laughing.

By: maca

maca — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 08:34:03 +0000

If you can manage to understand that much Irish i’d say it wouldn’t take too much work before you’d be able to write it again. My dad (ex-Irish teacher) reckons the key is in reading Irish i.e. read lots and you’ll learn it in no time.
I wish I had retained that much Irish but I basically gave up after Inter Cert.

By: Gerry O'Sullivan

Gerry O'Sullivan — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 07:58:49 +0000

One of the difficulties I have is translating from English to Irish. I find that I can read passages in Irish, or listen to Nuacht, and at least have a good idea of what it’s about. But if I was to try to take a paragraph in English and translate it into Irish, it would take me hours to do, and I wouldn’t have a hope without having a focl�ir to hand.

By: maca

maca — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 05:41:15 +0000

Maith an fear a Gerry! That’s an excellent score I reckon. I’ll have to try it again tonight, it was too late last night when I tried it (that’s my excuse anyway )