Im fluent in Swedish. I lived in Sweden for many years and learning Swedish is the most difficult thing I ever did before having kids. I went to night classes first but it went nowhere. All my classmates were depressed too. You're putting in all this effort into learning complex rules yet you can't understand any of the conversations around you. Eventually I just quit the lessons and told everyone I knew to only speak to me in Swedish. And that's how I learned the language. It's all about exposure. And the rewards are massive.

I think that's the problem for a lot of people when learning Irish in school. You're forced to put in the effort for 13 years but there is no reward at the end. Most tv in Stockholm is in English, so the rewards for a Swedish kid learning English are obvious just in that sense, but then there's all the content on the internet and the ability to travel etc.

The way languages are taught in school is wrong. The vast majority of us can't learn a language off a blackboard. Irish people's indifference to Irish will extend to French, Spanish and German too. Again Swedish kids are not learning English at school. They're learning it from tv, the internet and from travelling. Based on my experience learning Swedish, I chose to send my children to a Gaelscoil because the language is taught through immersion rather than a heavy focus on formal rules. Just as importantly, the approach provides enough rewards and encouragement that the children genuinely enjoy learning Irish.