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Gaelic Gaelic


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Just this evening completed level 2 on the old Duolingo.
Thoroughly enjoying it.

I've had a few false starts at night school etc but this is excellent for simple stuff I largely knew already and adding new bits in at an easy pace.

My maternal grandparents came from Mull and Benbecula and were native speakers. As we spent every summer holiday with them in Lochgilphead there were lots of terms and phrases I knew but had never seen written down! My wife's mother is an Ìleach and speaks it still on the phone to her siblings but is not keen to engage when I tentatively venture a few words which is annoying.
My late dad went to night school and passed his Higher, and studied up at the SMO more recently. I wish he was still about to help me push on from here.

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Just this evening completed level 2 on the old Duolingo.

Thoroughly enjoying it.

 

I've had a few false starts at night school etc but this is excellent for simple stuff I largely knew already and adding new bits in at an easy pace.

 

My maternal grandparents came from Mull and Benbecula and were native speakers. As we spent every summer holiday with them in Lochgilphead there were lots of terms and phrases I knew but had never seen written down! My wife's mother is an Ìleach and speaks it still on the phone to her siblings but is not keen to engage when I tentatively venture a few words which is annoying.

My late dad went to night school and passed his Higher, and studied up at the SMO more recently. I wish he was still about to help me push on from here.

 

My wee girl’s class have been learning Gaelic at school in the central belt’s Gaelic stronghold otherwise known as Falkirk.

 

I’d love to learn it and wish I had the time to devote to doing so. Glad the wee one is learning though. It should never be allowed to fade away and should be taught everywhere IMO, at least in primary schools.

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13 hours ago, 8MileBU said:

I’d love to learn it and wish I had the time to devote to doing so. Glad the wee one is learning though. It should never be allowed to fade away and should be taught everywhere IMO, at least in primary schools.

For some bizarre reason that escapes me, I can remember a couple of parents going mental because my (then) P7 teacher had the audacity to teach a little bit of German in her class. 

Can only imagine how Gaelic would go down.  

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29 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:
6 hours ago, Ranaldo Bairn said:
An app for your phone. Website too.

The website is considerably better than the application (unless it's changed greatly in the last couple of years).

Well it's got thorough supporting notes which are an excellent resource. I'm happy trundling through the app though.

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4 hours ago, DiegoDiego said:
11 hours ago, Ranaldo Bairn said:
An app for your phone. Website too.

The website is considerably better than the application (unless it's changed greatly in the last couple of years).

Aye, the website has loads of extra information the app doesn't have but both are fine.

I started teaching a new class tonight and the difference between people who have done a month of duolinguo and complete beginners is night and day.

A month of duolinguo is like 6 months in my class. I mean perhaps I'm a shit teacher but we will go with duolinguo being good just now.

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A month of duolinguo is like 6 months in my class. I mean perhaps I'm a shit teacher but we will go with duolinguo being good just now.

I'd venture that the main difference between your class and Duolingo is that the Duolingo students actually practise every day whereas your students probably do the homework an hour before the lesson then forget about gaelic until the next week.

From personal experience of attempts at ten or so languages my best results have been with a combination of daily exposure both spoken and written, vocabulary flashcards and guided grammar correction. Duolingo really is an excellent resource but you need to supplement it with other approaches.
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  • 1 month later...

I just noticed that Gaelic is free on glossika (ai.glossika.com). I've never used it but heard very good things about it from a linguist friend of mine. Apparently it's best at getting you from intermediate to advanced, so for anyone who's finished the Duolingo course and is looking for something to push them on further it could be a good shout.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

In order to aid ma Gaelic I've been tuning into BBC Alba when nothing else takes my fancy. It's awesome. It's seriously like Rutland Weekly Television. Dreach Úr* is my favourite show in the world. Some lassie ruining stuff around the house by painting it pink or sellotaping tacky shite onto it. Fuine has some lad turning up at people's houses who show him how to make banana bread or some other basic AF baking but, occasionally, turns up at some wee Hebridean wummin's house who clearly has no time for his questions and just wants to make her tottie scones in peace. There's some programmes on there which are genuinely good watching but it's this mad shite that wouldn't get on any other channel that I've developed an affection for.

Also a good barometer of how decent my Gaelic getting when I can understand the basics of what's happening without looking at the subtitles and lets me hear it spoken in a more natural form than the apps.

*I know that's the wrong direction for the wee thing above the vowel but I cannae be arsed finding the proper version on the work keyboard  

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2 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

It would definitely be good to have more Gaelic speakers, but dead in a decade seems a bit extreme. I listen to a lot of Scottish trad music sang in Gaelic and have met a lot of younger demographic and musicians in the west coast highlands who can speak it fluently. 

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