[ILUG-Social] Re: [ILUG] Fwd: Linux Beer Hike

[Alan Horkan]

On Wed, 31 Jul 2002, kevin lyda wrote:

> Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 11:40:06 +0100
> From: kevin lyda <kevin+dated+1028544009.d9fce9 at linux.ie>
> To: "Satelle, StevenX" <stevenx.satelle at intel.com>
> Cc: "'Wynne, Conor'" <conor_wynne at maxtor.com>,
>      "'Patton, Tony'" <tony.patton at nwifhe.ac.uk>,
>      ilug social <social at linux.ie>
> Subject: [ILUG-Social] Re: [ILUG] Fwd: Linux Beer Hike


> funny, i went to school in america where i not only wasn't given the
> chance to learn irish (in spite of wanting to), but a foreign language
> wasn't available until 7th grade.  i'm bummed i don't know irish and

does Spanish still count as a foreign language in America?
:)

> have attempted to learn it since moving here (anyone know of places to
> learn irish in galway - it seems like that should be easy to find here,
> but i'm obviously looking in the wrong places?).  and i'm generally
> ashamed i don't speak any other language then english (and yes, i know
> even that's debatable).

No need to be ashamed, just be humble.

Watch out for the political indoctrination at these irish language
schools, when i was teenager they had use marching saluting the flag
singing the national anthem and the college anthem.  Presumably they treat
adult learners with a little more dignity and dont send them home for a
minor outburst of English in emotional circustances despite having better
Irish than half of the other people there.

lemons, bitter bitter lemons.
i love the language just not some of the zealots who try and ram Irish
down your throat and get pedantic about occasionally throwing in words
from other languages for a bit of style, but i need practice.

Just to mention open source software agus gaeilge, OpenOffice could do
with having an Irish ispell dictionary converted to work with it.
Abiword already has irish spell checking and a few of the interface
strings translated (was about 85% about 18 months ago but it has drifted
to some horribly small percentage).

sincerely
Alan Horkan