Irish: Start Speaking Today! (Language 30)

Rating:
Summary: Language30, Irish
Review: I thought this was a very excellent course for getting started at learning Irish. I liked the fact that in most of the course each word or short phrase was said first in English, once, and then slowly, twice, and only twice, in Irish, with a pause between words. For beginning to learn Irish, I thought that the simple, easy -to - understand phonetic spellings of each Irish word in the booklet were preferrable to more exact, but harder to use phonetic symbols found in some courses. I think that Irish is difficult to learn to pronounce compared with Spanish, German or French, which I learned easily.
It was easy to keep the booklet coordinated with the tapes because each section of the course had a title and a theme, such as "food" and because everything on the casette was in the booklet in the same order, and everything in the book, except for the very useful phonetic spellings, was on the tape. With some language courses, it is very hard to keep the book and tape lined up with each other.
I think this course is well worth its price. It's an inexpensive, easy way for Irish people to get in touch with their roots. There is a short section of long phrases spoken at normal speed, too fast for me to learn from easily, but good for hearing what the Irish language really sounds like. There is even a little bit of lovely-sounding poetry recited in Irish.
After studying this little course, I found it much easier and quicker to learn from Micheal O' Siadhail's Learning Irish, 310-page book and 4-tape set, than before I studied from Language 30. Micheal O' Siadhail's program is faster-spoken with mostly longer phrases on the tape, and it includes precise phonetic symbols, and detailed explanations of grammar. Language 30 was helpful preparation for this more rigorous course.

Rating:
Summary: There are better courses to buy.
Review: If you are travelling to Ireland, and feel a need to learn just enough Gaeilge to get by, then this is a good course for you to try. The purpose of it is just to teach you phrases so that you could say enough in the language to, for instance, order a lager at a pub. These types of tapes are great if going to Italy, France, Germany etc., and there being a great need to know a bit in those particular languages. In Ireland, however, there is no need to learn Gaeilge. Everyone speaks English, but not everyone speaks Irish! You should have no trouble at all ordering your lager at a Rose&Crown Pub. This defeats the whole purpose of the course. If you are truly interested in learning Irish, there are better courses to buy. If you just want to impress a few Irish people with your phrases in their native tongue, then don't waste any more time reading me, and buy the tapes=)