New site helps Irish practise the mother tongue


10 Mar 2009

With St Patrick’s Day on the way, there is no better time to pick up the ‘cúpla focal’, or couple of words, and 14 March sees the official launch of www.TalkIrish.com – a social-networking site designed to help members learn, teach and share the Irish language in an online environment.

The social-networking site complements the existing Irish Blog Awards-nominated ‘Focal An Lae’ or Word of the Day blog, which gives a pronunciation podcast as well as flashcard service.

Much like any other social-networking site, you can build a profile, upload images and get talking to other people, but presumably you are encouraged to maintain your status update and discussions ‘as Gaeilge’ as much as you can!

With more than 50,000 native speakers in Ireland alone, and many more scattered to the four corners of the globe, it is hoped that Belfast-based TalkIrish.com will become a forum for them to gather, speak and learn.

By Marie Boran