A shy little ghost who has fallen in love with languages and wants to become a polyglot. A jumble of discovery and random information. Oh, and also a conlanger :)
I'm a French ghost who has fallen in love with languages and who loves discovering new things :)
☽ A Polyghost Journey? ☾
I want to use this blog to share my love for languages but also some vocab and other things related to the languages I'm learning. I think it can help me staying motivated and maybe it can help people too!
I'm also a conlanger, so I might post about some of my conlangs (I like to write songs for my Fantasy worldbuilding and translate them in my conlangs) → @conlanghost
That's why this blog can be a bit messy, but I just want to have a nice place where I can share a bit of anything and everything :)
(I'll edit this post as I go along)
☽ Languages ☾
❈ French: N — it's my mother tongue, so feel free to ask me if you have questions or if you want to chat in french!
❈ English: B2/C1 — well, I don't now what's really my level, I'm not fluent but I understand most things (I just don't speak as well as I write xD)
→ Goal for 2025: practice!
❈ Spanish (Castellano): A2/B1 — I was B2 but I stopped having classes and I didn't practice so I lost my level x)
→ Goal for 2025: practice to get my level back, read and listen to more Spanish!
❈ Hungarian: A1? — my father's Hungarian but I did'nt learn the language as a child, so now I'm learning it :)
→ Goal for 2025: be able to speak with my father and my grandma in Hungarian! Even if it's only tiny sentences
❈ Russian: A1? — not much explanation here, it's just a language that interests me a lot x)
→ Goal for 2025: be able to have a simple conversation, to write simple sentences about my day etc.
❈ Others: as I said before, I love languages! So I really like discovering new things, including the culture! Listening to music, reading new authors, watching films/series, discovering history, traditions... Feel free to send me a message if you want to talk about those topics! I'm also open to learn with another person, even if it's a new language, especially if it's an Eastern-Europe one (czech, romanian, polish...) or a Native american one (I started learning Navajo/Diné Bizaad once but I struggled finding good resources :/)
☽ And The Most Important ☾
Learning languages is a journey, it doesn't matter how long it takes you or how's your level after x time learning. Take your time, enjoy the process and celebrate your progress, even the tiniest!
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I'm white/a settler, can I learn a Native American language?
Of course, people can learn any language they can find resources for. So with this question, people are mostly looking for moral permission. Would it be harmful for me to learn one? Do I have the right to learn one?
The short answer: It depends. It depends on a lot of factors. Key things this post will focus on are:
Which one do you want to learn?
Why do you want to learn it?
How do you plan on learning it?
What are you going to do with it once you do get some fluency?
Some tribes feel very differently about outsiders learning it than others do. And individuals within tribes have an even wider opinion range.
There is no "one" correct answer, and I think if white people go about seeking to get a direct clear cut yes or no answer, that by itself is a sign that they are not very educated in Native American language activism and the needs of Natives.
To explore this topic, I organized a survey for Native people to share their thoughts. It involved questions about how they personally feel, how their tribe as a whole tends to feel, and how their opinion varies between white people vs other Indigenous people not from their own tribe. 53 respondents participated, and 3/53 choose to not disclose their tribe. Throughout the rest of this post, I use "Native" for short. Please see below the cut for all the results and exploration! Note: this is very long. But for all allies / people interested in learning these languages, it is well worth your time to read and learn from Natives.
The General Opinion
In total, only around 9% were in total support of white people learning a Native language, and around 4% were neutral. The remaining 87% had varying levels of concerns and discomfort.
The group that had concerns was further divided by their degree of discomfort:
Around 28% of all responses were firmly against white people learning their languages.
Around 17% of all responses also expressed extreme discomfort with white people learning, but they acknowledged certain circumstances they felt it could be okay.
Around 42% of all responses said they were mostly okay with white people learning, but they still had concerns and discomfort. Many people in this category also said they only were okay with it out of fear of the language dying out. Even if they felt white people could potentially help, they still felt extremely bitter and disliked it, especially since white people are the reason why the languages are in danger in the first place.
To contrast this with how respondents felt about other Indigenous people from different cultures learning their language, the results were around: 57% in total support, 24% mostly okay, 11% mostly against, 4% totally against, and again, 4% remained neutral.
Even people who did support white people learning Native languages, either fully or mostly, almost every single one expressed that they felt more comfortable with other Indigenous peoples learning them, as they would be more likely to respect the language.
These statistics by themselves mostly show that the general opinion is that of caution and unease around white people learning Native languages. Yet, as stated above and shown by the statistics, its not a clear cut yes or no. Now we will explore our more specific questions and results relating to those from the survey.
1) Which one are you interested in?
Since this portion focuses on trends within specific tribes, the responses from the 3 people who chose to not disclose their tribe is not considered. The 50 responses with tribes come from 25 tribes, though only a few are explicitly explained here.
The biggest group of responses came from Ojibwe / Anishinaabe people, with 10 responses total. Of those 10 responses, in reference to how they personally feel about white people learning, the results were: 6/10 mostly okay, 1/10 mostly against, 2/10 firmly against, and 1/10 neutral.
To contrast with this, when these same 10 Ojibwe / Anishinaabe people talked about how their tribe as a whole feels about white people learning their language, regardless if they agree or disagree, the results were: 1/10 totally okay, 2/10 mostly okay, 2/10 mostly against, 1/10 firmly against, 4/10 neutral or did not know.
Some important context for the Ojibwe / Anishinaabe case, is that they are one of, if not the, largest tribe north of Mexico. Despite having these numbers, it does not make the top 3 Native American languages in terms of reported number of speakers.
Which brings me to the next case study, Navajo, which is the Native American language in the U.S. with the most amount of speakers. This one is also an important case study because this language has something no other U.S. American Native language has: a Duolingo course. Albeit a very small one, it exists. 3 respondents were Navajo.
None of the 3 responses reported being totally okay with white people learning it, both in terms of personal feelings and from the tribe as a whole. One person reported both themselves and the tribe as a whole as firmly against it, one person felt more okay personally but said the tribe was more against, and one person was more neutrally aligned and believed it was best decided on a case by case basis. When discussing the Navajo experience of learning the language, all 3 expressed how while there are abundant resources, many of them are not adequate enough to actually teach the language properly, demonstrated by the extremely small Duolingo course and the inaccessibility of other resources. 2/3 respondents talked about how the language's history in WWII negatively contributed to white people's treatment of the language.
The final case study I want to highlight isn't so much one language, but the languages that people reported being firmly against outsiders learning. These are sorted by individuals not wanting white people to learn (I-W), individuals not wanting other Indigenous people to learn (I-O), responses saying the tribe is against white people learning (T-W), and responses saying the tribe is against other Indigenous people learning (T-O). Those tribes/languages are as follows:
Ojibwe: 2 (I-W), 1 (T-W), 1 (T-O)
Michif: 2 (I-W)
Zapotec: 1 (I-W)
Nahua: 1 (I-W)
Washoe: 1 (I-W), 1 (I-O)
Cherokee: 1 (I-W)
Cree: 2 (I-W), 1 (T-W)
Blackfoot: 1 (I-W)
Mi'kmaw: 1 (I-W)
Navajo: 1 (I-W), 1 (T-W), 1 (T-O)
Hopi: 1 (I-W), 1 (I-O), 1 (T-W), 1 (T-O)
Oneida: 1 (I-W)
Taino: 1 (T-W), 1 (T-O)
Lakota: 1 (T-W), 1 (T-O)
Atikamekw: 1 (T-W), 1 (T-O)
Paiute: 1 (T-W), 1 (T-O)
From these, only Hopi was expressed to be firmly against anyone who isn't Hopi learning it across the board, with Ojibwe and Navajo having firmly against in 3/4 opinion categories.
What I hope people have gotten from this section is that opinions deeply deeply vary. This does not mean that you should ask around until someone inevitably says yes, and then you go wild. It means that this is an on-going conversation that never ends, and that if you go through with it, you have to respect that many people are not going to be comfortable about it, and don't owe you anything. And if every single person you talk to says "no", perhaps that is a sign that you are better off finding other ways to involve yourself.
2) Why do you want to learn it?
The primary concern people had about white people learning their languages was motive. Within the survey, respondents were given the chance to discuss both good and bad motives for white people learning Native languages. The answers were very consistent across all responses, and all reported ones are listed here.
Reported bad motives include:
Colonial reasons like missionary work or anthropology
Just because they can, because they "like it", find it "fun", as it is an extensive of their white privilege to be able to learn these while actual Natives struggle to do so
Because they think its "exotic" and fetishize it
To falsely claim being Indigenous, to seem more like an ally without doing anything else, or just speak over Native people in general
Because they view it as a "challenge", to seem smarter/unique
Anything for a profit (teaching, for a brand, etc) - profit being either literal money, personal / social status, etc
Out of white guilt, as a way to try and get out of being held accountable for colonialism
Reported good motives include:
To communicate with Natives in their own language to displace usage of colonial languages like English, French, Spanish, etc
Learning for Native family members, romantic partners, friends, or if they have Native children to help ensure the child grows up speaking it
People invited to learn to do volunteer work / activism under the guidance of Natives and elders
Some motives had mixed views:
Learning the Native language of where you live. Those in favor viewed it as contributing to decolonizing by restoring that language's priority to the land. Those against viewed it as robbing opportunities from actual Natives to learn their own language and white people trying to "indigenize" themselves.
"Appreciating" the culture. Since appreciation and appropriation have such fine lines that white people readily cross often, this motive by itself can be a mixed bag.
Learning it as a person in power like a doctor, academic, lawyer, social worker, etc. Some say this can enable people to contribute and better support Natives, some think it will only further contribute to white people stealing our languages and making it harder for Natives to learn, or will enable white people in power to more easily abuse Natives.
Wanting to "save" the language. This topic will actually be explored in another post of mine in the future, so I won't say much on it now. To summarize it: Native languages thrive when Natives speak them, not when white people speak them.
From this section, the main thing to be considered is that Native languages cannot be treated like other languages, and mere "curiosity" isn't necessarily a compliment. The history white people have with them is not in the past, and these issues are very much still abound today. Bad motives for learning can be just as deadly as "ignoring" Native languages. Even in Europe, these motives paired with peoples' lack of literal interaction with Natives, can create an atmosphere of disrespect, even if unintentional.
3) How will you learn it?
Like motives, the respondents were given a chance to discuss both respectful methods of learning and disrespectful methods of learning. The good and bad reported reasons were mostly inverses of each other, and all responses could be sorted in 6 overarching answers of good/bad pairs.
Learning from Natives, and not white people. Any sources created by white people are inherently culturally inaccurate at best or outright colonialist and exploitative at worst. Any classes attended and resources consulted should be made and approved by the respective tribes.
Paying to learn, and not just using free sources. Considering that white people are the reason these languages are dying, many responses expressed that paying for the right to learn is the LEAST white people can do. Paying for education supports Native academics and communities, and shows respect, as using free resources just feeds into white entitlement.
Learning within a community, and not with other white people or by yourself. Many expressed that even if you buy a reputable textbook from a Native author, that isn't enough. Responses expressed that white people should be immersed within a Native community as they learn, since this is the only way to ensure they not only learn the language accurately, but so that they learn proper respect and cultural context. Many people did explicitly cite online programs like Duolingo as NOT being a good way for white people to learn. Even just learning with one Native friend is leagues better than self-study.
Learning in a way rooted in tradition, and not colonial values. By prioritizing oral usage, exploring cultural stories (that Natives choose to share willingly), and not pushing western concepts like standardization onto the languages, the languages are better respected and understood. As stated above, meeting this expectation requires connections to Native communities.
Learning with humility, and not prioritizing yourself. Not taking up limited space or copies of resources away from other Natives, not demanding to be taught more than what is shared, and being able to accept "no" as an answer is the bare minimum amount of respect and care.
Prioritizing decolonization over linguistic endeavors. White people who choose to learn a Native language should not only treat it as a fun language-learning hobby. Learning a language should be a secondary pursuit on top of the main cause of supporting and contributing to decolonization.
Much like the last section, a main thing to take away from this is that Native languages much be approached by white people in different ways than they might approach European languages. This section may particularly frustrate white people who are interested, especially if they feel they can't afford to pay for opportunities to learn. Yet working through that frustration, and putting in the work to learn in a respectful way, is necessary if one wants to be a good ally and to not assume a position of entitlement with these languages.
4) What will you do with your language knowledge?
This topic of debate does not end once you know some/much of the language. Assuming you learned a language with the right motives, and you learned in a respectful way, you now have the responsibility to not abuse and exploit what was given to you. And if those two assumptions were truly met, I would hope you don't want to abuse your knowledge! Much like the methods of learning, good/bad ways of using language knowledge formed inverse pairs. Response are summarized here:
Using it to give back to Natives, not white people. This isn't your new fun party trick to share with your white friends. If you reach a level of fluency, and then suddenly stop all engagement with the community and turn inward to your white circle, it was wasted on you.
Sharing with others when acceptable, not at your own discretion. Creating your own educational resources is not respectful, but sharing what you were given with other Natives of that tribe freely can be a way for you to use your privilege to give back. Many responses expressed that the primary time a white person should take on a position of "teaching" a Native language is if they have a Native child they are raising with it, and even then, they should always defer to their Native partner and their child's community to lead and guide that endeavor.
Integrating into the community, without taking on authority. As stated above, teaching of your own accord is not appropriate. If you are invited to help with teaching efforts, go for it! But in general, assuming the position of "language expert", correcting other Natives, and other such behaviors is never acceptable. That's not to say people can't make careers/livelihoods out of Native language advocacy - only to say that any such decisions should be made with and guided by connections to the respective community.
Letting it shape your understanding of the land, without claiming it as your own. Learning the original names for local landmarks, places, foods, and animals can help displace the normalcy of colonial-imposed languages. As always, language knowledge should motivate and guide people into activism for Natives in all areas, not just language-activism. And a major part of this is constantly checking yourself, your privilege, and unlearning every harmful notion taught by the colonial power. Having the honor to see the world in a new way can be a great tool for doing so.
The best way to summarize not only this section, but this entire grand topic as a whole, is that its not about a language. Its about healing a community, healing the land, and righting the wrongs of colonialism. For white people, their relationship to that endeavor is a very strong and very loaded one.
I'm sure this post will make certain white people very mad at me. And of course, the data for this came from a rather small sample size, and other Natives are more than welcome to add onto this. As stated numerous times, the goal of this post was not to say "yes you can" or "no you can't". The goal was to give insight to the wide variety of views, and to give guidance on ways to become involved that maintain the respect and autonomy of Natives. If you view this as me shattering your dreams of learning xyz Native language, then you have deeply misunderstood the message here. Respectful questions are more than welcome, yet I will be turning anon off just for my own safety. Any racism will be blocked.
I'm gonna reblog with some videos of people speaking various American Indian/indigenous American languages, because I think most people don't even know what they sound like. Not to be judgement of that—just, you know, I think people who want to be informed should know what they sound like!
There's a ton of material in Greenlandic on YouTube, but it's hard for me to find, because the titles and other metadata are also in Greenlandic! Of course, this represents a huge win for the language, since this is a biproduct of being in vibrant use by a community of speakers. Greenlandic has been an official language of the territory of Greenland since 1979, and the sole official language since 2009.
Here are some proceedings of the Greenlandic parliament, the Inatsisartut, which are conducted in Greenlandic.
Here is a radio show in Greenlandic, from Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa.
And here is a video of Aki-Matilda Høegh-Dam, Greenlandic MP in the Danish parliament (Folketing), causing some upset by speaking in Greenlandic instead of Danish.
For those studying ancient languages (like myself), resources can seem pretty scarce, so I found this awesome website that goes through the basics such as alphabets, pronunciation, vocabulary, sentence structure, forms of the language (such as nouns, adjectives, pronouns etc.) and lessons with writers in the ancient language (like Ceasar, Tacitus, Livy, Virgil, Homer, Hesiod, Plato and so on) so your totally immersed.
It covers languages such as:
Albanian
Armenian
Baltic
Old English
Old French
Gothic
Greek (Classical)
Greek (New Testament)
Hittite
Old Iranian
Old Irish
Latin
Old Norse
Old Russian
Vedic Sanskrit
Old Slavonic
Tocharian
Here is a compilation of all kinds of resources (grammar, listening, reading, etc.) for Arabic, Catalan, Esperanto, French, German, Mandarin, Russian, and languages in general.
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Me normally: I think languages are a bit like people. Either neutral or a bit ugly, till I get to know them better. Only then will they become very beautiful in my eyes
Someone: X language is ugly and/or sounds agressive. Y sound in the language is weird or gross
Me: …all languages are beautiful immediately and I would kiss all of them on the lips right now. I’m going to go listen to all the possible sounds humans can make now bye
#@ppl who speak french to some degree #do any of you know if there are rules as to which syllables are stressed in a word ??
individual French words and syllables don’t have stress ! this is partly why French sounds so flowy to English speakers, bc we’re used to emphasising syllables. instead, French stress-patterns are based on the utterance (which is not necessarily a whole sentence or phrase : it’s basically everything you say up to a punctuation mark, or until you pause a bit, or take a breath)
stress falls on the final syllable of the utterance. for example :
demain, je vais apprendre le persan parce que c’est une belle langue
dema͞in / je vais apprendre le persa͞n / parce que c’est une belle lang͞ue
də‘mɛ̃ / ʒə vɛz͜ a.prɑ̃.dr lə pɛr‘sɑ̃ / parsk s͜ ɛ.t͜ yn bɛl ‘lɑ̃ɡ
that last utterance might even be stressed thus, if you use more utterances :
… parce qu͞e ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ oau͞is / c’est une belle lang͞ue
… pars.kə: *shrugs* wɛ: / s͜ ɛ.t͜ yn bɛl 'lɑ̃ɡ
OHOHOHO wow the Korean alphabet is awesome. The people who designed it were geniuses and were obviously incredibly schooled in the morphology and phonology of their language. HNNGGG
a really really really underrated feeling in learning a different language is when you start to hear words. as in it's no longer a string of sounds, you can parse through where words start and stop as you're hearing them. even words that you don't know what they mean yet but you can distinctly hear it as a whole word
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(I started writing this post just now as a message to a friend who asked for language-learning advice. But I’m a GIANT NERD when it comes to language learning, so it got wayyy too long to be a message. So I’m posting it here in the hopes that it might help others as well. I have not edited this or even read through it all yet – it just poured straight out of my fingers – so please let me know if you spot any typos!)
Okay, first of all, there are two parts to language learning: active learning and passive exposure. You can choose to do only one or the other, but you’ll have the most success if you do both.
ACTIVE LEARNING
Active learning is pretty much what it sounds like: actively focusing on the language, learning new words, sounds, phrases, idioms, etc. It’s often centered around a textbook, sometimes with accompanying audio, but you can do active learning in other ways too. For example, you can read a news article online and check a dictionary for every word you don’t know. Or do the same thing with a foreign film – when you hear a word you don’t know (or see it in the subtitles), pause the movie and look it up.
Active learning makes you progress fast, but it also tires out your brain and overwhelms it with new information, making it easier to forget things you’ve already learned. That’s why it’s best to space out your active learning sessions and fill the gaps with passive exposure.
PASSIVE EXPOSURE
The goal of passive exposure is for your brain to randomly encounter words and phrases it learned recently and go “Hey! I recognize that!” This is SO important not only for reviewing and consolidating your memory, but also keeping up your motivation! If the only place you ever encounter your TL (target language) is in your textbook, on some subconscious level your brain will think it’s not that important… because after all, you never encounter it out there in the real world, do you?
Passive exposure can include any of the following and much more: listening to music in your TL; watching a movie in your TL (either with English subs, or with no subs at all and just don’t worry if you don’t understand everything that’s going on); skim-reading a book or a short story or a news article or a blog post in your TL and looking for words you recognize, even if you can’t 100% remember what they mean; finding speakers of your TL in real life and eavesdropping on them; watching instructional YouTube videos or short documentaries in your TL (the visuals ought to help you understand some of what’s going on, even if there are no subtitles); etc.
The idea is to let your TL wash over you without straining your brain at all. Zero effort, just relaxation and fun. You will inevitably notice and understand a few words or phrases, and that percentage will increase as time goes on, but you’re not actively studying when you’re doing passive exposure. Remember the two things you’re trying to achieve with passive exposure:
1) effortless review/practice, by inevitably re-encountering some stuff you’ve already learned;
2) reminding your brain that this language is a real cool thing out there in the world, not just a boring chore located in a textbook.
But there are also two more extremely important benefits to passive exposure that are drastically neglected by most language-learners:
3) picking up the correct pronunciation and accent;
4) gaining an instinct for natural, native-sounding language.
These are two things you will not learn in a language class or from a textbook. You can’t learn them except by doing a LOT of listening and reading in your TL. But the good news is that it doesn’t need to be the “Active Learning” kind of reading and listening; it can absolutely be the “Passive Exposure” kind, and you will still pick this stuff up.
The most important thing, above all else, is to figure out a method of passive exposure that works for YOU personally. This means: do NOT force yourself to repeatedly do something that you don’t enjoy, because you won’t benefit from it. To pick the right method, think of your interests and the things you like to do in your free time: watching movies? reading books? listening to music? writing in your journal? surfing the internet? You can do any of this in your TL, too. Yes, you will encounter a lot of stuff you don’t understand at the beginning. But A) that’s good for you, it helps you learn patience, which every language-learner needs, and B) the internet has free translation tools everywhere you look.
COMBINING BOTH
Personally, I like to pick a well-respected textbook with accompanying audio (Assimil is my favorite; Teach Yourself and Colloquial can also be very good, especially the older editions; Linguaphone used to be fantastic but I’m not sure if it’s still around) and work my way through it, doing one lesson per day if possible. That takes only about 10 to 20 minutes, so that leaves a lot of time for passive exposure. My preferred method is listening to music (I learned a good 50% of my German from just obsessively listening to German pop music in high school), but here are some other things I like to do:
find an internet talk radio station in my TL and put it on in the background
same deal with a podcast
translate a few keywords related to my favorite hobbies/interests into the TL and then paste that text into YouTube and watch random videos in my TL
read a news article in English, and then find a news website in my TL and see if I can find an article about the same topic in that language
watch bad reality TV or soaps in my TL with no subtitles, just trying to guess what’s going on from context
etc.
No Duolingo. No Rosetta Stone. (I’ve written a whole post about the latter here.) You don’t need to spend any money at all, though if you e.g. use a pirated resource to learn and find that it really helps you, I strongly suggest buying it from the original producer after the fact, to say thank you.
MEMORIZATION
This is very much a “YMMV” piece of advice, but: if you’re having trouble memorizing stuff, just don’t. Don’t bother trying to remember anything. Remember that “passive exposure” bit? It does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of memory. If you keep bumping into the same word or phrase over and over again, you will incorporate it into your body of knowledge almost effortlessly. Of course this is easier with more common words that turn up again and again – but you’d be surprised how well you can get by, especially at the lower levels, with only the more common words!
Intentionally memorizing vocabulary can of course be very beneficial, so there’s nothing wrong with it. But I notice that it’s often one of the biggest pain points for language learners, and I believe language learning should be pain-free.
FROM INPUT TO OUTPUT
Once you’ve gotten a good grasp of the basics of the language, a really effective way to consolidate the knowledge you’ve gained is to use it actively and creatively yourself, in speech or writing (or ideally both!). For speaking practice, besides simply making friends who are native speakers of the language, you can search for a physical or virtual tandem. This is when you meet up with someone who’s a native speaker of your TL and is trying to learn your own language. You can meet for, say, an hour, and chat together for half an hour in your native language, and then half an hour in their native language. So both of you benefit!
Don’t underestimate talking to yourself, too. Whether it’s narrating your actions, complaining to your pet (okay, I guess that’s not technically “talking to yourself”), or simply having an imaginary conversation with someone else, it’s actually a good way to practice.
I also really enjoy writing in my journal in my target languages. The act of hand-writing a word does a lot to help me remember it. If you like writing, of course, you could also look up penpals who speak your TL.
And that’s about it. As always, I am more than willing to answer specific questions on language learning, as this is something of a specialty of mine and I absolutely love to help other folks get started on their own language-learning journeys. Please feel free to drop me a line if you need any concrete advice or are struggling with some aspect of your current language-learning efforts!
this post is meant to be a directory of every resource I come across for Persian, specifically the Farsi variant. it will be a continuous work in progress so thank you for your patience! if you have any issues or things to add, please reply to this post!
Don't Use Duolingo if You Really Want to Learn Irish
That title is a bit dramatic, but I really don't think that duolingo is a useful tool for Irish, especially in its current state, so I want to talk a bit about why, and I'll also talk about some alternatives.
Pronunciation
The first and most egregious issue is that at some point recently-ish, duo decided to start using Text-To-Speech for their Irish course, rather than recordings of a native speaker. The problem here is that their TTS is not trained on native speakers of Irish and pronounces words incorrectly. It doesn't make consistent distinctions between broad and slender consonants for example.
Irish has no standard pronunciation, so I understand how it can feel weird to choose just one dialect for the purposes of pronunciation (the old recordings were from a speaker of Galway Irish), but having just one dialect is much better than TTS which sounds like a learner, imagine if they had TTS for the French course which sounded like an anglophone schoolkid trying to pronounce french, and claimed they were teaching you how to speak french!
Grammar
Duo tends to be correct on grammar at least, which is a start. But often people using it get very confused about the grammar because duo doesn't explain any of it. I think there's a place for immersion in language learning, and I don't think everything has to be explained like that, but within duo's system of sentence testing and exercises like that, not having any explanation for why it's "mo chóta" and not "mo cóta" can be really confusing. Duo used to have more grammar information, it's a shame that they removed it, I wonder why they did it.
Money and Motivation
Duolingo is a business, and their motivation is not to help you learn a language 'fully', but to keep you using their app and hopefully have a higher chance of sharing it with others, competing with others, buying or causing others to buy memberships or lingots or any other in-app purchases.
I don't want to make it out like duo is some big conspiracy and they're tricking people, I don't think that's the case, but it's good to remember that their primary motivation is to keep people using the app, rather than help people move to a level in a language where they don't need the app anymore.
Keep this in mind whenever you see people trying to sell you stuff for language learning.
Why do people use Duolingo
I do get it, and I don't want to make anyone feel bad for using duo, there's a ton of reasons people tend towards it at first
1. It's really well known, so especially if you're learning a language and haven't heard of other resources for it, you'll check duolingo
2. It's very motivating for a lot of people, checking in every day and forming that habit is a really good way of sticking with a language
3. It's fun, people enjoy it
If you use it for reason 3. and you still like it, then don't worry about this post, I'm not trying to yuck anyone's yums, keep having fun!
If you use it for reasons 1. or 2. you can still keep using it if you like, but I want to suggest some other things which you might find helpful in trying to get to a higher level in Irish.
Other Resources
To address the pronunciation issue, I'd heavily recommend you disregard the pronunciation in duolingo, if you're looking for more reliable sources of pronunciation, I'd look towards recordings of native speakers, you can find that on:
Teanglann and Foclóir (they use the same recordings)
Fuaimeanna
and a really useful and underused one: https://davissandefur.github.io/minimal-pairs/ where you can hear the difference between similar sounds that English speakers often mix up in Irish.
A lot of people like duolingo because it's nice to have a clear path forward, a progression that you can get into without too much decision-making. For this I recommend getting a good textbook or course and working through it, the ones I'll recommend also have native speaker audio on them.
Learning Irish by Mícheál Ó Siadhail, this book teaches Galway Irish, not just in pronunciation but in grammar too. It's quite dense but it's well thought out and well explained.
Teach Yourself Irish (1961) this book is available for free online, and is a really good option if you're interested in Cork Irish (Munster), and have some experience with grammatical terminology. I used this book myself and really liked it, but it's very intense and not for everyone. (If you do end up using it, feel free to skip the appendices at the start, they're more of a reference and sometimes put people off from actually getting to the first chapter. Also if you have any questions about it or need any help just let me know.)
If you want a video course, there's a great course called "Now You're Talking" which is available for free online, along with audio files and worksheets here. It features Donegal Irish and leads into the more intermediate level course called Céim ar Aghaidh also available online.
There's other textbooks that I have less experience with (Buntús na Gaeilge, Gaeilge/Gramadach Gan Stró, etc.) but if they work for you, stick with them, there's nothing worse than not making progress because you keep switching resources trying to find the "perfect one"
Whether or not you continue to use Duolingo, I would really really encourage you to try engaging with media in Irish. People often shy away from this when they're learning because they don't feel like they're "ready" yet. But you basically never feel like you're ready, you just have to try and find something near your level and try to get comfortable with not understanding everything. This is where you learn a huge portion of the language, you hear how things are pronounced you see what words mean in what contexts, getting input in your target language is so important!
I know content can be kind of hard to find, so I'll make a few recommendations here:
There's a wealth of content available for free online (more if you're in ireland but some internationally) on TG4 If you're still starting out, I'd recommend trying to watch some kids shows since they'll have simpler language and will be easier to follow. I wouldn't recommend using English subtitles when you watch them. Some good options include:
Dónall Dána: an Irish dub of Horrid Henry, silly and childish but the actors have good Irish and importantly the show has Irish language subtitles, they don't always match but if you're still beginning and can't necessarily get everything by ear, they're really useful. (Mostly Galway Irish)
Curious George: another dub, again with Irish language subtitles (I can't remember what dialects were in it off the top of my head but I'd assume mostly galway again)
Seó Luna: No subtitles, but a good option if you're aiming for Munster Irish, the lead character has Kerry Irish
Miraculous: No subtitles but a better show than most of the other kids' ones and more bearable to watch as an adult (Mostly Galway Irish)
Ros na Rún: Moving away from kids shows, a long running soap opera, this has Irish subtitles and a really good mix of dialects within the show. If you're finding the kids shows boring or too easy I'd really recommend it, but it can be complex because of the amount of characters, dialects, and plotlines. I'd recommend starting at the beginning of a newer season and just trying to catch on to what's happening as you go.
There are a lot of books, if you live in Ireland you can get nearly any Irish book for free from a library, so please check out your local library or request some of these from other libraries in the system:
There's a series of fairytales (Rápúnzell, Luaithríona etc.) by Máiréad Ní Ghráda which are illustrated and for children, which are a really good option for when you're just starting out reading
There's kids books about Fionn and the Fianna by Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin
There's a cute little kids' book in Kerry Irish about a cat named Mábúis
Leabhar Breac has a lot of graphic novels, some of them based on Irish mythology, some on other stuff. The fact that they're illustrated can make it a lot easier to follow even if you don't understand all the words at first.
Gliadar has just released their Scott Pilgrim translation
If you're looking for something a bit more advanced you can look at some of the books for adult learners by Comhar, they contain simplified language and glossaries but have full original adult stories.
And if you're wanting full, natural, native-level Irish there's a load of books by those same groups, and others like An Gúm, Cló Iar-Chonnacht, Oidhreacht Chorca Dhuibhne, Éabhlóid, Coiscéim, and more.
And don't shy away from older books written in Seanchló either, they can be more challenging but it's a whole extra world of books
If you're trying to improve your listening comprehension, I definitely recommend listening to shows on Raidió na Gaeltachta, hearing native Irish speakers talk at full speed is really good practice. But I get that it can be overwhelming at first. Here are some things you can do as you build up to that:
Watching those same TV shows I mentioned without subtitles is a good way to build up listening skills.
Vifax is a website where you can practice listening to short news segments and answer questions on them, then getting to look at the transcript with notes afterwards.
Snas is kind of the evolution of vifax, now using clips from both the news and Ros na Rún.
I really hope that this post can help people move away from duolingo if they're looking to take their Irish learning to the next level, if you've got any questions, just let me know!
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I'm looking for language audio samples for a conference project!
Hi! I'm Lila and I'm a sound artist! I'm showing a work celebrating language diversity at the 2025 International Music Conference in Boston and would love to include as many languages as possible! If you have a language you want to share and are open to recording a quick audio clip of you speaking (by yourself or with someone else), telling a story, a recipe, singing... Please submit here: https://app.vocal.email/collect/icmc-soundwalk
Thank you in advance and I'm open with any questions :)
You need to be looking for sewing and drawing tutorials in Spanish, to watch baking tutorials in Russian or read the wikipedia article about the insect you've just discovered on your balcony in German ! You cannot watch Peppa pig in your target language forever.
Will knowing how to say "aiguille à tricoter" in French be useful for your exam ? Probably not, but who cares ? You're listening to spoken French AND you're learning a manual skill !
Youtube is full of wonderful tutorials in many languages, everything is there just waiting for you ...
And why stop at manual skills ? Philosophy ? History ? Astrology ? Hop hop hop, in your target language ! Want to learn something about Egypt ? The Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona has a coursera course on it.
"But I won't understand anything" I personally prefer to understand 20% of a lecture about a sacred temple in the middle of the desert than understand 60% of the most boring standard "what do you like to eat for breakfast" textbook learning material.
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