Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Irish Language & Culture (Language Reference)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Caveat lector. Let the reader beware. Not the book you may be looking for.

One reviewer correctly diminishes this little guide for its lack (about ten pages) of attention to the Irish language itself (see my Listmania "Learning Irish Gaelic" for 39 other resources). The other reviewer celebrates how this pocket guidebook gave so much space to the Irish culture, largely through its Hibernicisms rendering into English often many terms and ideas derived directly from the Irish Gaelic. I therefore balance the one-star with the five-star ratings. It's not the book you might expect from the misleading title, but I did find, if you can put up with the relentlessly snarky tone adopted by so many of the Lonely Planet writers when telling us foreigners about how the natives are laughing at us, an array of witticisms and invective that no other printed source could likely provide for the non-linguist...and the clueless or the un-hip reader. Don't know exactly how useful this'd prove for many, but surely it'll lead to surprise or unexpected reactions from any Irish person you corner with these colorful and off-color effusions.

However, every culture should have its own book of such insider codes to turn the tables on each other in our global village, when tourists visit our own hometowns. Fair play to ye/yiz, as the Irish'd say themselves.

This had me giggle and reading pieces out to my husband who almost tore it out of my hands to read. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to see the reality of Irish modern Language and culture and Irish English. Although it does miss out on some things for a small book it does capture a lot of Ireland and the Irish. It was interesting to see how sometimes those phrases I take for granted are actually Irishisms.

It has a little bit with the Irish Language but most of the book is actually about English as spoken in Ireland. Most of the Irish/Gaeilge in the book is actually useful conversational Irish.

I would recommend this book to writers looking to capture modern Ireland and Irish people.

Judging by the title of this book, you would expect it to be about the Irish language. It's not. Only a meager 14 pages of the book deal with the irish language, and these fourteen pages are filled with errors. You'll find errors in the pronunciation, errors in the grammar and errors in the vocabulary.

If you're interested in the Irish language, I recommend you to have a look at a course such as Learning Irish or other books on the Irish language that keep the promise expressed in the title. This book certainly doesn't.

I bought the book on day nine of my Irish tour and was not sorry for it. I discovered it while browsing in Ballyferriter's museum bookshop. I was desperate to find something that would tell me how to pronounce the Irish language place names and phrases that I saw all over on road signs. Well, the book had a few pages on pronunciation which helped, but clearly were not fully adequate (and some reviewers are suggesting parts were wrong). Luckily, I found more complete information on my computer when I got home. But what really got me going were all the various phrases and terms in English that may be heard in informal speech in different parts of Ireland---colorful, often blue, but so funny. They reminded me of the things our first B&B hosts were sprinkling into their speech, which I had found so delightful. I considered it a bargain to be able to take it home with me in black and white in this petite little book (about the size of a pocket phrasebook). That, along with memories of the various dialects I heard, and I felt like I got a good Irish sound track to take with me, as well.