Reviews

Foclóiropedia: A Journey Through the Irish Language from Arán to Zú by John Burke, Fatti Burke

whatkatiereadnext's review

4.0

The Irish language is dying in my family, every generation seems to know a little bit less than the generation before. My great-grandfather was only able to speak in a mixture of English and Irish, often getting the languages confused. My granny can speak a bit of Irish, but is always reluctant to do so. My dad understands very little and can speak even less and I'm only able to say the odd word and phrase. After reading and loving John and Fatti Burke's other book, Historopedia last month, I thought I'd try their book on the Irish language.

Fatti's illustrations are wonderful, as always! I love her adorable art style and her fantastic use of colour, which complement the text perfectly.

Foclóiropedia isn't hugely in-depth, as it's written primarily for children, but it's a great place to start with the language. I enjoyed the variety of words and phrases that are included in the book; from basics like colours, days of the week and countries, etc to more challenging things like sentence structure and proverbs.

Frustratingly, there wasn't any information regarding pronunciation, which was a surprise and a bit of a shame. Pronunciation is what I struggle most with; it's hard to remember words and phrases if you don't know how to say them.

Overall, Foclóiropedia is another fantastic book by the father-daughter duo and I look forward to reading more of their work together.