Annette

You might be better than you think you are! This past summer as well as the year before, I was in Germany. I have had many people very amazed at my language ability and found this to really boost my confidence.

It's hard for some of us, but let's get speaking

Anyway, the real point of my post is; when I get back to Ireland, I intend to go full force into learning Irish. Like 95% of Irish secondary school leavers, I have promptly forgotten the language I was forced to learn for 12 years. And despite the general sentiment of anti-learning Irish and Irish only being a language for purists, quite gung-ho nationalists and very old folk living in the darkest depths of rural Gaelige-speaking Ireland (as of course I'm sure you're aware of!), I want to learn it again. Fluently this time, and through the sense of my own enjoyment and ambition to learn what's supposed to be my true mother tongue. I have always wanted to learn Irish, and found that that was something I just couldn't do in secondary and primary school, in that particuarly way it was taught. Perhaps if I knew of the Benny Polyglot method of learning languages things would have been different

Now, I should just say now I have NO intention of getting you to give opinions on the fairly awkward and exasperatingly endless arguement surrounding a nation's inability (and refusal) to speak it's own language, despite it being in the national cirriculum, don't worry! All I want to know is how YOU did it? Seeing Irish as one of your languages, and seeing the videoblog of yours where you went to the Donegal for Seachtain na Gaeilge (Irish week for anyone reading this unfamiliar with Irish), I assume you tackled learning it the same way you tackled the others; through complete immersion for so many months (unless you actually went to a gaelscoil or kept up diligently practicing Irish since you left secondary school, in which case you need only reply to this comment with that and save yourself reading the rest!) When I ever bring up the subject amongst friends, it's the same lament that I have from everyone; I WISH I could learn it but I don't know where or how… (or simply “I hate Irish and I never want to hear/speak it again, regrettably). Perhaps then you have the answer as to how I can learn again!

If you did take your usual immersion route to learn Irish at the level you have now, where did you go, where everyone speaks irish? How long were you there for? I haven't been able to find any record of your adventure learning Irish like I have for your other languages.

I'm already making plans next year to start learning though; when I finish my erasmus and get back to college in Ireland, I want to start an Irish house; have only Irish as our medium of communication in the house, except of course when the typical English-speaking guest pays a visit, and when we have to go to our lectures through English. I have found enthusiastic volunteers as housemates, one with Irish as their native language. It'll be like another Erasmus! So I do know exactly the kind of frustrating beginnings I'd be up for with understanding the housemates, adhering to the Benny Polyglot method naturally like I've been doing here in Spain

But besides doing that, do you have any advice as to what else I could do, perhaps based on what you did? Do you have any idea where there is media available in Irish? Books, films, things like that? Or did you spend three solid months in a house in Ireland watching TG4?

Many thanks, and I LOVE the blog, needless to say!
Helen

That's why I try to “filter” my new “friends” in the given languages. It takes time, but if I don't have any interest in the person, why bother? The language itself won't give a common ground in the long run. I have to be interested IN the person, in his/her life, way of living. Why bother if not? After all, as Benny put it too, one learns a language to meet new AND interesting people which he/she shares ideas and has common way of thinking.

If you meet the right person, you won't feel embarrassed, what is more, you have a motivation to know more about the person! And from that point, you don't learn the language, but you are making friends – a solid language knowledge just the “byproduct”.

I've already made some friends through meetup.com and other sites (internet does help a lot to find people! ), and they are not only language partners but rather friends. So I think, this helps a lot.

I am pretty sure that several people will mention my passing comment about “pure input”, so I'll expand on that now.

Rather than embracing your shyness and very slowly acquiring a language by yourself, it's better to just get out there and meet people! Believe it or not, I was extremely shy when I started travelling (an all boys school and an inactive social life at university will do that to you), so I know the preference to try to magically become fluent in the comfort of your home. This is a pipe-dream though. The only way to get over shyness is by socialising more. It's a harder process than staying at home with a TV and listening to your ipod audio course, but as I said in this post, language is social. This is especially true for Latin languages, where cultures are generally much less shy than ours, and you would have the cultural as well as the linguistic issue when moving there, so getting over shyness is doubly necessary.

Being self-concious about your accent is a non-issue with other non-native learners, that's why I suggest practising with them so prominently in this post, and leaving native conversations for when you get over the confidence barrier, which you will with enough practise

I'm not saying to abandon input methods, but that they should be combined with two-way communication; the basis for actual communication. No matter how much you listen to, or how much you learn, you will still have that barrier of confidence to get over if you have never spoken.

My German understanding was quite good thanks to my 5 years of studies in school, but I was too shy to speak when I was there because of absolute lack of experience in trying; I basically may as well have not learned anything in school, since nothing would come out whenever I opened my mouth, despite understanding well and all the hard work I had put in. I could understand announcements and the TV, but I couldn't actually have a basic conversation with people. Even after 6 living months in Spain, I still wasn't speaking any Spanish until I decided to force myself to really try.

To this day my German is still at a “good inactive level”, but I simply never speak it, despite so many opportunities. This is because I haven't tried to get over my confidence issue for German (a problem I intend to tackle soon enough).

Even if pure input somehow gives you perfect understanding, you are still way way off being able to communicate. Pure understanding is not good enough, unless you are only interested in a language for literary reasons. You may as well waste less time and get over the confidence issue in the early stages

by the way, i've really been enjoying your blog since a friend pointed it out to me a couple of weeks ago!