Ireland needs to take a leaf from Wales' book, a big leaf.....

[Pufflette]

I think it is marvellous that the people of Cymru have been able to preserve & cultivate their native tongue. Irish Gaelic is tinkering on extinction and the Irish educational system is apparently the main culprit. My friend informed me that on a programme called "No B�arla" (meaning 'No English) on the Irish TV channel TG4 the presenter, Manchan Magan, went to Dublin's main shopping centre (St. Stephen's Green) and announced that if people came to a certain part of the centre they would get 10 Euros. Needless to say, according to my friend, very very few turned up. So well done Wales and please try harder Eire.

[froggequene]

Or it might even be teetering, so an Irish speaking presenter asks people, in Irish, to do something & they don't do it so therefore the Irish language is on the verge of extinction? If you've ever seen this presenter, you'd be reluctant do anything he asked

[Whickerman]

You're right of course. The problem is the way it's taught. It's compulsory and taught by rote. I took 15 years of Irish and 5 years of French - the French taught in a conversational method. I can still speak French 18 years on, but barely have a cupla focal of Irish.
And we all had to do the novel Peig in secondary school - that alone was enough to kill any interest in the language.
http://almostdalyblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/pei g.html

[delboy3]

In my 3 dozen visits to the Emerald Isle, I only once heard anyone talking Gaelic (apart from radio & TV), and that was in a backstreet pub in Connemara.

I am Irish descent and not one of my relatives could speak fluent Erse, despite it being drummed into them at school.

I once bought myself a Gaelic language course, but couldn't get past the first page. It is one of the most inpenetrable languages I know of.

However, fair play to anyone who gives it a go. Eire go brach!

[Loosehead]

The Irish are dead right, why waste time learning a dead language? I've been to Irelend lots of times and my brother lives there and iv'e never heard anyone speaking Gaelic.

I think the Welsh are wasting huge resources on the pointless and irrelevant language.

Learn something useful!

[LoftyLottie]

Agree with Loosehead. Sorry!

[beejaybee]

how can a language that`s existed for years be pointless ?? welsh is the native language of wales which is spoken by a huge amount of the population. around where i live more people speak welsh on a daily basis than english. and no, i do not live in a small community. even non-welsh speakers are chosing to send their children to welsh speaking school.

[Loosehead]

Nice leap Raggy, from dead language to slagging of a sports team, I'm impressed.

Beejay, it may be a local curiosity but it's a waste of Brain space for kids to learn it. If they wan't to learn a useful language then I'd go for Spanish or Manderin at least that can be used in other countries.

[LoftyLottie]

Again, I agree with Loosehead. If anyone wants to learn Welsh from an interest point of view then good luck but I don't see the point of children having to learn it at school. Better to improve their English skills and learn foreign languages that are useful to them. What is the advantage of learning Welsh?

The only time I ever heard the Welsh speak Welsh was when we went into Welsh pubs and they (knowing we were English) immediately stopped speaking English and changed to Welsh. As for all these Welsh road signs what a complete and utter waste of money.

[LoftyLottie]

I thought Mandarin was the main language of China. It is certainly being taught in some forward thinking schools now as being a very useful language to learn in view of Chinese importance in the world today.

[Loosehead]

Oh dear raggy, Mandarin is the language in the world with the most speakers. Your analogy with the Footballers is useful it indicates that more effort perhaps is needed on English rather than dead languages. Now what was that about clueless?

[Gromit]

I'm sure RAGGY ROMAN knows that Mandarin is spoken in China.

But Manderin isn't spoken by the Chinese.

[R1Geezer]

What a J Arthur you are Raggy, look mate I know you desparately sad that you ain't English but talking absolute b0wlocks in the midst of the real truth won't help. Loosey is correct. Tell you with a bit of training, get the chip off your shoulder you could pretent you're English, it'll be our little secret, I'm keep schtumm about it, ok?

[raysparx1]

Why do these questions always go off track and start arguments about how thick the English are? I live in North Wales, and trust me a lot of thick people here, Welsh and English, but what I don't and never will understand is why some Welsh People hate the English with a passion, My children went to Welsh speaking school and are both fluent in the language, but however well it does, their will always be more of the population of Wales not speaking Welsh than do. it is good that it survives but the mindless idiots that daub out the English names on road signs are just stupid, it costs Welsh people to have the signs cleaned, how thick is that?

[R1Geezer]

They hate the English because they are gutted that they so nearly where English themsleves, wouldn't that make you bitter?

[raysparx1]

Luckily R1 it really is a minority, I am a cockney and have always been made welcome up here, but the few that do the sort of stupid things they do, only end up costing Welsh people money, now that is thick.