Sunday, October 22, 2023

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?

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