Over the last few weeks I've been reading the surprisingly interesting blog Trèanaichean, tramaichean is tràilidhean by Alasdair MacCaluim. I say surprising because I wouldn't consider myself someone who is particularly interested in trains. But Mr MacCaluim's blog is very good. It's also all in Gaelic so it's excellent for reading practice. I often read it on the bus where I don't have easy access to dictionaries so I reckon I only understand about 30%, or maybe less, but I do think it's helping me to learn vocab and expressions.
For example, in a recent post he mentions meadhanan sòisealta which I didn't understand at first. But then, given the context of the rest of the post (mentioning Twitter, etc.), I realised that sòisealta sounds a lot like social when said aloud, and meadhanan looks a bit like media. So a reasonable guess would be that meadhanan sòisealta is 'social media' in Gaelic.
A lot of language learning is like this and I find it most effective. I remember similar things happening when learning German, weirdly by knowing the etymological Latin roots of English words and morphemes and thinking of their German equivalents. Who says etymology ain't feumail (useful)?
Anyway, the other reason I like reading the blog is that my nephews (one in particular) are a bit mad about trains. While some of this might just be Thomas-mania, I think they're going beyond that to being interested in trains for themselves, the way they work, where the railways go, etc. So it might come in handy reading all about trèanaichean!
Thursday 24 September 2015
Gaelic class and manly nouns
Well, as I suspected, the class I wanted to go to was cancelled due to a lack of uptake so I moved to the same level but on another night. The unfortunate thing is that this is at the same time as the cearcall so no more cearcall till around Christmas, if not April next year!
The class was fairly simple which is to be expected for the first one. All the same, it did get into some grammar points, yet with an emphasis on speaking. We discussed the dative or prepositional case for masculine nouns.
The rules for the definite article of masculine nouns is as follows:
- if the noun starts with a b, f, m, p (labials), the article is am
- if the noun starts with a vowel, the article is an t-
- if the noun starts with anything else, the article is an
However, if the noun follows a preposition such as air (on), aig (at), anns (in + def. art.), etc., the article and the noun change:
- if the noun starts with a vowel, the article is an (not an t-)
- otherwise, the article is a' plus lenition, e.g. "am muir" after air becomes "air a' mhuir"
I found this very complicated but we went over it several times with conversations and games so I think I have it in my head now. The thing is that's just the masculine nouns! I know it gets more complicated with feminine dative nouns, but that's for another time.
On another note, I watched this sweet programme on the iPlayer last night which combines two of my loves. The programme Trusadh looks at a woman from Uibhist a Deas (South Uist) who knits an Eriskay jumper (geansaidh Èirisgeach) for Pope Francis (am Pàpa)
The class was fairly simple which is to be expected for the first one. All the same, it did get into some grammar points, yet with an emphasis on speaking. We discussed the dative or prepositional case for masculine nouns.
The rules for the definite article of masculine nouns is as follows:
- if the noun starts with a b, f, m, p (labials), the article is am
- if the noun starts with a vowel, the article is an t-
- if the noun starts with anything else, the article is an
However, if the noun follows a preposition such as air (on), aig (at), anns (in + def. art.), etc., the article and the noun change:
- if the noun starts with a vowel, the article is an (not an t-)
- otherwise, the article is a' plus lenition, e.g. "am muir" after air becomes "air a' mhuir"
I found this very complicated but we went over it several times with conversations and games so I think I have it in my head now. The thing is that's just the masculine nouns! I know it gets more complicated with feminine dative nouns, but that's for another time.
On another note, I watched this sweet programme on the iPlayer last night which combines two of my loves. The programme Trusadh looks at a woman from Uibhist a Deas (South Uist) who knits an Eriskay jumper (geansaidh Èirisgeach) for Pope Francis (am Pàpa)
Thursday 3 September 2015
Classes booked!
Well, I've finally got the finger oot and booked some Gaelic classes with the Cooncil. I booked them with the Cooncil for two reasons - they're cheap (I'm a stingy kinda guy), and they're round the corner (I'm a lazy kinda guy).
I signed up for the post-beginners' class but, or should I say so, there's a danger it won't go ahead (I imagine a lot of beginners grit their teeth through to the end of their beginners' course then drop it immediately, so the numbers might not be there for the post-beginners). I hope it will go ahead as I doubt I'll be arsed jumping on a bus to Broughton High. What a trek! Two minutes walk? Yes please.
In other news, I'm progressing further with the old Teach Yourself Gaelic course. The millions of exercises mean I'm finally getting to grips with Gaelic's ridiculous definite article system (worse than German, believe me!) and I'm learning some more vocab along the way. I've not looked at SOL for a while but I've been gu math trang of late so I've fallen behind again.
If anyone reading this wants to leave Gaelic comments for me to decipher, bhinn buidheach dhuibh air an son (out on a limb here - corrections welcome! This also applies to every Gaelic word written on this blog).
I signed up for the post-beginners' class but, or should I say so, there's a danger it won't go ahead (I imagine a lot of beginners grit their teeth through to the end of their beginners' course then drop it immediately, so the numbers might not be there for the post-beginners). I hope it will go ahead as I doubt I'll be arsed jumping on a bus to Broughton High. What a trek! Two minutes walk? Yes please.
In other news, I'm progressing further with the old Teach Yourself Gaelic course. The millions of exercises mean I'm finally getting to grips with Gaelic's ridiculous definite article system (worse than German, believe me!) and I'm learning some more vocab along the way. I've not looked at SOL for a while but I've been gu math trang of late so I've fallen behind again.
If anyone reading this wants to leave Gaelic comments for me to decipher, bhinn buidheach dhuibh air an son (out on a limb here - corrections welcome! This also applies to every Gaelic word written on this blog).
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