Customer Reviews

Quick & Simple Irish - No Books! No Classes! Totally Audio!

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

First, I have to confess that I belong to those who prefer to
learn a language by reading it - not just by listening. But if
you want to learn by listening this is indeed the course for you.
It is comprehensive and easy to use and you will be able to
communicate in Irish after fulfilling it.

As someone who has lived in Ireland and speak rather fluent Irish I would like to point out that the other reviewers are absolutely right when they say that this course teaches Munster Irish. It is one of the three major Irish dialects and as good a choice as any other dialect. Considering the fact that there already exits courses in the other dialects I'd say it's a wise choice to use Munster Irish. Besides, most famous Irish writers came from Munster and wrote in Munster Irish.

Since Brad has had some comments about Munster Irish I'd like to correct them. Munster Irish is NOT a minor dialect, it is still a living language which is widely taught both in schools and in courses for adults and foreigners. What Brad terms "Connaught Irish" (sic!) is a number of different dialects. A course could very well be based upon one of these dialect (The excellent course "Learning Irish" is just that) but they are neither more nor less correct or appropriate. I've lived in Ireland, both in areas where Munster Irish and Cois Fhairrge Irish (=what Brad calls "Connaught Irish") are spoken and I can promise that there are no problems with mutual comprehension, nor would the Irish speakers in these two areas understand Brad's comments about Munster.

All three major Irish dialect (Munster, Connacht and Ulster) are equal, and there are courses in all of them. Pimsleur is a conversational course in Munster Irish and it does a pretty good job of giving the beginner a basic foundation of Irish.

I just finished listening to and learning the 8 lessons in the Pimsleur Irish Basic Course. It is fantastic. Like all the Pimsleur programs, they take plenty of time to help you with pronunciation. (You'll need it with Irish.)Yet, they still move along quickly, teaching you more and more each lesson. The only downer was when I reached the end of Tape 8 and realized there was no more. I ENCOURAGE ANYONE WHO LIKES THIS COURSE TO WRITE SIMON & SCHUSTER AND ENCOURAGE THEM TO PRODUCE A FULL 30-LESSON COMPREHENSIVE IRISH COURSE. Irish is a fascinating language, and this is, without a doubt, the best way to tackle learning it.

The pros and cons of these tapes have been sufficiently enumerated by the reviewers who've posted here. What I want to add is that the "First Course" version (a green cover, no Celtic Cross, more rectangular, whereas the Quick & Simple version is in a square white box) has not 4 CDs but 5. This 5th, called a User's Manual, explains how Dr. Paul Pimsleur developed his method of language learning and then introduces the rationale and set-up that the lessons will follow. Why mention this? On the 4CD newer version, it seems that no orientation is given. I happened to find the "Short Course" version, and having heard the 5th disc first, it greatly eased my expectations when I cued up the first lesson. Naturally, when you're beginning to study a language where for an English learner, Irish orthography differs so much from the spoken sounds, further jitters caused by not knowing why the Pimsleur method eschews texts only worsen one's readiness to learn Irish by imitation and example, as done here.

I leave the Munster dialect debate aside; I think that having speakers in all three major regional dialects would have been preferable, to condition one's ear to how Irish is spoken in the media. Now that you can get RnG feeds at your computer, hearing "real" Irish in its native setting is possible anywhere. The use of these tapes, I suppose, is to make you wrap your tongue and clear your throat around strenuous attempts to keep trying to speak out loud a bit of Irish. Granted, by the end of 8 hours you'll be able to hold a rudimentary conversation, but if you know that the course only aims at this limited ability, perhaps you'll better be able to judge if it's the kind of learning aid that works for you. These tapes are in many public libraries too, by the way. For eight hours of drill, they're cheaper than any tutor and for learners like me who get too nervous to speak well when put on the spot in live settings, these tapes offer a more encouraging environment to learn in.

I agree with many users: not having the text in front of me was far more a disadvantage than a help, since I learn best by "seeing" in my mind's eye the spelling of the words that I am speaking. Not being able to do this with Pimsleur does put stress on the learner, but if used in conjunction with other tapes and books, it does force you to try to enunciate, however imperfectly, some approximation of spoken Irish. I kept figuring out after being found wrong by the "answer" on the tape that only belatedly could I match the phrase said to the my delayed realization of how the phrase would be written. You have to repeat lessons, therefore, to get the value out of these tapes. That User's Guide 5th disc tells you that competency is when you're getting around 80% of the answers right, and I know that nearly no honest learner just starting out is likely to score this all the way through eight hours--especially given the dialectal distinctions between the two voices heard and articulation hurdles you must jump.

True, however drastically the words as written differ from those spoken in Irish, not having a sense of how "ca bhfuil" is said vs. spelled will not help any learner wishing to set a solid foundation in Irish. Thus, I would take on these tapes only after having a basic foundation in at least having read in book form the phrases generally employed at this level of conversation. Their one advantage: any tapes goading you to say something out loud make you less of a passive learner overconfident that simply looking at dialogues in a primer will push you to fluency.

I do wish that the makers would make a series by Pimsleur with advanced levels of Irish for conversation; this type of speaking practice beyond the few phrases taught here is a sorely needed product that outside Ireland itself is still often far from readily available on CD for higher-level but still beginning learners.

I found this product to be useful, but you need to know 2 things that I did not prior to my buying it.

1. It is the Munster dialect of Irish (one of the 3 primary dialects), and uses some words which not in the other 2 dialects(but are widely used in Munster Irish). The pronunciation of several other words are unique to Muster as well.

2. There is NO TEXT WHATSOEVER. No transcript. Nothing but the 4 tapes. I contacted the publisher, and they told me that it is a violation of the Pimsleur method to provide any text whatsoever. Hmmm. Okay. If you say so.

But I did like the style of going over the material again and again. Drilling the phrases. This process is lacking in the other Irish language products I have purchased. And I have purchased just about every one on the market.

I bought this CD because it looked like the best of my choices that were available at the bookstore at the time. I had searched for online resources and found that some great resources had disappeared on the web. I wanted to learn fluent Irish and I thought this would be my introduction.

My stumbling block came when I was trying to comprehend the huge number of variations on the dialects as represented by the online pronunciation guides and as spoken on these tapes. I was not able to finish the tapes primarily as a result of the anseo and ansin discrepencies spoken on this set. Every other resource I had found stated that "se" or "si" made the "s" sound slender and consequently should be pronounce "sh" but Pimsleur pronounces it as a broad "s".

Well, I probably wouldn't have worried much about this dialect variation, except that I was wanting to be able to read Irish as well as speak it. Know that if this CD is your only resource, you will learn to speak some Irish and understand a bit of some spoken Irish, but you will graduate from Pimsleur not being able to read a single street sign.

I spent a good deal of my time trying to hunt down the words that I was hearing on the CD, and just the simple confusing "anseo" or "anso" (the latter is the expected spelling from the pronunciation on the CD) rendered me lost and confused. I have just picked up Ó Sé's book and have discovered that what was sounding like "an Troid Voor" on Pimsleur is actually spelled "an Tsráid Mhór", which if you see it spelled will help in the pronunciation greatly.

My biggest hurdle came with the 8 ways that Dia dhuit could be pronounced by comparing the online pronunciations with this CD. Again, Ó Sé's book cleared up my confusion with the explanation on the slender "d" and the slender "t" and how that becomes the "j" and "tch" sounds in some dialects. This CD will not provide any understanding of the subtle nuances of the language. If you are an English speaker learning Irish, you will come away from this CD with a strong English accent.

And, to clear up the most confusing hurdle, the speakers on this set never call the Irish language "Gaeilge" but instead are saying "Gaoluinn", which is the Munster variation.

Yes, I want to see what I am learning, not just hear and repeat. A language is both written and spoken, and any course should provide for both. You should see some of the words I came up with trying to write out what Pimsleur's performers were saying on the CD! I am glad to have moved to a primarily written course after struggling through this CD.

I bought the UNabridged CD.

The tapes are clear, and easy to learn from, but only for those who learn easily by just listening. For those who, like me, learn better by seeing and hearing, the lack of a text is disappointing. The tapes are Munster Irish, not the standard language. As courses based on the living language - from any of the 3 main dialects - are becoming more popular, this should not be a problem. The pronunciation is no more different from the standard than O Sidhail's "Learning Irish", a very popular course using Connacht Irish, or the "Irish On Your Own" course which uses Ulster Irish. Munster Irish was until recently the most widely learnt outside the Gaeltacht areas, so most Irish speakers would understand the pronunciation used on these tapes. It is similar in most respects to the pronunciation used in 'standard' courses such as "Teach yourself Irish" by O Se. The main problem with this set is that it leaves you knowing very little Irish - a longer course is needed.

In one of the other reviews above, someone commented on the over repeating of words--if you are like me, you need exactly that. I really liked the constant reviewing of words in this course. Many courses introduce a word and then it's never seen or heard again--that's silly. Using that method, you will remember that word for all of 10 seconds. You've got to keep using the word to remember it--these CD's do a nice job of that.

Overall, I liked the course. My complaints are: There really should be, at least an optional written manual. Seems kind of silly to ignore the written Irish language--it puts you at quite a disadvantage when you want to "see" what you've learned. The other complaint is that it is too short and brief--what's there is great, but it would be nice to continue with about 30 more CD's!

I've noticed the dialect differences with other courses, mentioned by some of the other reviewers. I find the dialect on these CD's to be very pleasant (pretty) compared to that spoken on the other courses. I wish they were all in this dialect!

Overall, I think these CD's are worth the nominal cost. They are nice to pop in every once in a while after going through them, just for review.

I work at the TX Renaissance Festival; my character is a bossy Irishwoman. I thought it would add to my character's personality to be able to speak and understand a little bit of the language. While it has always been relatively easy for me to learn to read foreign languages (except for Irish, mind you), trying to speak and understand spoken language has been difficult, since I am one of those people who needs to *see* and *read* what I am learning. This set of CDs is the best set I have discovered yet for learning the Irish language (or any language): you learn bit by bit, like a child learns the language. Other tapes repeat a phrase and then go right on to the next new phrase. This set of CDs not only takes each phrase and teaches it to you word-by-word, but throughout the entire program, it reviews what you learned in the previous lessons. Very helpful for me! By the time this year's renfaire comes around, I will be able to speak *and* understand basic Irish, regardless of the dialect! Not only will that be great for my Irish character, but I have every intention of travelling to Ireland one day, and these CDs will have helped me overcome my basic fear of trying to understand what I am hearing by the locals! Pimsleur rocks! Irish rocks!

An excellent and effective way of learning to speak and understand. Very inexpensive - worth much more. As another reviewer said, a 30-lesson course would be great. This 8 lesson course is very worthwhile, but limited in scope. I could have done without the last lesson's endless repetition of phrases for asking a lady to lunch, and "my place", "your place", or "the hotel", and instead would have preferred a simple listing of many more words, with pronunciation. Things like car, plane, bus, pub, shop, music, school, book... basic things, so we could then say "Where is the pub?", When is the bus?" A few useful phrases like "My name is ___", and "How do you say ____" And, as others have said, a written guide to go along with it would be very helpful - just a list of the words in English and Irish, to have a clue what they look like written out. Still, it's well worth getting, and going through several times.

The product does not come with a transcript, and none is commercially available. However a transcript is available from New England Conradh na Gaeilge... enter gaeilge dot org in a browser. Or enter "Transcript" "Irish" and "Pimsleur" as search terms. You should also be able to find it on e mule and soul seek with the same terms.