Poetry buddy

Dia daoibh!

I'm a French translator and music student, and I've recently started learning Irish. I was thinking about getting an Irish language buddy, which is a great way to improve, but then a friend of mine told me that she was translating Russian poetry with the help of a Russian friend (who provides a "rough translation" in French, which my friend improves). I'm very interested in Irish poetry, which I can't, unfortunately, understand at the moment (I can barely explain where I live!). But I am keen on discovering it, and I was wondering if anyone would like to pair up with me to do the same... Ideally someone who knows French to a certain extent, but if need be we can use English as a bridge (not ideal for translation, but hey, translation is never perfect anyway!). Of course, I'm also interested in a "regular" Irish buddy, we could do both. :) We could also try to translate French poetry into Irish if someone's into it. Anyone? :)

I wish you a nice day!

Hello.

You may reject me outright, because...well, I have very little in the way of French...and I am, at best, intermediate in my Irish, although I am improving.  I have written poetry in English for a long time, and a couple of years ago, I self-published a book written in poetry on a Christmas theme.  It's called "Five Minutes to Christmas".  I was curious about how well I could do, so I attempted to translate my poem from English to Irish, and got help from someone on this forum (who I haven't seen here in quite some time, unfortunately) to "clean up" my Irish translation.  The resulting work, which I also self-published, is called "Cúig Nóiméad go dtí an Nollag".  The person who assisted me actually was able to make most of the Irish translation rime pretty well, so I was very pleased.  Subsequentyly, I have also translated it into Spanish.  Sorry, no French translation yet!

While in the US Army, I served for three years in Germany, and learned some German while there.  On one occasion, I had a temporary duty assignment in Brussels, Belgium, where the primary languages are French and Flemish.  I took a French phrase book with me, which turned out to be useful.  I learned that NATO in French is OTAN...which makes perfectly good sense!  One of the Belgian officers I worked with, who was Flemish, but spoke Englsih and French as well, and a little German, introduced me to his French-speaking girlfriend, Jeanique.  He introduced her to me in English, then turned to her and introduced me to her in French.  Well, I studied Spanish in high school, and knew the correct response to an introduction in Spanish is "Mucho gusto!" but I knew it was nothing similar in French.  I knew I had heard it before, if only on a TV show or two, so I searched frantically for the right response...and it came to me!  I took her hand and said, "Enchanté!"  She blurted something out in French very fast.  I looked at Rick, the Belgian officer, and asked him what she had said.  "Oh, she said you speak French very well!"  So that, and a couple of times asking for directions and watching for which way they pointed (because I couldn't understand what they said) is the extent of my experience in French.

There is a facility on this forum where you can ask someone to be your friend; I will try to invite you, so hopefully we can figure out some way to correspond that will be helpful and constructive.

Meanwhile, welcome to the forum, and I hope you do well with your Irish studies!

Dale Dennis

Thank you for welcoming me, and for offering your help!

Well like I said it's better not to have a third language in-between, like it would be better to have an Irish native speaker, but it's about playing with language and having fun, so why not? :)