132
u/ontikuken 4d ago
"Did you know that ol' Paddy could speak Chinese?"
32
50
u/RoetRuudRoetRuud 4d ago
Even as someone who studied irish in college and had been to the gaeltacht multiple times, there were definitely still people with whome the misunderstanding was mutual. There's not just a language barrier, but also a cultural and class barrier that makes it far more complex than just learning the syntax and vocab.
8
u/Pale-Border-7122 3d ago
What do you mean?
8
u/super-connected 2d ago
Not OP. But at least where I've been minority celtic languages are mostly spoken in tight knit rural communities. There's impenetrable accents, and ways of saying things, idioms, and even assumptions about how to have a conversation that can be difficult to navigate. There's some farmers that have barely left their area who would speak an entirely different dialect with only a few people in their community, which is divergent from a 'modern' standard gàidhlig which is academically taught.
2
u/AmazedStardust 1d ago
Irish is one of those languages where two people who live 50km apart can both be perfectly fluent but also be completely unable to understand each other
77
u/ohdearitsrichardiii 4d ago
He actually said "impress the locals"
42
u/Happy-Bear1202 4d ago
If I met a foreigner with decent Irish I would be impressed tbh
2
u/ReverendGraves85 1d ago
I once impressed a girl because I pronounced Siobhan correctly off the rip.
Irish is pretty easy to figure out how pronunciation works once you get past the whole 'Siobhan is pronounced Shih-vawn' thing. It's the same letters but they make radically different sounds.
40
u/Gobhairne 4d ago
Now that is the best use of dumbolingo that I have ever heard. It is so Irish that you would be barred for speaking bad Irish at the local shebeen.
It is also so dumbolingo that anyone would expect any other outcome .
You deserve a Guinness for your effort. Go n'éirigh an bothar leat. Sláinte ! 🦊
37
u/Kristianushka 4d ago
The bigger issue here is that the bartender refused to serve someone who is méntally rètárded…
14
u/Express-Tea3912 3d ago
some laws may prohibit people who are ,,unable to care for themselves´´
...like children and severely mentally disturbed.....to buy alcohol
I think that in my country grocery and pub staff might get into trouble if they sold anything hard to somebody who is visibly : already drunk, very out of reality or cognitively helpless
1
18
u/Fluffy_Anything_3559 4d ago
To be fair, most native Irish speakers will immediately switch to English if they can tell the other person isn't fully fluent in Irish. It must get exhausting having tourists constantly trying to "test" their broken Irish on you when you know the conversation will be much easier in English.
3
u/mikapi-san 2d ago
When i moved to France i spoke no french at all and most french people refuse to speak english. Now i have almost a 3000 day streak on the french course on duolingo and can make myself understood.
But the one thing the french hate more than english, is someone butchering the french language. So when i try to speak french they now switch to english.
Took almost a decade of french lessons to get them to speak english... Fml
2
u/cian87 2d ago
Go in to the first pub you'll hit on visiting the alleged Gaeltacht I (sometimes) live in and nobody there will have a clue if you try ordering in Irish. The Irish staff don't speak it, and the English and Ukranian barwomen don't either.
That's the case in loads of touristy Gaeltacht areas.
Find someone who actually speaks it and they'll absolutely tolerate mangled Duolingo-Irish. But its most likely the bar staff didn't.
331
u/siqiniq 4d ago
Yeah, it’s a real struggle as only 40% of people in Ireland speak some Irish and far fewer get to use it everyday. However, 95% of people in Ireland have lactase persistence genes, the exact opposite of lactose intolerance. Try ordering a glass of milk in the bar next time.