The Inaccessible Blog

How to speak Gaelic - Lesson 4: Online resources

There are quite a few decent online resources you can use to help you with your Gaelic.  I thought it would make sense to dedicate this blog entry to them before continuing our lessons, since there may be some of your eager to make great strides.

Perhaps the organisations with the best online resource lists are the two largest Gaelic Colleges: Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on the Isle of Skye (http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk) and the Gaelic College in Nova Scotia, Canada (http://www.gaeliccollege.edu/).

The BBC in the UK offers some great resources including: beag air bheag (http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/alba/foghlam/beag_air_bheag/) and air splaoid! (http://www.airsplaoid.co.uk/)

There's also a great podcast to Gaelic learners from Radio Nan Gaidheal (the BBC's Gaelic radio station) that you can subscribe to from here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/waystolisten/podcasts/
and of course you can listen to the radio station itself from here:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/waystolisten by launching the BBC radio player on the top right of the page and choosing Radio Nan Gaidheal.

You'll find many more sites in the links section of the official site (http://www.seachd.com) in the learn Gaelic section.

If you'd like to learn Gaelic more formally offline without enrolling in one of the Gaelic colleges, I recommend "Teach Yourself Gaelic" which you can get from Amazon in the UK by clicking here or in the USA by clicking here.  The audio-book series should be available in most countries around the world.

le deagh dhurachd,

Simon

Previous lessons:

Lesson 1: The Gaelic alphabet
Lesson 2: All the sounds
Lesson 3: Useful phrases

http://www.seachd.com

How to speak Gaelic - Lesson 3: Useful phrases

I thought we'd carry on from where we left off last time.  Do you remember?

Question:  Ciamar a tha sibh? (How are you?)

Answer: Tha mi gu math, tapadh leibh. (I'm fine, thank you.)

You can hear the exact pronounciation here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/alba/foghlam/beag_air_bheag/section01/lesson1_1.shtml

Well, we've been rather formal with our Gaelic above.  We'd probably normally use the "familiar" version:

Question:  Ciamar a tha thu? (How are you?)

Answer: Tha mi gu math, tapadh leat. (I'm fine, thank you.)

You can hear how these sound here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/alba/foghlam/beag_air_bheag/section01/lesson1_2.shtml

Let's stick with the "beag air bheag" (a nice interactive resource for Gaelic learners provided by the BBC) and learn a couple more really useful phrases:

Halò a (Hello)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/alba/foghlam/beag_air_bheag/section01/lesson1_3.shtml

Tapadh leat (Thank you) 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/alba/foghlam/beag_air_bheag/section01/lesson1_4.shtml

Mar sin leat (Goodbye)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/alba/foghlam/beag_air_bheag/section01/lesson1_5.shtml

Dè an t-ainm a th’ oirbh? (What's you name) and Is mise... (My name is...)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/alba/foghlam/beag_air_bheag/section02/lesson2_1.shtml

I think that's enough for now.  Keep practising and I promise we'll do something dynamic Gaelic next time.

Mar sin leat!

Previous lessons:

Lesson 1: The Gaelic alphabet
Lesson 2: All the sounds

http://www.seachd.com

How to speak Gaelic - Lesson 2: All the sounds

Right, so we focussed on those vowels (slender and broad) last time.  In lesson 2 let's look at those consonants and get all the "rules" in our heads for those that might change when preceded or followed by an e or i:

b - at the start of a word as b in "boat", in the middle of a word as p in English "post"

bh - at the start of a word as v in "vent", elsewhere as v or w

c - at the start of a word as c in "cup", elsewhere like chk as in "Loch Katrine"

ch - as ch in "loch"

d - at the start of the word as d in "dad", elsewhere as t in "tin"

dh - like gh below

f - as f in "fish"

fh - usually silent (don't say it!)

gh - a kind of blurred version of ch

h - as h in "hotel"

l - similar to the l's in "pulled"

m - as m in "mouse"

mh - as Gaelic bv or v as in "van"

n - similar to the n in "kindred"

p - at the start of a word as p in "pin", elsewhere preceded by a h sound

ph - as ph in "photon"

r - as r in "ring"

s - as s in "socks"

sh - as h in "hat"

t - at the start of a word as t in "tin", elsewhere preceded by an h sound

th - as h in "hat"

Now the slender consonants are changed when preceded or followed by an e or i:

c - at the start of a word as in "kilt", elsewhere as in German "ich kenne"  e.g., Ceòl

ch - as in German "ich" e.g., aice

d - as in "jet" e.g., deiseil

dh - as in "yet" e.g., dheth

g - at the start of a word, like g followed by y, elsewhere as ck in "neck" e.g., geal and aige

gh - as in "yet" e.g., gheal

l - as the l's in "allure" e.g., leabhar

n - as the n in "new" e.g., nighean

s - as the s in "shin" e.g., sin

t - as the ch in "chin", elsewhere preceded by an h sound e.g., cait

That's quite a lot to remember, so we'll not bother ourselves too much with trying to commit all that to memory right now since we can come back to this lesson to recall the pronounciation rules any time we like, but instead let's go for a very useful phrase that you might already have heard or seen written if you've ever encountered Gaelic before...

Question:  Ciamar a tha sibh?

Answer: Tha mi gu math, tapadh leibh

Which means:

Question : How are you?

Answer: I'm fine, thank you.

So, let's break down that pronounciation!

The c of "Ciamar" is simply a "c" as in cat.  The i and a kind of run together to form a "i" (as in tin) and the ar is as expected - so that's k-i-mar

The a of "a" is a - so that's a

The th of "that" is h  and the final "t" is followed by an "h" sound - so that's h-a

The s of "sibh" is a sh sound (since followed by an i) and the bh is a v sound since at the beginning of the word - so that's sh-i-v

Put it all together and you get:

Question: k-i-mar   a   h-a   sh-iv

Now for the answer.  Oh fiddle sticks - now that's going to take me a while!  Instead of me making a meal of this why don't you try and work it out for yourself with the rules above?  And when you think you've got it right, I found somewhere where you can check yourself out online.

Simply go to this rather lovely BBC page and click on the little megaphones next to phrases we're interested in (you'll need real player for this).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/alba/foghlam/beag_air_bheag/section01/lesson1_1.shtml

And that's how it's done.  That wasn't too difficult was it?

Now, will you promise to practice, won't you?

Mar sin leat, an dràsda! (Cheerio - for now!)

Previous lessons:

Lesson 1: The Gaelic alphabet

http://www.seachd.com

How to speak Gaelic - Lesson 1: The Gaelic alphabet

We thought it would be a wasted opportunity if we didn't try and teach our readers a little bit of Gaelic (if you aren't fluent already) ahead of the release of the film.  Now, don't get worried, Seachd film has subtitles, but perhaps you'd like to pick out a few Gaelic phrases here are there?

So, let's start with the Gaelic alphabet which has only 18 letters.  Of course, there are many more sounds than letters, and you need to combine letters to get all the sounds you need to speak like a proper Gael.

For example, the vowels a, e, i, o, u are pronounced "short" when written normally, but add a grave accent and à è ì ò ù are pronounced "long".  More than that, vowels are divided into two classes.  e and i are caol ("slender") and a, o, u are leathann ("broad"). So that when a consonant is preceded and/or followed by a slender vowel it is pronounced differently than when it is accompanied by a broad vowel.

There are 13 consonants: b, c, d, f, g, h, l, m, n, p, r, s, t.  When they're followed by an h then a consonant is pronounced differently (although l, n and r cannot be followed by an h).  The only letter than you can write double are l, n and r.

Got it?!!!!!!!!!

OK so the first lesson is already getting boring.  Let's just jump in with a trusty old phrase and see if we can learn that in today's lesson.

Here it is:

'S mise <<Your Name>>

Well, this isn't pronounced s-m-ee-ze!

An s by itself is pronounced s as in sat, so the first 'S is pronounced s.  So far so good!

The second s is preceded by an i and followed by an e both of which are caol ("slender") vowels which changes the s to sh as in shop.

The m is pronounced m.  The i is pronounced i as in tin.  The e is pronounced e as in ten.

Put it all together and 'S mise is pronounced  s-mi-sh-e.

Try it  and add your name afterwards.  Go on!

You've just said "My name is  .... whatever your name is"

I think we've done enough for today.  Until next time.

Mar sin leat, an dràsda! (Cheerio - for now!)

http://www.seachd.com