#i will be learning gaelic

[autistic-katara]

mutuals do any of u wanna learn ur country’s native language that u dont know bcz of THE FUCKING ENGLISH and then force those guys to speak it as payback with me?

[squidcave]

feeling real normal about this song 👍

[wildflowergirlie]

I love being in a large fandom because on a whim I decided to see if there were any fics (like at all) in Scottish Gaelic (Gaidhlig), and the first one is a freaking wolfstar fic. like what are the odds?

[meichenxi]

Speakers of non-English languages of the UK and Ireland wanted!!

Since it’s World Mother Language Day today (February the 21st), I’m thinking of doing a series of posts on the native non-English languages of the United Kingdom and Ireland, with some information and short interviews. 

For this, I am looking for both native speakers/signers and learners (with or without parentage/heritage of the language in question) of the following languages:

- Scottish Gaelic

- Irish

- Welsh

- Any sign language of the United Kingdom or Ireland (e.g. BSL)

- Any other minority language indigenous to the United Kingdom or Ireland. By this I mean primarily spoken only within the UK or Ireland as a minority, or spoken very little elsewhere. For example: Cornish, Manx, Shelta, or Anglo-Romani, not languages like Polish or Bengali that are minority within the UK but have a significant speaker base elsewhere. (I am aware that I am fishing for some of these *cough* Cornish *cough*...but you never know!)

- Any language or variety that you speak that you feel is linguistically / culturally distinct from Standard English that you would like to inform more people about. For example: Shetlandic, Scots, Ulster Scots. 

I don’t have anything finalised yet, but if you would be wiling to speak to me about some text-based interviews for the sake of qualitative and informative tumblr posts, please send me a message!

(NB: if I have used any names of languages that are not preferred, tell me and I will change them. I don’t know a lot about the non-Celtic and non-Germanic languages here, which is part of my reason for wanting to make this series of posts in the first place.)

Please reblog so more people see this!

- meichenxi

[smallpileoftwigs]

right i have a question for u bilingual lot,

i would really like to learn a language other than english and was hoping to get some possible advice, sort of like where to start, how to keep it fresh in my mind and not something i get bored of a couple weeks from now cause wah wah its too hard

if u guys have any tips please let me know ! im most interested in learning a language like scottish gaelic or welsh, but also i am a classics student and think itd be really cool to learn greek or latin, ofc i'm aware these may be difficult languages to start with so im honestly open to anything !

[losersimonriley]

I know some of us like to pepper Gaelic endearments into our ghostsoap from time to time and I thought hey! Maybe I should finally share my little headcanon as to how Soap even came about knowing the language in the first place:

I like to think that his granny (who raised him and his siblings) was from the Inner Hebrides and grew up using it. She moved to the lowlands after marrying, became a Gaelic-medium teacher. Thus, Soap attended the school she taught at and had a Gaelic-medium education throughout primary. (Gme students are taught completely in Gaelic from p1-p3 with English being incorporated later.) While not continuing it in secondary, he still had a fluent adult at home keeping the language fresh in his mind. That’s. The bare bones of it anyway.

Anyway I wanted to share this because I’ve seen the occasional person say it’s ridiculous to suddenly see him speaking Gaelic in fics (which is a very fair point of course. few people are immersed in it, it remains a threatened language) but the thought of someone who wanted to include it in their work who then might not because of this is disheartening. Should they do the proper research beforehand, it is plausible when given the right ingredients.

It’s a language that should be celebrated, not discouraged, especially given the history. Having a character know it just really depends on the different factors you throw into their backstory. Even if the author doesn’t explain it, it should then be up to the reader to assume he’s not just pulling the language out of thin air. Idk, if call of duty fanfic of all things can expose people to Gàidhlig and garner interest in some to learn a bit of the language, I just. That is a good thing

[onceuponamillennia]

languages are a little like pokemon,,, gotta learn them all

[suis0u]

I'm still here just not really active because I don't have a lot of time currently and with being just tired and exhausted after work... my art WIPs etc have to kinda take a backseat at the moment, I'm sorry.

There are so many things planned this year already and changes happened at my workplace (but in a good way, I'm learning about CGI/Blender :D!). I'm excited for most of them, hopeful that everything will work out and trying to keep my anxiety under control (No overthinking!), but it will also mean that I won't have as much time for my hobbies as I would like to have, but I'll try my best~...

[ajarofpickledtears]

gotta love Duolingo

constant state of "is this a feature or bug/something missing"

He is wearing sorrow? ah, yes. He is sorry.

There is sadness on them? oooh, they are sorry!

She and we make it easy though

[seiji-langs]

any scottish gaelic langblr blogs?

[jampiethrow]

My firm rooted belief that I can learn languages very quickly despite all evidence to the contrary that arose from Percy just straight up reading Greek

[beagan-gaidhlig]

I ud ud eatharam I ud ud aoiream I ud ud eatharam Chunna mise raoir thu 👟🕵️‍♂️

Critiquing the footwear of others is a timeless tradition. This puirt could perhaps be considered a precursor to the 2010's question of “What are those??” 👟

Also worthwhile is Ian MacKay's recording, which is a bop in its own right; when can you ever go wrong with an accordion?

This version by Mairi Morrison & Alasdair Roberts is in a different order from the lyrics at the link:

Làrach do thacaidean Làrach do chruidean Làrach do bhrògan Am bòrd Loch na Muilne

Carson a bha thu spadsearsachd Timchioll tigh na muilne Robh thu'n dùil gu faigheadh tu Gu nighean bhuidhe mhuilleir?

Cha b'e brògan tacaideach Le pleitichean is cruidhean Bu chòir a bhith ma d' chasan Ma 's e caithris bha nad inntinn

Cha ghabh i idir, idir, thu Cha dèan i caithris oidhch' leat Gu'n cuir thu bhuat na bloidsearan 'S gu faigh thu brògan foidhne

[august-undergrounds]

girls will be having a good day and then remember they can’t speak their grandmothers mother tongue

[queerofthedagger]

a couple of days ago i finished the spanish duolingo course so after some back and forth, i started on french, and not to repeat myself but it really is wild how much you subconsciously keep of a language if you ever engaged with it at all. like. i had three years of french at school which was literally over a decade ago, but between that and my latin and spanish, it's just coming back SO easily. the language brain is just WILD. my most beloved

[meichenxi]

SpeakGaelic: a guide!

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the national centre for Gaelic language and culture, recently worked with BBC Alba to produce videos, audio and a website called SpeakGaelic. 

There’s videos, an online course, support for tutors, multiple new podcasts, Youtube, various things airing on TV. The actual self-taught online course is only one part of how much this resource has to offer! So here’s some of the things I’ve been looking at. 

1. The website itself

 https://speakgaelic.scot/all-online-courses/

This is just the whole website: explore at your leisure! At the moment they have finished up to around A2 level, and are working on producing higher level content. 

Each topic has a series of 8-10 mini-lessons that are sometimes more duolingo style, and sometimes with videos.

I...actually prefer to use the teaching resources for tutors (linked below) than this course for a few reasons. My main problem is that the vocabulary they present to you is far too fast (in one lesson they might give you 20 words for different Scottish towns), which is fine if you just need to choose the relevant words for where you are from, but in order to pass the quiz to get to the next level you have to get ALL of them right. And Gaelic spelling takes a while to get used to...

There’s also no writing / spelling practice, but to pass the level requires you to write things. Which. Feels counterintuitive! You can learn any level without passing the tests, but it’s annoying because it means your progress isn’t saved to an accurate place. I emailed them about it and got a friendly response back, but this isn’t something they are planning to change. 

2. The classroom materials

 https://speakgaelic.scot/classroom-materials/

Now THIS is where it gets exciting. These are materials designed in theory for tutors - full lesson plans, worksheets, everything - but they are accessible to learners too. In fact, I think they’re much better than the online course. 

Why? Because everything is STRUCTURED. You are given practice, and told what to do, and there are grammatical explanations. (NB: all of these exist in the online course, but not in one handy document for you to look over in one place.) 

You have all of the learner content....

...and you ALSO have teacher content:

‘If learners need more time and practice with the vocative case’ > that’s me! And it shows you then exactly what you should do next. Whereas the online course doesn’t have that option for customisation at all. Most of the worksheets are included in the lesson plan, and some are on the main page. Absolute bliss. 

3. The SpeakGaelic learner podcast

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6x5b901Zj8ky0UsMM4SzZM?si=00c361fe5ffc4f0d

(If you don’t have Spotify, you can just search ‘SpeakGaelic’)

This is an audio version of the lessons above, and goes into more detail - with information from three different native speakers - into some of the grammar things that the course doesn’t really cover in that much depth. There’s conversations you can listen to, and it’s all targeted at complete beginners. If you listen to any other Gaelic podcasts you’ll recognise the presenter, John Urquhart!

After each episode, there’s also a special episode - scroll down to the bottom - with conversation about different topics relevant to the day’s lesson with two of the presenters. Great for providing extra information!

4. The Youtube channel

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppoHU_ece7o&list=PL_U7jPRkbJZtFegaqKKT8MrZnV7ugwHAG&index=1

Ok, so there’s a LOT of content here. First you have the A1-A2 lessons, around 30 minutes each. Despite what the name suggests, these are not the same as the audio podcasts. They have Joy (who presents the online course) but they also give some extra video clips and information about cultural things too!

They’re a little slow, but a good supplement to the material given above. As far as I can tell, there are only 13 of this particular series (and 13 for A2) but the YouTube channel SpeakGaelic itself has hundreds of episodes of everything that goes into the online course. All the videos can be found there. 

This includes all audio and conversations, as well as snapshots on individual learners and some cultural information. 

They also seemingly have started marking some grammar videos! Check out this playlist for more grammar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq9_0ht4L3Y&list=PL_U7jPRkbJZu0uq_6wpzCgZcpddGDU76D

5. The intermediate podcast: Beag air Bheag

https://open.spotify.com/show/34wGOU9sDTE7Vzg0qMexfv?si=314cbbb294b648ec

Once you’re a little further on in your journey (I...can’t understand these yet), there are a few other podcasts on Spotify also by the BBC Radio nan Gàidheal. This is one! This is totally in Gaelic, but spoken fairly slowly and designed for intermediate learners. 

6. The old site: learngaelic.scot

https://learngaelic.scot

Check it out! I...actually prefer this site and the way it teaches. It has some bonuses over the old one - good vocabulary sections, plus a really great directory of Gaelic courses online and in person, as well as a dictionary, and so on. 

It goes all the way up to B2, so is a better choice if you have more than a little Gaelic. 

It’s also a brilliant directory of media in Gaelic - you can watch lots of videos with transcripts in Gaelic with a dictionary, as well as finding native-level material. You can sign up to their newsletter and get weekly Gaelic information too. 

It also has links to Speaking Our Language!! Which is an absolutely wonderful resource from the 90s teaching Gaelic one conversation at a time, and also goes up to a fairly high level. These are all updated for The Modern Age: i.e., they all have PDFs and transcripts, as well as links to the grammar points for whatever lesson you’re listening to. Far more advanced than anything the new site currently has. 

I might do another post once I’ve explored this website a little more! 

7. Bonus: Gaelic with Jason

Finally, one extra! The other main resource I’m using is Gaelic with Jason (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rAE_iLRh4g for example). 

He has a whole bunch of free Youtube videos, but I’m actually doing his paid online course - it’s by the best value for money I know from any course, Gaelic or otherwise. If you have the money for it and like immersive learning with a board and just being chatted to, I’d highly recommend you give it a go. He also has loads of Gaelic books for learners, which are wonderful too, and a folktales and traditions course for intermediate learners. Can’t talk about this man enough. (https://gaelicwithjason.thinkific.com)

---

Once again, I’d really encourage you to check out the teaching materials: I personally find them way more useful than the online course for learners specifically. I’m looking at the teaching materials in conjunction with the audio on YouTube and then the podcasts on Spotify.

All the best!

- Melissa

[phoebespenglers]

no one understands me