A 34-year-old New Jersey man has shown a global audience that the spoken Irish language is indeed not so difficult at all to learn.
Arieh Smith is a polyglot who has studied over 40 languages and who wanted to learn some Irish.
His YouTube channel, Xiaomanyc, has over 6.4 million subscribers and features videos of Arieh surprising locals in countries across the world with his language abilities.
His recent visit to Ireland, where he conversed with locals in the Donegal Gaeltacht in Irish, was viewed over 1.3 million times on Arieh's YouTube channel.
Having searched online, he tracked down Seamus Ó Dubhchóin from the Donegal Gaeltacht who runs the website www.walkingdonegal.net.
As well as being a guide for tourists, Arieh asked Seamus to give him some lessons in Irish on Zoom.
They spent ten nights online and soon Arieh decided it was time to take trip to Ireland to put his Irish to the test.
He arrived at Batch Cafe and Restaurant in An Fál Carrach in Co Donegal and immediately started filming his new linguistic experience inside.
Accompanied by Seamus, he was well able to order a pot of tea in Irish, "Pota tae, le do thoil", as well as other useful and common phrases.
"Pota tae le siúcra," he added, just to add to the sweetness of it all.
He was also served by local woman Brid Barrett, who said he was very nice and spoke good Irish for an American.
"Fair play to him," she said.
He focused on simple phrases like ordering food, asking for a pint of Guinness in a pub, going to a café or just having a chat with locals.
He has a flair for languages and has studied up to 40 languages in total including Mandarin, Cantonese and Spanish.
He now has the local Irish accent of Cloich Chionnaola in the west Donegal Gaeltacht.
Arieh had previously uploaded a video of his experiences speaking Irish on a trip to Ireland several years ago, but found Irish speakers hard to come by on the streets of Dublin.
Seamus Ó Dubhchóin, Arieh’s Irish teacher, found the whole experience amazing.
"Because of Arieh’s video, there’s a fella from Massachusetts who got in touch a day or two after and wants to go to the Poisoned Glen for a walk.
"Arieh’s video has done as much or more for the Irish language than a lot of other TV programmes or other [government] funds."
Food for thought for some of those who find the Irish language hard to pick up.
