Dà bhliadhna anns a' Ghearmailt!

O chionn dà bhliadhna dh'imrich mi à Dùn Èideann do Fhrankfurt am Main anns a' Ghearmailt. 'S gann gun creidinn e! Dh'imrich mi a-nall airson dreuchd aig a' bhanca choitcheann na Gearmailte. Bidh an dreuchd doirbh ach 's toigh leam i gu math, agus tha mo cho-làmhaichean caomhail agus cuideachail.

Bu lugha orm Frankfurt ré nam miosan tòiseachail ach cha robh a' chiad chur romham ach dà bhliadhna an-seo fhuireach!

Uill, tha mi an-seo fhathast, agus tha mi air rùnachadh a-bhos fhuireach gu buanach. Bidh mi ag imrich a Würzburg ann an stàit na Baidheirn san Sultain. Carson? 'S e am baile mòr far a bheil mo ghràidhean a' fuireach :) Bidh sinn a' pòsadh san Dàmhair!

Anns a' Ghleann Mhòr

O chionn trì seachdainean thill mi a dh'Alba airson saor-laithean leis an teaghlach. Air dòigh air chor-eigin bha a dol aig mo mhàthair an teaghlach uile fhaighinn agus mar sin shiubhail dà dhuine dheug à Dùn Èideann no à Peairt gus a' Ghleann Mhòr. Air an t-slighe stad sinn ann am Baile Chloichridh, far an d'rinn sinn sireadh-ionmhais.

Anns a' Ghleann Mhòr dh'fhuirich sinn air bruaich Loch Omhaich far am b'urrainn dhuinn spòrs a dheanamh air àrainn. Rinn sinne curachnachd, caidheagadh, urchaireachd chalman criadha, coiseachd tro mòr-ghil, mar sin air adhart. Agus chòrd a h-uile dad rium gu mòr!

Air an turas air ais gu Dùn Èideann chaidh sinn dhan Ghearasdan airson na trèin "Sheumasaich" a bhreith a Mhalaig. Bha an turas an sin glè bhòidheach agus chòrd an trèan ri macaibh mo pheathair gu math!

As dèidh sin dhraibh mi le mo bhràthair nas òige dhachaigh slighe Glinn Comhann.


Corrections/comments welcome!

Still a-learning

Orite?

I know it has been an aeon since I last put something up here, but I got caught up with life in Frankfurt. That said, I'm happy to report that I'm still learning Gaelic, and I've even recruited someone else!

My thoughts on how to learn a language have also been changing. Based on my experience here in Germany and some blogs I've been reading, such as this one, I've realised the absolute importance of just speaking and reading and writing and listening to as much source language material as possible without looking up dictionaries endlessly or perusing grammar manuals.

As a consequence, I've decided to write a little Gaelic text on here as often as possible, and hopefully some of you Gaelic speakers out there can correct me or suggest more colloquial ways of saying it. Please feel free to make these or any other comments in Gaelic, too!

Beatha ùr ann am Frankfurt

Aig deireadh an Iuchair thig mi dhan Ghearmailt a thoiseachadh an obair ùr agam.
A nis, tha mi nam eadar-theangaich aig a' bhanca choitcheann na Gearmailte. Tha am prìomh-àras a' suidhichte ann am Frankfurt, far a bheil mi a' fuireach a nis.

'S e Frankfurt am baile as motha sa cheàrn Hessen, ach chan e Frankfurt am prìomh-bhaile - 's e Wiesbaden a tha seo.

Tha mi a' lorg flat fhathast agus chan eil an lorg furasta idir! Anns a' cheart àm tha mi a' fuireach anns an flat a chaidh solarachadh leis a' bhanca. Seo glè bheag agus cha toigh leam e idir. Tha mi an dòchas gum faigh mi flat a dh'aithghearr!


Corrections welcome and desired!

All good things must...

Once again duilich! for the long delay in posting. It's been hard to keep up with Gàidhlig at the moment as so much is going on. Where to begin?

First of all, the classes aren't on any more so I don't have that regular weekly memory jog. I really ought to have gone back to the Cearcall Còmhraidh, but I couldn't be bothered going along to the other end of Sràid a' Phrionnsa. Leisg, I know, but that's the honest truth.

Secondly, Tormod and I don't talk and text nearly as much as we used to, and if I'm honest, this friendship was one of the main drivers behind learning Gaelic as I had to learn it on the spot. These things happen and it's sad, but that's the way things go.

Thirdly, I'm in the process of buying a taigh, which is starting to be a bit of a b**lache. That, coupled with the fact that...

Fourthly, I have a new job and I'm moving to A' Ghearmailt. Not great for learning Gaelic, but interestingly Scottish Gaelic seems to be unusually and surprisingly popular* there. Maybe I'll manage to continue learning.

In any case, I'll still try and carry on learning. I've been inspired by a good writer friend of mine who started her own blog (no longer existing) to track her progress in learning Polish. She's now been learning it for five years and seems pretty good, all because she was dogged in her desire to learn it. I too am very tenacious (to a fault, it turns out), so I'm sure I'll keep at it. Plus, to all those who think they're getting "too old" to learn a new language, she was in her late 30s** when she started, so there's no excuse! (Yes, I'm looking at you. You know who you are.)

* "popular" is always a very relative term when it comes to Gàidhlig
** I really don't consider late 30s or early 40s old at all, even though mid to late 40s used to be the world average life expectancy as recently as 1950!

Latha na #Gàidhlig

'S e latha na Gàidhlig a th'ann an-diugh! And so it's time for an update.

from SocialMediaAlba.scot

When I started this blog, I had secretly hoped that my learning would be filled with weekly or even daily discoveries of new and exciting vocabulary and grammatical epiphanies. I'd read blogs by other friends and acquaintances who tracked their progress in learning a new language and I'd hoped to do the same. BUT... there's one problem in my case - tha mi glè glè leisg. Seriously lazy. I spend the large majority of the twenty-four hours of the day in a horizontal position. Work does take up a lot of my time and so the last thing I feel like doing afterwards is stare at a screen* browsing Learngaelic.scot or struggling with the silly sound files on Taic.

When I first started learning German and French properly during high school, I really went at it. My zeal back then amazes me even now! I would memorise endless vocab lists and read aloud passage after passage just because I loved hearing the nasal sounds of French or the back-of-throat German sounds come out of my mouth. When I couldn't sleep, I would have conversations in my head between a French person and a German person (with the occasional Italian rudely interrupting) to pass the time and hopefully send me to sleep. Sometimes, though, I didn't know a word and just HAD to look it up. So three small dictionaries lay on the floor next to my bunk bed for about three years.

But I don't do any of this now. I don't need to for French or German. But maybe I should start up night-time Gaelic conversations to help me sleep. If I'm honest, though, despite all that effort, my French and German really progressed when I visited France and Germany. Speaking the language with speakers of that language really is the best way to learn it. By far. And I don't do that in Gaelic. So that's my #goal for the next few months. Speak more. Listen more too. Learn all these words ending in -adh. I'll need to start torturing Tormod with my super-slow mangled Gaelic more regularly. Friendships need testing every now and then anyway ;-)

And then maybe by the next Latha na Gàidhlig I'll feel sufficiently justified to add Scottish Gaelic to my list of languages on Facebook. Cuz that's what matters, right?

P.S. Really getting into Beag Air Bheag le Iain Urchardan. It's not super easy but they speak slowly enough that I can note down words I dinnae ken.

* yes, yes, I know a smartphone has a screen. Pipe down! No more questions or comments! (Jokes! Please comment if you take the notion)

Air an t-slighe dhachaigh bhon mhonadh

Latha math dhuibh. Only two weeks remain of my Gaelic course and the class has dwindled down to a faithful remnant. We are following the structure of "Can Seo" which covers the comings and goings of Swotty Mary and ADHD John to and from the moor, with or without the dog or shinty stick. Apparently, 's toil le Iain a bhith anns a' mhonadh ach 's fheàrr le Mairi a bhith aig an taigh còmhla ri a màthair.

The teacher is pleasant and friendly enough. I'm just struggling to take stock of what I have learnt concretely over the weeks.

I'd say one of the things I definitely have a better grip on is the dative case - I now get how the little floating "t-" disappears after "air" or "anns an" for masculine nouns beginning with a vowel, etc., etc. That said, we haven't really covered feminine nouns and it was only yesterday that we looked at the slenderisation of the end of feminine nouns in the dative (what the...?? how on earth do I pronounce 'chaileig', 'làir'? Is this change noticeable in fast speech?). All the same, I'm no longer shocked or confused by the whole thing. A' dol dhan mhonadh and a' coiseachd air an rathad faisg air a' mhuir repeatedly does hammer the point dhachaigh eventually.

As for the genitive, don't ask..


Anyway, yesterday was the feasts of Saints Fergna Britt, Slebhene and Suibhne (Sweeney) a b'e abachan an Eilein Ì a bh'annta. So there you go.

Back from Saor-Laithean

Bliadhna Mhath Ùr!

Gabhaibh mo leisgeul for the long absence. Life gets in the way, ken? Quite a few updates to report on later. And hopefully I'll manage to update this a little more regularly than I have done.

For starters, last December I went to my first bothan ann an Dùn Éideann with Alasdair Mac Ille Bhain (Whyte) á Muile (Mull). I hope to go to another this month, though as yet there has been no news thereof.

I'll also be restarting my Gaelic lessons with the cooncil towards the end of January. That should give me some fodder for this blog, tha mi an dòchas.

Best wishes for 2016!

Dealbh bhon Street Party air Sràid nam Prionnsan ann an Dùn Éideann. Chan eil cuimhne agam air mòran idir, ge-tà...

Gaelic lull...

Seall far a bheil mi gu ruige seo!

Sorry there hasn't been a post for a few weeks. There was no Gaelic class last week and I forgot to post an update the week before.

So far, we've learnt about a few of the different ways of saying 'the'*. The word for 'the' changes depending on whether the noun is masculine or feminine, and whether it is in the nominative case or the dative case.

Masculine nominative
an before c, d, g, l, n, r, s, t
am before b, f, m, p
an t- before a vowel

Examples: an taigh, an ceann, an leabaidh, am peann, am bàta, an t-ìm, an t-achadh

Masculine dative (the dative is used after prepositions)
a' with the following noun aspirated (an h is inserted after the first consonant, except d and t)
an before a vowel

Examples: leis a' pheann, air a' bhòrd, anns an achadh

Feminine nominative
a' with following noun aspirated if starting with b, c, f, g, m, p

(There are more rules but this is all we've learnt so far for feminine nouns)

We've also learnt a few things about the verb Bi (To Be, as featured earlier)

The present tense has four forms:
tha - this is the positive independent form     Ex. Tha mi sgìth - I am tired
chan eil - this is the negative form                Ex. Chan eil mi sgìth - I am not tired.
a bheil - this is the positive question form     Ex. A bheil thu sgìth? - Are you tired?
nach eil - this is the negative question form  Ex. Nach eil thu sgìth? - Aren't you tired?

 The past also has four forms like the present tense:
bha - this is the positive independent form     Ex. Bha mi sgìth - I was tired
cha robh - this is the negative form                Ex. Cha robh mi sgìth - I was not tired.
an robh - this is the positive question form     Ex. An robh thu sgìth? - Were you tired?
nach robh - this is the negative question form  Ex. Nach robh thu sgìth? - Weren't you tired?

The future has four forms, but there is also an extra form after words like question words:
bidh - this is the positive independent form     Ex. Bidh mi sgìth - I will be tired
cha bhi - this is the negative form                   Ex. Cha bhi mi sgìth - I won't be tired.
am bi - this is the positive question form         Ex. Am bi thu sgìth? - Will you be tired?
nach bi - this is the negative question form     Ex. Nach eil thu sgìth? - Won't you be tired?
cuine (etc.) bhitheas - the relative form         Ex. Cuine bhitheas tu air ais? - When will you be back?



*And I thought German was bad... At least der, die and das are a little more different from each other than an, a', an t-, etc.

Trèanaichean

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!

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)

http://bbc.in/1OMY5ZC

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).

Celeb spotting and other matters...

Uill, my Gaelic learning is progressing slowly but steadily. I'm getting much better at identifying words when I hear them, which is a BIG STEP when learning a new language. It can be very frustrating at first when you can't even seem to discern distinct words let alone get any meaning out of what's being said. Going to the Cearcall has helped because, though I still stumble when saying anything, I can follow most of the conversation unless someone has a particularly odd or mumblesome manner of speaking.

I even ventured to go to a Gaelic play yesterday - I was at the final showing of Proiseact nan Ealan's Sequamur at the Festival. While I listened along to the simultaneous translation (and yes, that is correct) - which was excellent as it conveyed a lot of tone as well as just pure meaning - I also tried to catch some of the Gaelic too.
The play itself was memorable and moving. I highly recommend it.
I also spied Cathy MacDonald from Feasgar at the end of the row. But that's just par for the course during the festival. In previous years I've seen other very very minor celebrities such as Marcus Brigstocke, Jon Richardson and Danny Wallace, and even an extremely dishevelled Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury. But I digress.

Two weeks ago, a kind woman at the Cearcall gave me an older version of Teach Yourself Gaelic, the one by Roderick Mackinnon rather than the newer version by Boyd Robertson and Iain Taylor. It has the disadvantage of using older spellings such as dorus and various apostrophes floating all over the place. However, the great thing about it is that is absolutely chock-a-block full of exercises and drills. A disturbing trend these days, probably in line with dreadful educational premises, is that a lot of language-learning books have precious few exercises. They often look more like a token gesture rather than a real, targeted way of teaching. Meanwhile, the exercises in this book are also thoughtfully crafted. They start off mind-numbingly easy, and then progress to harder sentences while making use of the new grammar point you've just learnt  and drawing on vocab from previous lessons. Excellent. The vocab lists are also nice and long, though some of the words do seem a little odd to be learning. But then I remember that people seem to talk about different stuff in Gaelic than in English.

Updates...

Latha math dhuibh.

Sorry for the quiet period. Work has been gu math trang and I've also been struggling with what to talk about on here. Unbelievably, SOL on BBC Alba seems to have caught up on me. I had been skipping ahead by viewing the next few episodes on YouTube but now I seem to be at the same stage again. I think I need to give each episode a few more listenings as I'm now starting to struggle (which, in my pride, embarrasses me).

I now also go to a conversation meeting every two weeks. That has been helpful even though I am easily at the lowest level of everyone there. But hey, that's why I'm going - I want to improve enough so that it isn't painful for Tormod on the rare occasions he talks to me in Gaelic in person. This learning a new language thing takes ages, doesn't it? You think I'd know that already...

 Finally, a big thank you to commenter Alan Cameron for his excellent and clear outline of how to use and understand infinitives in Gaelic. That will be a great reference for me in the future!

Help! I need somebody...

...to explain Gaelic 'infinitives' to me.

- Is it the verbal noun that is used in all cases?

- Is it preceded by 'a', and does this 'a' lenite?

- Do direct object nouns and pronouns come before or after the infinitive?

I know that indirect object nouns and pronouns follow the preposition but I'm mightily confused by direct objects.
I've examined this topic in several sources including the excellent Taic but I still find all the various rules confusing.

Generally I've found that, while some parts of Gaelic are easy to grasp and memorise, the use of infinitives and the definite article are almost overwhelmingly complicated and daunting. So any help in this regard is much appreciated, tapadh leibh.

However, despite this obsession with grammar, I am taking steps to actually speak the language to people. I went to a conversation group last week and I plan on going semi-regularly to try out the stuff I've learned. Last week I realised that I need more vocab (cue horrific memories of learning lists of words - bain of my life for the last 10 years!)

Here's a clip of the Latin class in Dead Poets Society. If only learning vocab had been that fun, alas!

Gumption

When learning a language, you can't be shy. You have to have no fear in cocking up, making mistakes (even embarrassing ones!) and in insisting that native speakers let you practise a bit. You need to put your ego on the line more than you would otherwise.

I remember when I was in Germany and one of my fellow flatmates (called Britta) was overly keen in correcting every. single. mistake. even when I was halfway through a sentence. While it was massively offputting, I ploughed on and now I think I can speak German fluently without too many mistakes.

It's also nice to look back sometimes on old texts you've written in the language and to notice the mistakes you made then. It shows that you've made progress. If you didn't make the mistakes and instead waited for some mythical time when you will suddenly break forth into perfect Gaelic, German, Arabic, or what have you, you'll be dead before you could ever speak it.

That said, whenever a learner of your language speaks to you, there are better and worse ways of correcting them. The best way is to somehow work into your response the correct way of saying what he was trying to say, without explicitly correcting him. This is often how parents correct children too as it doesn't strike a blow to their esteem.

The less good way is to point out the mistake explicitly. This is best done AFTER the attempt at the sentence has been made rather than the moment the mistake is made. Often a learner will realise the mistake before the end of the sentence and will correct himself. Self-correction is more effective than other correction as again it doesn't damage that fragile ego as much.

My ego was in tatters every time I spoke to Britta. My friends and fellow German learners often commiserated with me. But I developed a thick skin and I confidently make up any old sentence and send it to Tormod to decipher. I'm not sure how well it works out for him, but generally he seems to respond to what I say. So I'd say my skin is now thick enough to expose all my Gaelic mistakes online and advertise them on Twitter. So mòran taing, a Bhritta!

Full speed ahead with SOL

I'm carrying on with SOL as I like viewing all the 90s fashions and the pretty places Rhoda visits. Some of the scenarios are ridiculous and quite chucklesome too. Also, I've spied out Tormod a few times in this second series.

Here's what I learnt in the most recent episodes (19 and 20):

Cò ris a tha e coltach?               What does he look like? (the t is silent in "coltach")
Tha e àrd agus reamhar.             He is tall and fat.
Tha i goirid agus caol.                She is short and slim.
A bheil sibh eòlach air Iain?       Do you know John?
Tha falt fada dubh oirre.             She has long black hair.
Tha suilean gorm aige.                He has blue eyes.

Dè ur beachd?                           What do you think? (polite or plural)
Dè do bheachd?                        What do you think? (informal)
Tha i glè shnog.                          She is very nice.
Sguir dheth.                               Stop it.
Latha na Gocaireachd                April Fool's Day


The hilariously bad Aig an taigh is getting a lot more complicated, with words I don't even know yet. Though watching episode 20 before 19 wasn't glic I guess...

Here is the episode on Learngaelic.net

To Be or Not To Be...

....or rather, some other kind of To Be.

UPDATED: see is below....

I've been doing some study on the use of is and tha. And oh my, it seems so very complicated! :-(

Having never had the pleasure to learn Spanish formally, I was never instructed on the differences between estar and ser. But I'm not sure that would have helped anyway. I just mentioned it because the beginner learner course on LearnGaelic.net seems to mention it, somewhat gratuitously too.

Anyway, here are some of the rules that I've learned concerning the uses of tha and is.

Is is used:
-to say I am George, he is Norman, etc.: Is mise Seòras, is esan Tormod
Here we have a pronoun and a noun being linked, so is is used (also tusa is used rather than thusa)

- to say James is the teacher, they are the Gaelic class, etc.: 'S e Seumas an tidsear, 's e iad na poileasmain
Here we have a noun linked to a definite noun, so is is used
See note below*


- to say James is a teacher, they are a Gaelic class, etc.: 'S e tidsear a th'ann an Seumas, 'S e poileasmain a th'annta
Here we have a noun linked to an indefinite noun, so is is used in the 's e [indefinite predicate] a th'ann an [subject] construction.


Tha is used:
- to say I am tired, we are ill, etc.: Tha mi sgìth, tha sinn tinn

- in various combinations with prepositions to give different meanings, e.g. with aig 'at' to mean 'to have': Tha taigh aig Dòmhnall 'Donald has a house'. 

No doubt there are many more ways both are used. Writing this post has actually helped me to organise the uses I've learnt so far in my head, so woohoo! Hopefully I can remember them and show off to Tormod (in texts anyway - I'm still pretty silent when it comes to speaking out loud :-/ which is a pity as I love how Gaelic feels in my mouth (that sounds weird but it is a thing. Believe me)).

Anyway, air ais aig obair I guess... Meanwhile, here's something for Là Chalum Cille (9th June):

 * A helpful reader contacted me on Twitter to let me know that "is e" is not used, but rather it is contracted to form " 'S e ". Many thanks to him. He also pointed out some great resources to which I've linked at the side.

Gabhaibh air ur socair, SOL!

I apologise for the delay since my last post, but this is kind of a #sorrynotsorry apology as I've been having lots of fun on holiday. I've still managed to squeeze in some Gaelic though.

I'm at episode 13 now as I found them all on YouTube and so I'm skipping ahead of what's currently on BBC Alba. And it's really picking up the pace in terms of what you learn. Here are some of the phrases from episode 13:

B'aill leibh?                          -         Pardon?/Come again?
Gabhaibh air ur socair          -         Take it easy/Slow down (polite/plural)
Gabh air do shocair              -         Take it easy/Slow down (informal singular)
Can sin a-rithist                    -         Say that again
Dè thuirt sibh?                      -         What did you say?
Chan eil mi a' tuigsinn           -         I don't understand
Chan eil fhios agam              -         I don't know
Dè tha sin a' ceallachadh?    -         What does that mean?

As you can see, the phrases are becoming more complicated. I was laughing with Tormod about this episode and about the silly scenarios that you see in them. In one of the scenarios for Gabh air do shocair, a young boy is stuffing his face with a sandwich when his mother says "Gabh air do shocair". I can only imagine the directional instructions to the boy:

"OK, now I want you to take that sandwich, and keep taking bites out of it without swallowing until the "mother" tells you to slow down. Got it? Really jam it in your craw. OK. And aaaction!"

More to come once I'm back at home in the real world again... While I've been on holiday I've really taken the instruction gabh air do shocair to heart ;-) ;-)

Justify yourself!

***Warning! This post contains very little Gaelic and is rather ranty!***

Anyone learning a language will often reflect on why they are bothering to learn it. This often happens once the sheen of a language wears off - the little things about a language that send a exquisite shiver of excitement up your spine every time you encounter it. Then you need to persevere, and you consider whether it's worthwhile persevering. In most cases, it is simply enough to say to oneself, "I'm learning this because I want to speak the language". Just wanting to learn it is sufficient reason to carry on.

However, when mentioning to others that you are learning a language, they will ask which language you are learning and why you want to learn it. Parroting Billie Piper "Because I want to" doesn't usually satisfy your interlocutor.

When I say to others that I can speak French and German, they usually don't inquire to much as to why I learnt these languages because they are standard languages to learn at school. (Or at least they were - German has basically been phased out across Scotland. Idiotic.) Most people view utility as an acceptable reason to learn a language. Learning Spanish? That's ok - it's such a global language. Learning German? Well Germany is an important economic driver in Europe. Polish? Hmm. Well the Slavic countries are quite important in Europe and there are many Poles in the UK.

"Gaelic?" Cue blanched looks and sideways glances. "Seems a bit pointless."
I hate this. Why do we have to justify learning a language that is native to the country? I'm learning it because I want to, because I like the language, because it opens me up to part of my native culture. Because it's beautiful and expressive. Because because because.

Anyway, I don't care what people think when I say I'm learning Gaelic. I'm a language geek. I can get away with it ;-)

I'm going to turn the horrible question on you now. Why are YOU learning Gaelic?