This conversation took place with a very good service italki.com. The teacher Ciaran lives in the city of Kilkenny in the Ireland (also described as the Republic of Ireland).
The first difficulty for me was the pronunciation of the name this country because it sounds like island. In fact, there are three confusing words:
- An island is a piece of land completely surrounded by water. The "s" in island is silent. The word island is pronounced /aɪˈlənd/.
- The word Iceland is the name of a country. The word Iceland is pronounced /aɪsˈlənd/.
- The word Ireland is pronounced /aɪərˈlənd/.
The origin of the name in English and in Irish sounds: Éire (Irish: [ˈeːɾʲə] ( listen)) is Irish for "Ireland", the English pronunciation is /ˈɛərə/ (air-ə).
The Irish language is Gaeilge. For me, the sound of the Irish language is very different than English. Here is an example:
Conas ata tu - How are you?
About some tourist attractions:
The Burren is a region in County Clare, Ireland. It is dominated by karst landscape and measures 250 square kilometers.
The typical landscape of Burren
Poulnabrone dolmen (Poll na mBrón in Irish, meaning "hole of the quern stones" (bró in Irish)) is a portal tomb - one of approximately 174 in Ireland - located in the Burren, County Clare, Ireland. It dates back to the Neolithic period, probably between 4200 BC and 2900 BC. 
Let’s compare the age of this structures with the age of Egyptian pyramids. The earliest among Egyptian pyramids is the Pyramid of Djoser, constructed 2630 BC–2611 BC.
Poulnabrone dolmen is much older! Wow!!!
There was a useful exchange of views on the resources that can be used to learn English: Skype. Second life, Google hangouts, and italki.com. Podcasts helps improve listening skills a lot. Reading newspapers and books, watching TV-programs, Youtube. So many opportunities for exploring the world we get by studying a foreign language...
No comments:
Post a Comment