Hi, I would love to use LingQ to learn Irish. I read that you need at least 40 mini stories to make it work? Since I’m a complete novice, I’m not sure that I could do that. However, I would be more than happy to contact native speakers for their recommendations of sources for short stories of differing degrees of difficulty. It might be possible to get one or more of them to contribute directly to the collection.
Is there a more formal procedure that needs to be followed to get a new language into LingQ? I see that with the German I’m learning, I can import stories from newspapers, etc., and they become available. Is it possible to do that for a beta language as a way of getting into LingQ?
I’d be grateful for any help/advice on trying to make progress on this.
Hi Pete,
We need to have at least 40 Mini Stories ready for a language before we can add it to Beta. If you know someone who is willing to work on Irish version of mini stories, they can contact me on zoran(at)lingq.com Thanks!
Thanks for the response. What’s the definition of a mini-story? I’m guessing…
essay with minimum and/or maximum number of words
Accompanying audio
Range of difficulty over the 40 mini-stories?
I’d probably need this kind of information before trying to get people to agree to contribute, then I can send them your way. I may be also be able to get the relevant text from the public domain, in which case, I’d just need native speakers to read the text and send the mp3’s.
First of all I want to say a big thank you to the developers of this site. I have found it invaluable in helping me with my language learning so far. I love being able to read articles on subjects that I have an interest in with the added bonus of learning a new language.
I am also learning Irish. I source articles in Irish using online Irish news sites but quite often my overall understanding is not perfect because there are still many words I do not know (I would be at a solid intermediate level). May I ask if there is any way that Irish could be added as a study language like Croatian? Or is there a way that I can use an existing language slot to import the Irish articles (and link the slot to an Irish/English dictionary?
Any advice would be kindly appreciated. Thank you.
As I have mentioned above, we will gladly add any language (including Irish) as soon as we have all 60 Mini Stories translated and recorded in that language. We need to have study material ready before we can add a new language.
I’ve been contacting several Irish language organizations and I’m hoping to connect with some native speakers to generate the 40-story minimum to get the language into Beta. I’ll keep you posted through the forum.
Please keep us updated on this. I’m currently using the English slot to upload my Irish lessons and I would really prefer a dedicated slot with a proper dictionary (like teangleann).
A resource you might find useful (and also everyone else reading this who has started learning Irish) is the website TG4. TG4 is the Irish language state broadcaster in Ireland. They make a wide range of shows: Ros Na Run (a soap opera based in Connemara on the west of Ireland. It is very true to how Irish is spoken by native speakers), Nuacht (the news in Irish. Unless a person has a basic grasp of Irish this might be a little advanced, but the accompanying images to each story will give a useful context) and numerous documentaries/chat shows. I have never tried to access this outside of Ireland but it might be worth a look.
Another show which might be of interest (and is available on youtube) is ‘In the name of the fada’. It is a series about an Irish American comedian (Des Bishop) who moved to Ireland in his teens but decided to learn Irish as an adult. He moved to an Irish speaking area and learned through classes and immersion. The series follows his story. By the end of one year his goal is to do a stand up comedy show in Irish.
Thanks for the suggestions. I have found TG4, but I haven’t tried listening to it yet. I will start pulling audio down and listening to it on the road just to get my ears tuned to the language.
I hadn’t come across “In the Name of the Fada” though, so I’m giving that a try this evening. So far so good!
I’ve been looking for other material to get started, including books like Complete Irish, but I think I’ll have the most success when I can start getting original text into the LingQ machinery.
Hi - progress has been slow, but in the right direction. I have four of the mini-stories translated, but I’m still trying to find someone to read them out loud. I’ve also gotten quotes for translators to do all 40 stories, but I can’t foot that bill, and I’d still need someone to read them out loud. I’m planning to ask a native speaker next week at some live classes, and see what happens. I can also ask my iTalki teacher whether he’d be willing to do it.
The person who’s been doing the translation is willing to do a couple a week for free, so that’d good news…but still 20 weeks to get to the minimum.required for the beta module.
How are things going with getting the Irish translations/recordings of the mini-stories? I’m a translator myself (though not of Irish) and I would be happy to reach out to some colleagues regarding these translations/recordings. Let me know if I can help! I would love for Irish to become available on lingq.
I was only able to find an Irish speaker who would write out the translations, but no one to speak them. I also tried to get a small grant from some Irish gov. agencies, but they can’t support translation efforts like this. My last recourse was to ask my iTalki teacher, but he put me in touch with his Mum who’s a professional translator. It would have been too expensive for me to have them translated and spoken that way.
So, in a nutshell, I have the first five translated, but none of them saved as mp3’s. If you were able to find someone to orate them, I’m sure I could get the remaining ones translated, although it would be at a pace of 1-2 per week.