Bus, Timpeallán and Beyond: Five Months Learning Irish

Hello…or should I say ‘Dia dhuit!‘?

My reason for learning Irish is relatively straightforward. My wife was born and raised just outside of Dublin, and I’ve always enjoyed languages, so when the opportunity arose, I thought — Why not?

I began learning Irish at the start of this year. The first week or so was Duolingo but I soon realized that I’d really love to connect with people in this language learning journey.

I found some opportunities locally, one of them being an Irish Immersion Weekend through University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Their Celtic Studies program holds this annually and my experience that weekend was invigorating! It was great to be surrounded by everyone else’s joy and hearing about their stories was inspiring. Along with a little more Irish, I came away from that weekend with a wealth of resources to facilitate my learning, more friends, and a lot of anticipation for the event next year! From there I found Two Rivers Gaelic – they are an organization based out of Albany, NY, and I enjoyed their classes very much.

Around this time I discovered Let’s Learn Irish. I signed up to be a Member and began attending the weekly comhrá (conversation practice). The Irish language community had been such a joy so far and the weekly comhrá with Let’s Learn Irish was more of that. After attending a few conversations and with some encouragement from a fellow learner, I signed up for the A2 Elementary class.

The A2 class was a bit of a learning curve at first. After getting some foundational knowledge under my belt, I was able to find a groove. Fast forward to today and I’m thriving! The teacher is spectacular and I eagerly look forward to the classes each week!

Another important discovery for me was a flash card program called Anki! While it’s not the most instinctive or user-friendly app, mainly due to its myriad of customizable elements, I’ve found Anki to be monumental based on how I learn and how easily it integrates naturally into my daily routines. It is a massive part of how I’ve been able to build my vocabulary so much in the past month and I’m looking forward to seeing the progress over time!

Additional resources that others may find helpful include Memrise and Mango Languages (potentially free via your local library), as well as Quizlet (a multifaceted studying app used by Let’s Learn Irish).

Recognizing My First Irish Word

My wife and I recently traveled to Ireland to visit family there so I was excited to see how having some Irish influenced my experience in the country.

After driving to O’Hare, flying seven hours, and debarking the plane, we made our way to customs. My eyes were darting around from one sign to another. Looking for the first words of Irish that I’d recognize.

Unsurprisingly, the more technical terminology used on airport signs isn’t something I’ve come across in my A1 or A2 learnings thus far, but I wasn’t discouraged! As my wife and I got our bags and went through customs I was on constant lookout for the first Irish word I’d recognize.

After greeting my in-laws, we started walking to the car, still no word of recognition… but then there it was! The first Irish word that I recognized – Bus!

Now, if you don’t know me, the tone of this might be hard to gauge. I assure you that I was thoroughly entertained by how it all unfolded. So I will happily retell this story to anyone willing to listen even though the ending is a little silly.

Irish in the Wild

Now that my first word sighting was out of the way, I was excited to see how I’d experience Ireland having a little bit more of the language.

Certain portions of road signs made a bit more sense being familiar with words like amach (exit) or Theas (South) and it was really exciting to have such a strong reaction to words that seemed less exciting to study.

If you’ve ever been to Ireland, you know there are a lot of roundabouts. Normally they’re something that don’t elicit any strong emotions (I love roadworks just as much as anyone else!) but I was overjoyed when I saw a relatively unassuming saying that contained the word timpeallán!

Now timpeallán was not a word that I knew outright. I knew that word timpeall could mean ‘around’ from one of my word games in the Drops app. From there I inferred timpeallán meant ’roundabout’ and I was giddy with excitement as we continued onward.

The rest of the trip continued in a spectacular fashion with destinations in Donegal such as Slieve League, Glenveagh National Park and Errigal. Throughout the few days we were in Donegal, we would see signs indicating that we were entering or leaving the Gaeltacht and saw that the Béarla started to disappear from signs, they were all as Gaeilge amháin – Irish only!

Back to America (and the books)

While this was not my first trip to Ireland, it was the only one where I had some Irish under my belt. It was really special to connect with people of all ages during my trip about my studies.

Some people recently finished their Leaving Cert (US equivalent to finishing high school), some had been out of school for years, and one in particular, my eighteen month old niece, was working on expanding her vocabulary. I added a few Irish words into the mix!

Many friends and family repeatedly said “Soon you’ll know more than me” but everyone surprised themselves with the cúpla focal (few words) they recalled and were able to share with me! My wife’s aunt, unbeknownst to me, was a Gaeilgeoir (Irish speaker) and a fluent one at that! While the Irish portion of our conversation was difficult to grasp at times due to my ability at the time, it sparked a special connection over our shared appreciation of the language.

So now it’s back to the books, classes, apps, worksheets, podcasts, and any other learning tools in anticipation of the next trip or opportunity to labhairt as Gaeilge – speak Irish!