6 ms·

I'm by no means perfectly fluent in Irish, but I find it incredibly useful to have a language no-one understands to speak when travelling to maintain some priva

by nfg 10y ago

I'm by no means perfectly fluent in Irish, but I find it incredibly useful to have a language no-one understands to speak when travelling to maintain some privacy. My wife and I were buying clothes in a market Kathmandu some years ago, while haggling we were able to strategise without the stall holder knowing a word of what we were saying. Once we were done (and had acquired some nicely priced clothes) the guy took us aside and asked what language we were speaking - turned out he'd learned off basic vocabulary (esp numbers) in a ton of the languages popular with tourists but had been left baffled by us!

Y_Y 10y ago
You have to be careful. My cousin and his friends were being rather rude (in Irish) about a woman on a Belgian train, she managed to keep a straight face throughout, before lambasting them before leaving. Ach, ar aon nós, táim an-shásta bheith ag léamh faoi Ghaeilge ar hn. N'fheadar liom cé mhéad atá anseo a bhfuil in ann sí a labhairt.
- ng12 10y ago
  Don't be a rude person and you'll never have to worry :)
- fahadkhan 10y ago
  Google translate does a nice job of translating Irish. I was surprised till I realised that it is an official language of the EU.
  - verbify 10y ago
    A bit off topic, but I find it funny that if the UK leaves the EU, English will remain an official language of the EU due to the Irish Republic.
    - Y_Y 10y ago
      The Irish Republic only existed from 1919 to 1922 :/ And Malta is another EU state with English as an official language.
    - tellarin 10y ago
      Not quite true. If I recall correctly, each country picks a language and Ireland didn't choose English.
      - verbify 10y ago
        That's not correct. The Council of Ministers, acting unanimously, decide on the rules governing the use of languages by the European institutions. Ireland (and Malta) would veto removing English as an official language. https://ec.europa.eu/ireland/news/statement-on-behalf-of-the-European-Commission-Representation_en https://ec.europa.eu/ireland/news/statement-on-behalf-of-the...
  - luxpir 10y ago
    Not sure about 'nice'... (said one of the 250k human translators on planet Earth).
    - fahadkhan 10y ago
      Of course it won't compare with a human, not for a very long time anyway.
      - luxpir 10y ago
        Looking back at your comment I take your point that it's surprising that a low speaker-population language might have a decent corpus to work from... unless that corpus is the entire legislature and discussion archive of a pan-European institution. The thing with the machines, as far as I see it to date, is that they rely on good, professional human input, which is limited. So until everything that needs to be said is said, and translated professionally, current models are stuck just behind in the creativity stakes. But when it comes to boiler-plate and repetitious texts, computers can absolutely automate that. Particularly if overseen by competent homo sapiens. It's just a crying shame that the dream of the babelfish dissuades people from translating their literature and business offers today, as we all wait on and on for that point in time. A wait that could be a very long time, while human translators sit waiting for the middle-man agency to send another highly marked up project. (You may have guessed; I'm working on a related thing.) Now, neural networks and massively parallel machine learning, that's a different story... If the machine manages to infer meaning and work within the confines of acceptable grammar use, it's game, set and match to the singularity.
- macintux 10y ago
  My first girlfriend was fluent in ~5 languages and conversant with a couple more (she was a Swedish Finn, so there's 3 languages effectively from birth) so had multiple stories about overhearing conversations she wasn't meant to understand.
- colanderman 10y ago
  Was once hanging out with my wife in the lobby of an Israeli-owned hotel in Costa Rica (lots of Hebrew and Spanish with some English). Two young female French backpackers stopped in for about ½ hr, sat nearby and started speaking French to each other. My French was quite rusty but it became clear at some point that I was the topic. Eventually they got up, and one, without really looking, said "au revoir, monsieur". To this day I regret not replying in kind just to see the reaction on their faces. Over the past year my wife and I have learned Esperanto to near-fluency. However contrary to the goals of the language, it is a quite effective "secret language" when we don't wish to be understood.
- soVeryTired 10y ago
  Is feidir liom! But, um, not very maith.
- luxpir 10y ago
  > Ach, ar aon nós, táim an-shásta bheith ag léamh faoi Ghaeilge ar hn. N'fheadar liom cé mhéad atá anseo a bhfuil in ann sí a labhairt. I've wanted to learn it properly since I took classes in Paris, but never really dedicated enough resources to it. I still enjoy watching TG4 and listening to RnaG/Failté from time to time but never went the distance. Swedish and French, being so closely related to English, they came much faster :) I can just about hack my way through the national anthem, for no good reason other than it's a cracking song. Maybe when all my free time isn't spent on 'asset building' I'll get back into some of the fun stuff! Tell me, how do you get on with (Scottish) Gaelic? I understand there's a large degree of mutual intelligibility between certain dialects and it'd be a fascinating area to study, like Welsh/Cornish/Breton also. I've seen some BBC Alba programming aimed at music-lovers/youth where an Irish performer was interviewed in Scottish Gaelic, replying in Irish. How set-up it was, I don't know.
  - soVeryTired 10y ago
    You could pick it up quite quickly. I haven't seen or heard much Gaelic but I could get the gist of the stuff inscribed in the stonework around the city of Edinburgh from my Irish.
  - Y_Y 10y ago
    I've watched a couple of programmes on BBC Alba, and understood a good bit. It was somewhat like hearing Dutch as a German speaker, except maybe easier. There has been talk of an "Idir-Ghaeilge" reunified language. The Irish online magazine Nós had a nice article on this recently http://nos.ie/gniomhaiochas/teanga/idir-ghaeilge/ http://nos.ie/gniomhaiochas/teanga/idir-ghaeilge/ (in Irish). Could become a reality in the unlikely but beautiful event of a post-Brexit Scotland uniting with Ireland in the "Celtic Union".
    - luxpir 10y ago
      Thanks, that's really cool. I'll try to make head or tails of the article and look a bit more into the reunification. If that could be carried off, interest levels in the language(s) would potentially rocket. The example I thought of for mutual-intelligibility btw was Swedish/Norwegian/Danish - but perhaps it's not that close? With Swedish as a third language I can still understand most Norwegian TV in general use or those subject areas I'm more familiar with.

by nfg 10y ago

Y_Y 10y ago

You have to be careful. My cousin and his friends were being rather rude (in Irish) about a woman on a Belgian train, she managed to keep a straight face throughout, before lambasting them before leaving. Ach, ar aon nós, táim an-shásta bheith ag léamh faoi Ghaeilge ar hn. N'fheadar liom cé mhéad atá anseo a bhfuil in ann sí a labhairt.

ng12 10y ago
Don't be a rude person and you'll never have to worry :)
fahadkhan 10y ago
Google translate does a nice job of translating Irish. I was surprised till I realised that it is an official language of the EU.
- verbify 10y ago
  A bit off topic, but I find it funny that if the UK leaves the EU, English will remain an official language of the EU due to the Irish Republic.
  - Y_Y 10y ago
    The Irish Republic only existed from 1919 to 1922 :/ And Malta is another EU state with English as an official language.
  - tellarin 10y ago
    Not quite true. If I recall correctly, each country picks a language and Ireland didn't choose English.
    - verbify 10y ago
      That's not correct. The Council of Ministers, acting unanimously, decide on the rules governing the use of languages by the European institutions. Ireland (and Malta) would veto removing English as an official language. https://ec.europa.eu/ireland/news/statement-on-behalf-of-the-European-Commission-Representation_en https://ec.europa.eu/ireland/news/statement-on-behalf-of-the...
- luxpir 10y ago
  Not sure about 'nice'... (said one of the 250k human translators on planet Earth).
  - fahadkhan 10y ago
    Of course it won't compare with a human, not for a very long time anyway.
    - luxpir 10y ago
      Looking back at your comment I take your point that it's surprising that a low speaker-population language might have a decent corpus to work from... unless that corpus is the entire legislature and discussion archive of a pan-European institution. The thing with the machines, as far as I see it to date, is that they rely on good, professional human input, which is limited. So until everything that needs to be said is said, and translated professionally, current models are stuck just behind in the creativity stakes. But when it comes to boiler-plate and repetitious texts, computers can absolutely automate that. Particularly if overseen by competent homo sapiens. It's just a crying shame that the dream of the babelfish dissuades people from translating their literature and business offers today, as we all wait on and on for that point in time. A wait that could be a very long time, while human translators sit waiting for the middle-man agency to send another highly marked up project. (You may have guessed; I'm working on a related thing.) Now, neural networks and massively parallel machine learning, that's a different story... If the machine manages to infer meaning and work within the confines of acceptable grammar use, it's game, set and match to the singularity.
macintux 10y ago
My first girlfriend was fluent in ~5 languages and conversant with a couple more (she was a Swedish Finn, so there's 3 languages effectively from birth) so had multiple stories about overhearing conversations she wasn't meant to understand.
colanderman 10y ago
Was once hanging out with my wife in the lobby of an Israeli-owned hotel in Costa Rica (lots of Hebrew and Spanish with some English). Two young female French backpackers stopped in for about ½ hr, sat nearby and started speaking French to each other. My French was quite rusty but it became clear at some point that I was the topic. Eventually they got up, and one, without really looking, said "au revoir, monsieur". To this day I regret not replying in kind just to see the reaction on their faces. Over the past year my wife and I have learned Esperanto to near-fluency. However contrary to the goals of the language, it is a quite effective "secret language" when we don't wish to be understood.
soVeryTired 10y ago
Is feidir liom! But, um, not very maith.
luxpir 10y ago
> Ach, ar aon nós, táim an-shásta bheith ag léamh faoi Ghaeilge ar hn. N'fheadar liom cé mhéad atá anseo a bhfuil in ann sí a labhairt. I've wanted to learn it properly since I took classes in Paris, but never really dedicated enough resources to it. I still enjoy watching TG4 and listening to RnaG/Failté from time to time but never went the distance. Swedish and French, being so closely related to English, they came much faster :) I can just about hack my way through the national anthem, for no good reason other than it's a cracking song. Maybe when all my free time isn't spent on 'asset building' I'll get back into some of the fun stuff! Tell me, how do you get on with (Scottish) Gaelic? I understand there's a large degree of mutual intelligibility between certain dialects and it'd be a fascinating area to study, like Welsh/Cornish/Breton also. I've seen some BBC Alba programming aimed at music-lovers/youth where an Irish performer was interviewed in Scottish Gaelic, replying in Irish. How set-up it was, I don't know.
- soVeryTired 10y ago
  You could pick it up quite quickly. I haven't seen or heard much Gaelic but I could get the gist of the stuff inscribed in the stonework around the city of Edinburgh from my Irish.
- Y_Y 10y ago
  I've watched a couple of programmes on BBC Alba, and understood a good bit. It was somewhat like hearing Dutch as a German speaker, except maybe easier. There has been talk of an "Idir-Ghaeilge" reunified language. The Irish online magazine Nós had a nice article on this recently http://nos.ie/gniomhaiochas/teanga/idir-ghaeilge/ http://nos.ie/gniomhaiochas/teanga/idir-ghaeilge/ (in Irish). Could become a reality in the unlikely but beautiful event of a post-Brexit Scotland uniting with Ireland in the "Celtic Union".
  - luxpir 10y ago
    Thanks, that's really cool. I'll try to make head or tails of the article and look a bit more into the reunification. If that could be carried off, interest levels in the language(s) would potentially rocket. The example I thought of for mutual-intelligibility btw was Swedish/Norwegian/Danish - but perhaps it's not that close? With Swedish as a third language I can still understand most Norwegian TV in general use or those subject areas I'm more familiar with.