Aqus Dé hAoine

This is it. After all my networking and talking about learning Irish for years, it's finally becoming a reality.

I've finally got my degree out of the way. I've finally got a handle on my new job. And the house we bought six months ago is finally, finally coming under way. Weekends are usually taken up by that, but I work half days Friday so it begins.

Our first meeting to learn Irish Gaeilge.

I'm hoping to keep this blog to express my frustrations, triumphs, and quest[ion]s along the way.

I've been using Rosetta Stone, Irish level 1 sporadically since it came out. But every time I reformat the computer I end up not successfully saving my file and no one at Rosetta Stone has successfully told me how to export and import the file. So starting over and over again to keep the updates going has been frustrating.

Quest 1: Figure out how to import/export Rosetta Stone user file.

Upon going over some word lists, I stumbled upon a new website. Anyone needing to learn pronunciation for a word in a new language needs to know this website.

Forvo. "All the words in the world. Pronounced."

And what this brought about curiously, was a question I had known to think to ask.

My word is:

cuid éadaigh = clothes

Looking up clothes in google it was indeed "éadaigh". Had to add pronunciation of that to Forvo.

But the guidelines of Forvo stipulate not to add:

- Words with articles (e.g. a car, the car).
- Words with useless prepositions (e.g. at home).
- Conjugations, plurals, etc.
- Phrases, except for idioms.
- Words and names from other languages.
- Numbers in a series: 234, 235, 236...
- Words having no point of being pronounced together (e.g. blue building).

So, adding the word for clothes is fine. But the total translation I've received of cuid éadaigh I'm not sure should be added.

Upon more research from a forum ...

There's a simple trick I figured out to know if you need "cuid" or not. If you can say, in English, "I have a X" then in Irish you can say "mo X". "I have a car," for example, is fine, so "mo charr" is too. But you can't say "I have a clothes" or "I have a hair" (well you can but it doesn't mean the same thing as "I have hair") so you have to say "mo chuid éadaigh" and "mo chuid gruaige."

I think this is wonderful advice as cuid is not in the English language and therefor can not really be equivocal with anything solid in particular.

This brings me to the point of this blog post. Aqus Dé hAoine, as in we meet at the café, Aqus, in Petaluma on Friday.

Otherwise, I'm looking at an immersion event but don't want to post it until I sign up. I don't want to lose my spot, and I can't afford to pay yet!