Over the next ten days we’re running a special Twitter campaign to get you speaking the basics of Irish through daily tweets and our One Minute Irish podcast. You will join Eoin as he teaches you the basics of the language and before you know it you’ll be able to greet people, talk about yourself and say that you’re learning Irish. There are around 80,000 speakers of Irish and it’s one of the official languages of the European Union.
One important thing you should know is that there are a number of different accents in Irish and some words will sound different in different parts of the country. Take, for example, the phrase for “hello”: Dia duit. In some parts of Ireland this is pronounced as “jeea ditch”, while in other areas it’s more like “gheea gwit” or “ghee a ghwuch”. Eoin’s uses the dialect from Donegal but as a teacher in Dublin he speaks a neutral, standard dialect. All types of Irish are spoken on the media and all Irish speakers will understand you when you use the words and phrases you learn in One Minute Irish!The key message here is summed up in the Irish expression: Is fearr Gaeilge bhriste ná Béarla cliste – “Broken Irish is better than clever English”!
Interestingly, although there are only 80,000 native speakers of Irish, there are many more learners of Irish than native speakers. 1.4 million people claim to be fluent having learned the language. You can join these 1.4 million learners starting on Wednesday 7th May and following the tweets between Wednesday 7th and Friday 16th, and you’ll be ready to celebrate St Patrick’s day speaking Irish! Make sure you’re following @radiolingua on Twitter to see our daily tweets.
We’ve combined our popular One Minute Languages courses into a bundle and are making these available for a hugely reduced price. Each course normally costs £5 (French, Greek, Italian, Japanese and Mandarin are £10 as they include additional bonus items), but we’re offering the entire One Minute Languages library for the reduced price of £37 (+VAT). You can learn the basics of sixteen languages for less than the price of a coffee* per language!
Topics covered include:
saying hello and goodbye
basic words including yes, no, please, thank you
saying your name and asking other people what they’re called
talking about language – say that you’re learning the language and that you speak a little
counting 1-10
asking people how they’re feeling and answering the question yourself
other common phrases including happy birthday, good luck, I love you
If you’d like to be able to communicate in basic Catalan, Danish, French, Gaelic, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Luxembourgish, Mandarin, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Turkish then click here to take advantage of this offer or view the whole range of One Minute Languages available individually.
*What’s all this about “less than the price of a coffee”?! Well, a Venti Cappuccino in Starbucks in the UK costs £2.65, and we’ve reduced the price of each course to £2.31. Obviously a coffee is priced differently depending on where you purchase it, but we think this is a good deal anyway!
Happy St Patrick’s day from the Radio Lingua Network. In addition to launching our brand new One Minute Norwegian podcast today we also have a special recording from Eoin of One Minute Irish fame (currently#1 Education podcast in Ireland!) which will teach you how to say “Happy St Patrick’s day” in Irish! And if a pint of Guiness isn’t your thing, all this week you can get 25% off in the store on any of our products by using the coupon code stpatrick.
In this final lesson of this stage of the course you’ll learn useful phrases such as “Merry Christmas”, “Happy Birthday” and “I love you” in the language.
In lesson 07 you’ll learn to say that it’s nice to meet someone and by the end of this lesson you’ll also be able to ask them to help you develop your language skills further.
In lesson 06 you’ll learn to give your name and to ask other people what they’re called, a crucial step in making friends with native speakers and thereby improving your language skills!
In lesson 05 of One Minute Irish you’ll continue to impress your Irish-speaking friends by learning to say that you’re learning Irish. By the end of this lesson you’ll also be able to say that it’s quite difficult!
Having learned to say that you speak a little Irish in lesson 03, the chances are that Irish speakers will be so delighted to hear you speaking Irish they’ll start talking to you in fast Irish. In lesson 04 of One Minute Irish you’ll be learning the crucial phrase “I don’t understand”.
In lesson 03 of One Minute Irish you’ll learn to say that you can speak a little Irish. This in itself will guarantee to impress native Irish speakers!
In lesson 02 of One Minute Irish you’ll be learning some useful words which will come in very handy when you’re trying out your Irish skills with Irish-speaking friends or in Ireland: firstly you’ll learn the natural answer to the phrase Dia Duit. You’ll also learn the words for “please” and “thank you”.
Dia duit! Is mise Eoin – my name is Eoin and welcome to One Minute Irish. In this podcast I’m going to be teaching you Gaeilge, the Irish language. The great thing about this language course is that you’ll be learning all you need to know in 60 seconds! Yes, each one-minute language lesson will equip you with just enough Irish to help you get by in lots of situations either on holiday or on a business trip to Ireland, or just to impress your Irish-speaking friends and colleagues.
Our course will be starting very soon. In the meantime, for more information, you can visit our website on www.oneminutelanguages.com. Slán go fóill!
RT @wispywinds: @emmamwoolley I like the podcast coffee break french. You can listen to it over time and individual episodes aren't supe ... 2012/04/04
For Spanish learners there's a new Q&A Spanish out now. http://t.co/3VpOS6G4 Subjunctive and llevar + time phrases :) 2012/04/03
@harlemlibrarian Hadn't realised that this was a problem. The feeds are now on http://t.co/NKhTnGQB instead - use http://t.co/Z6XXIJhv 2012/04/03
Over the next ten days we’re running a special Twitter campaign to get you speaking the basics of Irish through daily tweets and our One Minute Irish podcast. You will join Eoin as he teaches you the basics of the language and before you know it you’ll be able to greet people, talk about yourself and say that you’re learning Irish. There are around 80,000 speakers of Irish and it’s one of the official languages of the European Union.
We’ve combined our popular One Minute Languages courses into a bundle and are making these available for a hugely reduced price. Each course normally costs £5 (French, Greek, Italian, Japanese and Mandarin are £10 as they include additional bonus items), but we’re offering the entire One Minute Languages library for the reduced price of £37 (+VAT). You can learn the basics of sixteen languages for less than the price of a coffee* per language!
