Junior Cert Irish Audiobooks

 

We should have audiobooks of the Irish books we make kids study on the Junior cert. I made a list here of Irish language audiobooks I think we need. But the wishlist should start with the books we make 13-15 year olds read  

Having these books in audiobook format that would help students with their pronounciation and allow them get immersion in the texts while commuting etc.

Here is the list of the novels and short stories on the Junior cert. T2 is non gaelscoil prescribed texts and there are about 60,000 students per year. Which is a lot of people who could be helped with an audiobook.

The books students have to learn one from are

Sárú by Anna Heussaff 

LabhairAmach.com  by Áine Uí Fhoghlú 

Tóraíocht Taisce  by Mícheál Ó Ruairc 

Amach by Alan Titley

Smuf by Alan Titley

Hóng by Anna Heussaff

Daideo by Áine Ní Ghlinn does have an audiobook here 

Cúpla by Ógie Ó Céilleachair this seems to be the most common book used in Junior cert so this would be a great audiobook to make.

Éalú san Oíche by Colmán Ó Raghallaigh

Trumptaí Dumptaí agus An Falla Mór by Ré Ó Laighléis

Hiúdaí Beag Eithne by Ní Ghallchobhair

Gluaiseacht by Alan Titley recording is here (it is on the gaelscoil list) 

Some of these are used by more schools than others so even just recordings of the most popular ones would help a lot of students.

And the plays are

Gan Choinne by Ré Ó Laighléis 

Gleann Álainn by Brian Ó Baoill Youtube video teaching it with extra explanation 

Na Deoraithe  by Celia de Fréine 

Lá Buí Bealtaine  byMáiréad Ní Ghráda

An Casán  by Séamus de Bhilmot 

I could be missing some recordings that are available. If I am please let me know. 
These books tend to be under an hour of audio. Which means the cost and time for recording any one book is not high. Also because these are relatively simple books other Irish learners can benefit as well.

Irish Language Audiobooks we Should Have

I have moaned a lot about the lack of books with Irish and English text and Irish audio. But how much would it cost to fix this? An hour of audiobook recording seems to cost about €100. For 50 hours of Audio it would cost about 5,000 euro.

With this 50 hours you could get the books 

1. On the Junior and leaving cert cycle Cupla, A Thig ná Tit Orm, LabhairAmach.com, Gluaiseacht, Sárú and Tromluí. Combined these are about 10 hours. And we make kids read these every year we might as well give them good materials to help them.

Some teenage books already exist in audiobook form and they have been a great help to me. You can get them here

2. The classic Irish language books including Blasket Island books. And these would be public domain. An tOileánach, An old woman's reflections by Peig, 20 years a growing. Seadna just needs a digital release. 

3. An Giall, The Hostage by Brendan Behan is still performed pretty regularly so there should be a version people can study. It is about an hour and a half.

4. The open Door series. These really helped me. Making them available outside of libraries would be great. There are 4 newer books in the series without Irish language audiobooks to add to the 8 that exist. Each of these is under 2 hours of audio.

5. Popular English language books that have already been translated into Irish would help learners. 

The Hobbit

Harry Potter

4 Roald Dahl books

3 David Walliams books

each of these is about 10 hours of audio. We would have to be sure the rights holders would allow the audiobooks to be sold at a reasonable price before investing in making the audiobook. But a popular audiobook like this could really help people immerse in the language.
The main reason audiobooks are expensive to buy is they are expensive to make. If that making expense is covered then the audiobooks themselves can be cheap while still ensuring the rights holder gets paid.

6. Irish language Books of cultural importance from the Modern Ireland in 100 Artworks list.
Getting most of the 1-5 up the 50 hours budget. But if you want to add more we should record

Seacht mBua an Éirí Amach Pádraic Ó Conaire  

An tOileánach  Tomás O'Crohan 

An Beal Bocht by Flann O'Brien

Cré na Cille already recorded so we would just have to help make it digitally available

Dé Luain Eoghan Ó Tuairisc 

Ár Ré Dhearóil by Máirtín Ó Direáin

Bligeard Sráide by Michael Davitt 

Cead Aighnis by Nuala Ni Domhnaill

For five thousand euro we could get audiobooks with about 50 hours or 500 thousand words total made. And these could be free, or sold cheaply, because the making was subsidised. This would be all the books teenagers are expected to read junior and leaving cert. Translated popular kids books. 11 books in the open door series for adults. And some of the of the classic Irish language books that are big parts of our cultural heritage.

Say I am wrong and the cost is €200 per hour. That you cannot get an Irish teacher with podcast equipment to record this during a holiday for €100 per hour. Ten thousand is still the price of a second hand car.

Some money is already spent helping Irish and ten thousand euro would be a 0.05% percentage of the most recently announce funding. €20m Irish-language arts and community funding announced

How much can you learn from a Soap Opera?

I have noticed watching Ros na Rún has improved my Irish but how much could it really help?

Ros na Rún has 82 episodes a series each about 24 minutes long.  You could easily watch one a day over about 3 months. But how much could you learn from that? 

I extracted the Irish subtitles from one episode and it had 2964 words in it. 

Over an 82 episode series that would be 243048 total words. Heap's law says that is about 9860 unique individual words. 

'To be familiar with 98% of the running words in a novel or newspaper, you need to know around 8000-9000 different words.' What do you need to know to learn a foreign language? Paul Nation which is less.

Soap Operas are closer to how people talk than the words used in novels. And there is a fair bit of repetition as people spend several episodes talking about the events a hen night or something. But using words again means you are more likely to remember the word. Any decrease in unique words is an increase in the times you hear a word and your chances of remembering it. 

It is easy enough to extract TG4 subtitles and audio if needed. Which allows you to recheck and learn any section you found difficult. 

'Learn Irish with Series 26 of Ros na Rún' would be an entirely practical 3 month process.

An Beal Bocht Audiobook

An Béal Bocht  is considered one of the classics of literature from Ireland. And of the Irish language in particular. It is a satire of the Irish language 'we had it tough' growing up books like that of Peig Sayers. It is here in the list of 100 important Irish artworks. And has an English translation called the Poor Mouth. 

There is a great sort 2018 animated version here and Graphic novel with the same drawings. But there is no Irish language audiobook version. This is unfortunate as it would help learners and audiobooks in general are useful for disabled and older people also. 

Mercier press publishes an Béal Bocht, their email is info@mercierpress.ie  The email I send said asking for an Audiobook version was

A Chara

I am trying to learn Irish at the moment. And I really enjoy reading An Béal Bocht. The learning method I use involves listening to the audiobook at the same time as reading the book. 

Unfortunately I cannot find an audiobook version of An Béal Bocht. Is there one available?

   Le /meas,

Placenames in Irish

You pass loads of clues everyday to the geography and history around you. And until recently I had not been paying attention. I made a map and flashcards to learn the meanings of Irish placenames to help decipher signposts. 

I made this map of 100 Irish words commonly found in place names. Interactive Google Map of Irish placenames 

 

These words are used loads of places. So once you recognise them you pick up on them elsewhere.

In general you can look up addresses and town names on logainm if you get stuck. Corrections and suggestions welcome. If you know of someone who might find this interesting or useful please send it onto them.

I made an Anki Deck here of these words as well to help learning and memorising 

Being stopped at traffic lights since I learned these words is a lot more entertaining.

Books with Irish text and Audio and English translations.

The last post here was about how many words you would have to read in Irish to have seen a particular  number of unique words. 

What books exist with Irish text and Audio and English text available? This is for the Listening-Reading language learning method

1. Small kids books. Gruffalo and other Julia Donaldson books have been translated. These have simple repeating language which make them a good place to start.

There are about 700 words in each of these. Which means there are probably about 800 unique words in two of them. 

Here has a list of 13 free Irish audiobooks but I cannot find English versions of 11 of them.

2. Aesop's Fables in Irish 

English here 

Aesop a Tháinig go hÉirinn text 

Irish Audio  for 8 of the tales, this is a great resource. 

2. An Triail. This is a play on higher level Irish leaving cert. It has about 10000 words and has english versions, audio and a great sentence by sentence audio translation available. Though the level of Irish is pretty high so it is not ideal to start this learning process with. 

3. Other kids books with Irish translations like Diary of a Whimpy Kid and Harry Potter do not seem to have audio versions.

4. The 'we had it tough' books. The Beal Bocht has a great animated film version but no Irish audiobook.

Peig Sayers has one book with an audio recording.

The Islander with Tomás O’ Crohan and 20 years a growing do not seem to have audio recordings.

5. The Little Prince the Irish translation does not have an audiobook yet. But hopefully it will soon. It is a great book of 15000 words 2500 unique ones. And the level is slightly simpler than adult books. 

6. Open Door new Island books. These seem to be the best option at the moment. The ebooks and audiobooks are on the Irish libraries online borrowbox program. But not enough copies are available so you have to wait to get the english and Irish ebooks and the eaudio loans.
Increasing the number of copies the library can lend is probably the simplest way to increase people's access to this reading and listening form of language learning for Irish.

There is 11 of these books in Irish, with audiobook versions and written by great writers in this series. For example Rúin by Patricia Scanlan

7. Looking at gutenberg Irish language section. Douglas Hyde, has the bilingual 

Beside the Fire: A collection of Irish Gaelic folk stories but I can't find an audio recording of it.

8. Mo Sgéal Féin, My Story by Peter O'Leary 

Irish Audio on this great site 

Irish text 

English text 

Séadna by O'Leary is also available

9. Scéalaíocht Amhlaoibh íLuínse fairy stories by Seán Ó Cróinín and Donncha A. Ó Cróinín

has audio on the same site but I can't find an English translation.

10. Graveyard clay by Ó'Cadhain has an audio version and a translation. But seems only suitable for fluent speakers. 

11. A choose your own adventure game with text and audio in both Irish and English https://darkdawn.irishimbasbooks.com/

If you know of other books with English and Irish text and Irish audio available to help people learn the language could you please comment them?