TG coa 1 @ gmail com ... Ná bígí faiteach ǃ agus https://twitter.com/Feilire

en This user is a native speaker of English.
 I live near Paris much of the time, and I used to write a lot in French. I have some elementary Deutsch and Espanol too.

I would like to help editors write much better as Gaeilge.
The level of many Vicipéid articles needs to be much higher if the Vicipéid is to win more respect from the community of good Irish speakers ... and raise the number of readers.

Please don't write for the Vicipéid if you don't master basic Irish grammar and syntax.

cuir in eagar

If you can't write Irish without making mistakes, you can still help by adding references, images and categories, along with other classification tasks.

Many Vicipéid articles have acceptable syntax in Irish. But many others are written by people that do not master basic Irish syntax, that do not use foinsí as Gaeilge (Tuairisc, Beo, Nós, RTÉ srl) and especially, do not realise that they cannot express themselves correctly in Irish.

Worse still, most articles written in pidgin Irish will go unnoticed and uncorrected. It takes a very long time for someone like me to try to improve badly written articles. There are no regular native speaking editors with good writing and translation skills on the Vicipéid (in 2022).

People that write badly written articles are first and foremost wasting their own time. A Template 'Glanadh" at the top of badly written articles, a warning over the bow. Then large chunks. if not all the article, may be deleted. Easier to delete and restart, using foinsí as Gaeilge, then to put snas on Béarlachas. Badly written articles create a bad reputation for the Vicipéid and waste everyone's time..

Take a look at this article about how a young American wrote thousands of articles in bad Scots and wrecked Wikipedia in Scots... and he got off scot-free ... until the press started hounding him.

Shock an aw: US teenager wrote huge slice of Scots Wikipedia, Guardian 2020

Unfortunately the Vicipéid has had several similar cases, notably an editor called Chaco, who did not know how to express numbers or even form genitives as Gaeilge. I am mentioning his name as he created 1000s of articles, many of which are still there, uncorrected. Chaco liked giving definitions, often a complex task even in English for English speakers. Irish people do specialised degrees in translation before they tackle such difficulties. Chaco was able to write unhindered for many years before he was finally challenged and stopped his vandalism (though doubtless well-intentioned),

To help write clearly, while avoid wooden translations (let alone errors), try this one simple technique with your writing
If you have doubts over any expression, do an advanced Google Search containing " siteː.ie " (without the quotes).
If your expression does not appear in the results, there is likely an error or an anglicism.
In that case, continue trying out alternative expressions on focloir.ie, potafocal.com, " siteː.tuairisc.ie " etc until you find a natural way of expressing the idea.

Also bear in mind that shorter sentences are not only easier to read but easier to write, and with less risk of messing up syntax. Articles in English on Wikipedia do not need to be translated word for word. Select what can be usefully and safely translated. Anyway editors are likely to get far better results by using sources as Gaeilge for their articles, not Wikipedia, where possible.

There is a surprising amount of encyclpaedic information already avaialble as Gaeilge. To find it, again do an advanced Google Search containing " siteː.ie " and this time add " filetypeːpdf "(without the quotes). You can sometimes add too "agus" in the search to make sure the results are in Irish (include the quotes in the Google searchif no other search term as Gaeilge)

For example, try this search for "Eolaíocht". The filetypeːpdf gives you Acrobat files. Many schoolbooks, including Ardteist, are avaialable. Some good sources include cogg.ie curriculumonline.ie St Mary's Belfast and nicurriculum.org.uk

If you are looking for articles or books on a particular set of topics and can't find them, cuir an cheist ormsa.


Many key Vicipéid articles in the past have been written by Matt Hussey (from the Fréamh an Eolais encyclopaedia) and Panu Hoglund (who also publsihed two novels). There have been veiled references in Tuairisc.ie over the past years to the need for decent editing by some publishers (in some cases there may have been no editing or next to none). So a lot more work on the Vicipeid needs to be done to improve the readability of many of our articles. I stress "readability", to make it attractive to read articles on the Vicipeid (I am not a grammar zealot I hope). Readability is not just decent syntax, but also lots of images, paragraphs, headings, bullet points and shorter sentences.

... and a special prize for those that use Firefox and install Kevin Scannell's fantastic litreoir here (unfortunately I can't as I just use a basic Google ChromeBook at present ǃ).

Lastlly the website tearma.ie from Fiontar / DCU / Foras is the reference for me for all terms (so it also sets name sorting).

Beirigí uile bua agus beannacht ǃ Ciarán

Eolas d'úsáideoirí maidir le Báibil
en-N This user has a native understanding of English.
fr-5 Cet utilisateur dispose de connaissances professionnelles en français.
ga-3 Gaeilge mhaith ag an úsáideoir seo.
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