Dude, Where's My Irish 101 Textbook?

I know myself well enough at this stage that I'm well aware of what works best for me when it comes to learning a foreign language. It's the approach that two of my professors of German and French took when it came to teaching us those languages. Basically:

• 3 parts Systematic, Progressive, Rigorously-Drilled Grammar
• 1 part Blind Memorization of Dialogues
• 1 part Blind Memorization of Vocabulary
  

Blind memorization of dialogues would seem counter-productive since as a beginner you don't even know what the words mean, why they occur in the order they do, etc. However, this has the advantage of bludgeoning a sentence with a precise (and perhaps very complex) meaning into the student's memory banks to be brought out, by rote, at any time down the road. Consequently, by the time the grammar portion of the course gets around to illuminating the why and wherefore of this complex topic, an application of it is already well and thoroughly ingrained in the student's mind thanks to the blindly-memorized dialogue snippet learned way-back-when. This leads to epiphanies and "Aha moments" galore.

So! My plan was simple: get my greedy little mitts on an Irish 101 textbook containing grammar, dialogues and vocabulary. Gotta be a piece-o'-cake! I mean, there's this whole country over there across the pond where study of this language is compulsory for many years, right? So there's gotta be a market for such a resource...

Well, not quite. When I think Language 101 Textbook, I'm thinking of something like my very first French textbook, Son et Sens (to the right). It...

• presumes no prior knowledge of the language;
• contains Units, Chapters and Lessons;
• progress in a stepwise manner, imparting grammar, vocabulary, idioms and so forth in a manner whereby each lesson builds upon the one before it;
• imparts the official language as recognized by whatever academic body is relevant to that determination*;
  
• contains an audio component read by native speakers.

Anyway, trying to find such a thing for Irish turned out to be more difficult than I would ever have imagined. First I went the Teach Yourself Irish route, which fell down for me on a few levels. It seemed to be more a hodge-podge of random scenarios than than an organized progression of lessons, for one thing. This is fine and well as a pedagogical technique for students to whom that appeals, but it just didn't work for me. More importantly, I also found the book to be way too light on grammar and the audio component to be nowhere near as comprehensive as it needed to be.

Next I tried the classic Progress in Irish, which I stumbled upon quite by chance at a used bookstore. This is a gem of a book when it comes to the Blindly Memorized portion of my language-learning recipe, but it had zilch in the way of grammar. And, it contained no audio component, so to this rank beginner it was therefore utterly useless. However! I am delighted to report that thanks to the dedication of a few selfless souls and the Wonder Of The Interbunny, this is no longer an issue! There is a wonderful Progress in Irish Yahoo Group that contains links to audio files of all the book's lessons! And, the group itself serves as a forum for Q&A. We owe a debt of gratitude to the Cumann Carad na Gaeilge (Philo-Celtic League) for carrying the torch on this.

Next, I ordered Buntús Cainte, as I heard it was used as part of the Irish academic system. No dice! Zero grammar and just a bunch of phrases to Blindly Memorize. However, the audio component was of course read by native speakers and, I subsequently discovered, it was written explicitly to include the most common Irish words, so on that level it's very useful. As an Irish 101 textbook, though? Nuh uh.

Finally, I came across Learning Irish. OMG HALLELUJAH WHOOPTY-DO A REAL IRISH 101 TEXTBOOK YAY!!! Here's a graded set of many lessons, proceeding logically, presuming no prior knowledge of the language, and it has the all-important audio component of four CD's. (It astonishes me to this day that any book on Irish marketed to the beginner doesn't have an audio component. I mean, you try to pronounce Taoiseach or Oireachtas or basically anything else in Irish using only a one-off "pronunciation guide" based on utterly inadequate English sounds. Geeze.) This tome teaches the Cois Fhairrge dialect (or sub-dialect, whatever) of Irish rather than the official standard Irish.* (On a personal level, this is fine by me since that's the general area that my family probably comes from originally, and even if that weren't the case, there don't seem to be any other texts available that compare to it. If you're devoted to the idea of learning a different dialect, this will pose a problem.)

If anybody knows of any other resources that could qualify as an "Irish 101 Textbook," as I've been defining it, I'd be grateful to know of them. At this point I've spent more money than I like to think of buying countless books in an effort to find just the right resource. I suppose the plus side there is that I now have a nice, small library of reference materials, but still...

Anyway, opinions and learning styles will obviously vary from individual to individual, but my personal recommendation for any true beginner seeking to make a solid and well-supported start on the path of learning the Irish language would be to get a set of Learning Irish with CD's, and supplement it with Buntús Cainte and Progress in Irish. Just my recommends.

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*Irish seems to face a particular problem regarding a standard, official, "correct" version of the language. There is a standard version of the language known as An Caighdeán Oifigiúil ("the official standard"). It was invented in the 1950's and 60's, incorporating elements of the predominant dialects. However, it doesn't seem to be taken seriously by many Irish, who in my experience tend to prefer their own dialects overwhelmingly over this artifically constructed standard.