So the key is to turn on the immersion?

Yes, but for the love of God don’t forget about it and leave it on all weekend

Get by and have the french people smile with encouragement!

Does she have any of the other required skills/experience?

The only problem I do know of with paypal is that one of the agencies they use for recruiting has a notorious reputation for undercutting pay rates. This agency also handled jobs for the contract I did take but paid their people 50 Euro a day less than everybody else. That’s amounted to a pay difference of about 20% between their contractors and everybody else. If PayPal are using them again it would explain a lot.

M. J. Fox – good point. I’m pursuing French and German as part of my degree, yet without getting a diploma in IT I’d be ineligible for most of the multilingual jobs offered by PayPal, Google, Microsoft etc.

I think the point is, even if they did introduce a world language earlier that is isnt going to make a difference because after 14 years they cant teach people Irish, what hope have they with French or Spanish!?

I don’t think you can or should for that matter compare the teaching of Irish to the teaching of languages such as French or German,in the first case because Irish is mandatory from my experience at least a lot of the people in the classes actually resent being there and often slow down or disrupt the teaching process.
Further to this I often find it strange how having languages is a requirement for entry to University when often the course one chooses has no use or need for it. It’s different of course if one chooses to study a course involving a language but most(mine included) don’t really need a second language!

Your right, we don’t really *need* a second language and thats the key, necessity, Europeans learn English well because its lingua franca of the world. So from that perspective, we are doing just fine with English. But I also think having a second language is beneficial, not everyone speaks English, there are proven cognitive advantages with a 2nd language, we can tap into other cultures. Also, Irish is a language like French or Spanish, I think its entirely relevant to discuss ways for teaching them when we can’t get Irish right. As for the merits of Irish, thats another conversation!

Even if people do learn an international language in secondary school and go on to do further learning for that language afterwards they still won’t be at the same level as someone who grew up speaking that language. From working in an international software company I can say what is being looked for from staff is an ability to speak the language fluently with knowledge of colloquial terms and technical terms. I’ve seen many a person turned away for not having that ability and find it hard to see how a person can get proficient in that aspect of the language without it being part of their life regardless. If someone does manage to do it (and it was probable very expensive for them) there are plenty of better jobs then a technology company for a person highly proficient in two or more languages. In closing, companies (paypal) pay more for these skills and you’ll get applicants.

The real issue here is that how come kids in Primary schools here aren’t fluent in Irish by the time they leave but also have excellent French and German. Kids can readily learn 3-4 languages when they are young.

Thank goodness someone had sense on here…..Irish teaching is an indulgence we can no longer afford….we Need to be teaching our population languages that can be used on the global stage not one that even the natives can’t or don’t want to master…the failings of Irish language teaching is a subject for another day

It’s Enda’s new masterplan. First, we teach Irish to the Irish and then …. global domination!

James, the problem with Irish is not that it’s mandatory. A number of factors are at play:

1) A large number of primary school teachers who have little interest in teaching the subject, or who teach it in a downright terrible way.
2) Parents who are generally indifferent to the language, even to the point of telling their children that it’s “useless”, “pointless” etc.
3) A secondary school curriculum which assumes that the children who come straight out of primary school have learned enough to tackle Irish literature, and can write essays, short stories and debating speeches.

Normally primary school pupils do quite well up until the age of eight or nine, then a significant number of them refuse to learn any more. Interestingly, children of foreign nations (especially the Poles) seem to be immune to this, since their parents don’t have the same defeatist attitude.

I hated Irish in school, the teachers weren’t into it, it was boring and I never saw the point of it..
When I was 21 I met a guy from Connemara. He was fluent in Irish, he and his buddy used to converse in it and the rest of us couldn’t understand a word.. We used to joke about there being certain words that there wasn’t an Irish word for (the more blue words if you know what I mean!)..

It took a person from another country to explain what they loved about the Irish language for me to realise what I had missed, They described it as poetic and playful – like the Irish themselves. I’m ashamed to say I don’t speak my own language, but one of these days I’m going to tackle it..

When I was at school I would have loved to learn Greek. I like the difference in the alphabet.. Maybe I would have picked up more Irish if we had kept Irish script, it would have felt more special!!

Yes

Yesh

It wasn’t me :-)

Now don’t ask me how many Irish I have met who can’t speak Dutch…;-)

@Jeroen but there are Dutch who speak Irish -Alex Tijman is a Dutch born writer who lives in Brazil but who has written and published at least one book in Irish. Asked if he would translate it he said no, if you want to read it, read it in the language in which it was written.

Ah yes, this is the attitude that has us in quite a mess. The “Oh, I’m above that job, let a foreigner do it” attitude that’s working so well for us.

These jobs were never intended for irish people. They knew that when they located here. They are extremely low level jobs, below that of factory work. Nobody should spend years in college to aspire to these jobs.

“Hey lads! Lets open an office in Dublin and hire 1,000 foreigners!”

Yes, sounds very plausible.

IrishRenters you are right. Native English speakers can tolerate foreign accents, but it’s not like this in many countries. Some days ago I have received a call from my bank , the staff was speaking in Indian accent. All the big companies are carrying their English call centres to India, Egypt or Pakistan. see talktalk, vodafone, RBS etc. What a system, Capitalism!!

I don’t think there’s any harm in paying a graduate 25k to work in a call center rather than 10k or less on the dole. I was certainly very glad of such work when I was in my 20s. However done id the languages are unrealistic for hiring here. Mandate, Russian etc.

However central European languages do have the disadvantage in that very few people here ever get fluent enough to get such work. I know in many multilingual places I worked customers got annoyed if they couldn’t talk to a native speaker.

I wouldn’t totally knock paypal though, I had an offer from them last year for a technical role and they seemed pretty ok. It just happened somebody else was offering a lot more.

Irish Renters has it spot on. That’s basically the gambit, alright. Not that it’s any harm – I think it’s great that they will bring these workers to Ireland who will pay tax and spend their earnings here. I don’t get the MD’s angle at all. Is she suggesting that the education system start running classes in minor European languages en masse on the basis that (notoriously transient – I used to work in one since relocated to India) call centers might appear that require them? I’m all for teaching French, German, Spanish etc to a decently proficient level and expanding to include Chinese and Russian but for an Irish person to learn Dutch or Finnish really is a niche and something students can follow themselves if they so wish. As for Irish – don’t get me started. I fear I’ll be long in the grave before the state stops flogging that capaill marabh.

Exactly Tony. The teaching of french and german is fine. I didnt have a problem with either and would have a superior command of both then I would of Irish. The only problem is we are not taught modern languages for long enough in school – so nobody achieves fluency until the go on to third level.
I’m not opposed to the teaching of Irish (more languages the better IMHO) but it needs to be taught as a second language and not a bullish attempt to supplant English!

Also, Paypal probably cant be sated by the education system anyway, because it will always be French/German/Spanish taught as opposed to the smaller languages they’re saying they need. We cant teach every bloody language after all!

Lucky, I can’t remember a word of French! I am going to start learning again though and hope some comes back to me!

At last someone connects the dots and finds that teachers cannot teach languages apart from those in Gael Scoil. There are plenty of foreigners in Gael Scoil if one could only take off the blinkers!

Half the time with Gaelscoileanna, the parents aren’t speaking Irish at home so the full benefit of going is not received by the children. (Unless as you say the benefit is to escape foreigners- in which case they do pretty well!)

Typically there will be less foreigners in Gaelscoileanna, but that is mostly coincidental seeing as it is generally Irish people who have an interest n their children having Irish whereas foreigners typically won’t have the same cultural attachment to the language.

So I take it ignorance of the “bi-lingual advantage” leads people to assume that escaping foreigners is the purpose of Gael Scoil!

@Clare, I attended Gaelscoileanna for 14 years with neither of my parents speaking a word of Irish. I dont think this impacted my education negatively nor do I believe I didnt feel the full benefits of being taught through Irish. If anything, it benefited my parents as it helped them to remember a lot of the Irish they learned themselves in school.

As for the remark about escaping foreifners, I think thats ridiculous. Granted, there were none when I started but by the time I was finishing my Leaving, there were children of other nationalities joining the primary school. It’s obviously not going to be as common within different cultures to send their children to all-Irish schools, especially if they don’t plan on remaining in the country for more than a few years.

“Exclusive, escape the foreigner Gaelscoileanna”

Are people still quoting that ridiculous 2008 SBP article? Let me tell you a story about the racist alter-ego of Fiachra Ó Raghallaigh:

Fiachra commenced his primary schooling in the mid 1990s, and spent five years in a nice exclusive English speaking primary school, and never met a single foreign national. Then he moved to a prefabricated Gaelscoil for the last three years and to my utter horror met a son of an Italian immigrant! The cheek of him wanting to learn the Gaeilge! Then he went to a Gaelcoláiste and… wait for it… there were two dark skinned guys in his year. Can you believe it? Horrific! And the elder brother of one of them was in the year above him too! And then in the girls school across the yard, there were three Asian girls in the year below him.

Cop on to yourself. There probably are a few racist parents who sent their children to Gaelscoileanna/Gaelcoláistí to escape the immigrants, but there are also parents who object to Educate Together schools being built in their districts because it supposedly “draws in the Muslims”, and find Minarets “an offense to their Catholic faith”.

“Half the time with Gaelscoileanna, the parents aren’t speaking Irish at home so the full benefit of going is not received by the children.”

I think the point of Gaelscoileanna is that children get a chance of really learning Irish, whether or not his parents speak the language fluently. And while children often come out of primary school using a few odd and grammatically incorrect phrases (such as the dreaded “tá sé mo”), the scheme is quite successful.

Teaching languages using their written form is not teaching languages! It is mere academic appeasement.

Hold up.

Is mise Rónán O’Suilleabháin, and English is my primary language. It is spoken on the TV (I grew up beforeTG4 for the most part), it is spoken in the shop when I purchase goods, it is spoken by my peers, it is spoken by my employers.

I recognise the importance of Irish culture and language, but sorry it’s a simple fact that Irish is our national language in a ceremonial capacity only.

I refuse to accept any ‘shame’ for what I was brought up in. Culture evolves, whether we like it or not. There’s plenty of funding (rightly) made available to preserve our past cultural identity, but I refuse to be ashamed for not being born into those that preserve it.

The native language in Dublin is English and has been for as long as the English language has existed. Please don’t speak for us.

There are loads of regions across the EU where the majority national language has displaced regional ones

Agus scríobh tú é sin as Béarla! Mo náire thú! ;)

Poppycock, John.

Dublin was founded out of two settlements the Norse speaking Dubh Linn at Dublin castle & the Gaelic speaking Áth Cliath at Father Matthew Bridge, English came a bit later. But your right as a town it was never exclusively Gaelic speaking.

Irish is a beautiful language, there are not many people in Ireland who appreciate it though. The problem with children learning Irish is that they have adopted a negative attitude to Irish that is oh so familiar – we’ll never use it when we leave school, whats the point in learning it etc. Teachers are fighting a loosing battle trying to teach some of them. They learn poetry in English, but they don’t see point of learning poetry in Irish. I’ve heard many kids say also that their parents were crap at Irish in school so therefore they will be too. Great attitude to pass on to kids. No-one can learn a language with this defeatist attitude. Try learning French or German with the same attitude and you’ll never speak it either. Yet kids fly when they start learning MFL because they have the right attitude.
Every language is a reflection of the culture of it country. French soft like the French, German organised like the Germans, Italian expressive like the Italians and Irish poetic like the Irish.

No John its the teachers who are the disgrace. In any other endeavour if you cannot do the job the employer dispenses with your services. Fire the teachers and replace them with Spanish, French , German and whatever teachers who can do the job on less pay and with success.

@Mick: I speak Irish very well, lots of my classmates don’t therefore (a) the teachers are rubbish or (b) some people are not good at learning languages and shouldn’t be forced to fail at something that is o little interest to them?

“We are the only country in the EU not to speak our native language. Its a bloody disgrace.”

Agreed.

“Everyone one of us should be ashamed of ourselves.”

Question: Is “everyone of us” at fault?

You are speaking a dead language. Watch TG4, half the words are just english words. The English language is growing every year as it is a living language, people come up with new words. This does not happen in Irish. What is the irish for internet? Idirlion which is obviosuly the result of some academic making up the word. Nothing organic or natural about how that word came into being like it should in a language. What is broadband in Irish? What about the newer pop culture terms? Bling? It is dead and has been for centuries.

@ Renters: where do you think the word “internet” comes from? It too was coined by academics “making up a word” for a concept which had not previously existed. The terminology for most modern concepts in English are coined by academics. Where do you think the words quark, quasar, copernicium, etc. come from? They were hardly good old Anglo-Saxon terms. The fact that the Irish language still commands the ability to adapt to the modern world and to adopt new terms is proof that the language is indeed alive. Regarding your comment that half the words on TG4 are in English – I don’t know what programmes you are viewing, but the vast majority are, in my mind anyway, Irish. Some may have been borrowed from other languages, but then most of English has been borrowed from other languages too. It is estimated that the Irish lexicon is 20-35% foreign based. 70% of English however comprises foreign borrowings (some lesser known examples include “market”, “boat”, “sail”, “beef”, “pork”, “anger”, “birth”, “knife”, “run”, “happy”, etc.). Does Irish have a panel of “experts” that agree on new terminology? Yes (Foras na Gaeilge). But so do most languages such as Russian (ИРЯ), French (Académie française), Finnish (Kotimaisten kielten keskus), Czech (ÚJČ), Turkish (Türk Dil Kurumu) and, believe it or not, Mandarin (NLRC). As for “it is dead and has been for centuries”. At the time of the famine there were c. 500,000 monolingual Irish speakers, and some 1.5 million bilingual speakers. That’s not centuries ago. At the turn of the 20th century there were tens of thousands of monolinguals and 250,000 bilinguals. Today there are still some 80,000 people who use Irish as their first language. I am one of those 80,000. I can assure you, I am not dead. And while I am still alive and still speaking mo theanga dhúchais the language will continue to live. There is a television station in Irish. There are several radio stations in Irish, including 2 commercial ones (if Irish was dead there would be no demand). There are several Irish language newspapers. Hundreds of books are published every year in Irish. More Irish is spoken at the EU parliament than Estonian or Maltese. Just because you wish for the extinction of Irish doesn’t change the facts on the ground – Irish is not dead. It is in a perilous situation, but it is most certainly not dead. Having said all that, as a proponent of the Irish language, I do agree that Irish should not be compulsory for the Leaving Certificate and I agree other languages should be introduced into the Primary curriculum. We need to change how languages are taught.

What’s the Italian for Internet? What’s the French? Spanish? Portuguese? Dutch? German? You get where I’m going here. All the same answer: internet. By the way gréasán can be used in Irish.

Congratulations.

They may be qualified to teach Irish but that does not mean they are able to teach the subject. Isn’t that the issue here?

I’d take exception to that one chief, I speak Irish and while I’ve taught to fill gaps, I’ve never been a guard. I’ve worked in the media, the digital sphere, the voluntary sector and a whole host of varied and interesting professional roles all of which were opened up to me even more so by dint of having Gaeilge.

I didn’t mean to offend, but realistically the use of Irish is for the sake of using Irish. I find it quite elitist also, it serves a minority of the population. I don’t believe that we should forget it but perhaps our use of it needs some imagination. I think the money spent on it could be better served on something that makes a return.

Rubbish. The vast majority of people in Ireland learn to speak English as their first language. That’s the way it is and it is unlikely to change anytime soon.

Really Anne? So why are we having this debate in English?

False. That;s the kind of nonsensical stuff you would hear in North Korea. Time to get real.

Let’s first fund the proper training of our teachers and if they are unable to meet the necessary standards then fire them. An educational system with the abysmal results in the teaching of a language over fourteen years must seriously challenge teachers as abysmal failures. Indeed among the highest paid failures in the world.

@ Frank – many of those who teach Irish don’t speak German, Spanish, French, etc. So basically what you are proposing is turning thousands of teachers onto the dole queues. Whatever about the merits or otherwise of teaching Irish (personally I am in favour of teaching it, I just don’t agree with the compulsory nature as far as LC), but simply scrapping it like you are suggesting would simply negate the savings made from teaching it in the first place.

Did you actually look at them? They’re hardly going to have 200 of the same position advertised as separate positions are they?

No. Get the church out of education.