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Duolingo gaelic course


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Has anyone completed or doing this?

I started last year, and now on a 272 day streak. I'm really enjoying it but it really is a difficult language to get a grip of.

I woke up this morning saying Tha treana a' tighinn (a train is coming) so it appears to be sinking in.

I'm thinking of maybe going on to get a qualification once i'm finished with the duolingo course

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On 9/14/2021 at 7:40 AM, chaff said:

Has anyone completed or doing this?

I started last year, and now on a 272 day streak. I'm really enjoying it but it really is a difficult language to get a grip of.

I woke up this morning saying Tha treana a' tighinn (a train is coming) so it appears to be sinking in.

I'm thinking of maybe going on to get a qualification once i'm finished with the duolingo course

Sounds like you are doing well with it. I think theres usually a fair few jobs going involving gaelic out there so a qualification might be a good idea.

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Bragging dad alert!

My daughter studied for a degree in Scotland that required her to become reasonably fluent in Gaelic. She used Duolingo & said it wasn't bad (albeit a lot of references to IrnBru by all accounts!), but that she only really got fluent by doing other back up studies as well. She appeared on a quiz show anyway on BBC Alba & worked in a couple of places where she needed to speak it, so I presume it must have been useful.

As an aside, one of her jobs was collecting oral histories (in Gaelic) from elderly people on one of the islands. One of the reasons the community group employed her was that they were finding that the interviewees were clamming up when interviewed by people they knew whereas they would happily chatter away to her.

I'm using it to learn Spanish...I've made a few false starts but this time am determined to make some progress. Same applies to me really, that it will get you so far I think, but you need other resources as well to convert competent into fluent.

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On 9/15/2021 at 7:51 PM, mccaughey85 said:

Sounds like you are doing well with it. I think theres usually a fair few jobs going involving gaelic out there so a qualification might be a good idea.

I'm not an expert personally so might be talking crap, but re. my other post, I know that my daughter had various job offers (although in the end she came back here)...I think she could have done translation work at the Parliament, but also she had got to know a few people in the SNP who were keen to take her on for various projects, so you're probably right there is work around & about.

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9 hours ago, Huddersfield said:

Bragging dad alert!

My daughter studied for a degree in Scotland that required her to become reasonably fluent in Gaelic. She used Duolingo & said it wasn't bad (albeit a lot of references to IrnBru by all accounts!), but that she only really got fluent by doing other back up studies as well. She appeared on a quiz show anyway on BBC Alba & worked in a couple of places where she needed to speak it, so I presume it must have been useful.

As an aside, one of her jobs was collecting oral histories (in Gaelic) from elderly people on one of the islands. One of the reasons the community group employed her was that they were finding that the interviewees were clamming up when interviewed by people they knew whereas they would happily chatter away to her.

I'm using it to learn Spanish...I've made a few false starts but this time am determined to make some progress. Same applies to me really, that it will get you so far I think, but you need other resources as well to convert competent into fluent.

That's fantastic mate. Aye there's some references to IRN BRU and also Peat and Diesel, a band from the western Isles they all seem to  love, Personally i don't get it but  the course i find is excellent, like you say i think i'll need to immerse myself in it to get my head fully round it.

Stick with the Spanish

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2 hours ago, chaff said:

That's fantastic mate. Aye there's some references to IRN BRU and also Peat and Diesel, a band from the western Isles they all seem to  love, Personally i don't get it but  the course i find is excellent, like you say i think i'll need to immerse myself in it to get my head fully round it.

Stick with the Spanish

I think immersion is definitely key to really developing fluency. My daughter was lucky in a sense, as she was in an environment where she could get at extra things easily, plus she had the time to do it. I think she read a lot of things like folk stories & poetry.

Most of the kids on her course were Scottish & I think her best friends there were a girl from Skye & one from Orkney, both already reasonably fluent, so they were able to talk with each other in Gaelic if they wanted to & she could build up her fluency, particularly around speaking & listening which I think can be weaknesses of Duo.

Obviously that's not a luxury you have if you're trying to work, look after kids or whatever else is going on in your life.

One other tip (you might already know this I guess) with Duo is to try & avoid getting sucked into the league system. I started to find I was going over easy things that I'd mastered already just to get the XP to get promoted/avoid getting relegated rather than concentrating on a learning goal.

Re. the Spanish, I had planned to go to some local speaking groups post-lockdown but they don't really seem to be starting up again, other than ones that cost a fortune. There might be something similar though in your area. I don't know if you find this, but I've got to a point where I can understand maybe 60-70% of anything I read online, can get a gist when someone is speaking very slowly & clearly, but if I try to watch the news, say, where they are rattling on at 100mph, they might just as well be speaking Klingon.

Keep at it though...it might be a long-term project but I'm told by people way ahead of me that a day comes when you suddenly start to realise you can understand what people are saying.

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4 hours ago, chaff said:

That's fantastic mate. Aye there's some references to IRN BRU and also Peat and Diesel, a band from the western Isles they all seem to  love, Personally i don't get it but  the course i find is excellent, like you say i think i'll need to immerse myself in it to get my head fully round it.

Stick with the Spanish

And with good reason too!! They're gloriously unique.

Western Isles punk sung in an authentic Hebridean accent - mostly English lyrics.

Check them out on YouTube.

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3 hours ago, Huddersfield said:

 

One other tip (you might already know this I guess) with Duo is to try & avoid getting sucked into the league system. I started to find I was going over easy things that I'd mastered already just to get the XP to get promoted/avoid getting relegated rather than concentrating on a learning goal.

 

Totally! I'm kind of at that stage but I do about an hour a day so I'm always mid table of the diamond League.

 

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1 hour ago, Barney Rubble said:

And with good reason too!! They're gloriously unique.

Western Isles punk sung in an authentic Hebridean accent - mostly English lyrics.

Check them out on YouTube.

Not really my bag Barney

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11 hours ago, Hertsscot said:

Doing it as well. Wouldn't say I am anywhere near fluent but certainly know more than I did. Just wish I'd spent more time with the Gaelic speakers at uni  as definitely easier to pick up languages when you're younger.

stick with it, i think i read somewhere that learning a language when you're older is excellent for the brain

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1 hour ago, vanderark14 said:

I never knew this app existed. I've downloaded it and started learning Spanish 👍🏻👍🏻

Best of luck with it...one thing to be aware of with the Spanish course is that it is heavily weighted towards Americans learning Latin American Spanish rather than Europeans learning Castillian. So you get loads of 'the shop is downtown' & using your cellphone kind of thing. Some of it has been 'Anglicised' but you do get tripped up every now & again, especially if you use any sort of dialect in your answer. You won't get much joy on the forums either as they are overwhelmingly Americans who just don't understand why allowances ought to be made.

I'm off to Spain next week so I can't wait to see if I can get further than pointing at the beer I want & waving my arms to show I want a big one 😊

 

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28 minutes ago, Huddersfield said:

Best of luck with it...one thing to be aware of with the Spanish course is that it is heavily weighted towards Americans learning Latin American Spanish rather than Europeans learning Castillian. So you get loads of 'the shop is downtown' & using your cellphone kind of thing. Some of it has been 'Anglicised' but you do get tripped up every now & again, especially if you use any sort of dialect in your answer. You won't get much joy on the forums either as they are overwhelmingly Americans who just don't understand why allowances ought to be made.

I'm off to Spain next week so I can't wait to see if I can get further than pointing at the beer I want & waving my arms to show I want a big one 😊

 

Thanks mate

I'm exactly the same, as a family we head to Spain a lot and tenerife so I thought why the fuck not

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2 hours ago, vanderark14 said:

I never knew this app existed. I've downloaded it and started learning Spanish 👍🏻👍🏻

I saw it advertised last week on TV, one of the few adverts I pay any attention too they are mostly utter shit these days.

It looks quite a fun way to learn, will maybe take a look. There is no specific language I would want to learn as we tend to travel to different countries on holiday . I might look at German as I did that at school so might be easier to pick up to start with. 

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2 minutes ago, TDYER63 said:

I saw it advertised last week on TV, one of the few adverts I pay any attention too they are mostly utter shit these days.

It looks quite a fun way to learn, will maybe take a look. There is no specific language I would want to learn as we tend to travel to different countries on holiday . I might look at German as I did that at school so might be easier to pick up to start with. 

I did think of doing French but I didn't think I'd get to make use of it, I don't think I'll be there very often or ever again. 

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I wanted to learn Gaelic because I didn't want people listening to me and my wife speaking on our travels and then being asked, are you English.

My plan fell on it's arse when Michelle said she wanted to learn French as Gaelic sounds too hard 🤔

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My daughter move over to Stornoway in August to start her new job as a primary teacher over there. Her first class is a composite class of P1 and P4! When I asked her why she got a split class with a three year gap she said it was because they didn’t have enough P2s that spoke English as their first language - most of them were Gaelic speakers!

She’s looking into learning Gaelic now as she may be over in Harris and Lewis long term 👍🏼

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17 minutes ago, chaff said:

Trèana .....train 

Trèanaichean....trains

If you were to spell them phonetically what does that massive bit at the end of the plural sound like versus the singular?

I am thinking the first bit sounds like  'trainer' said in a French accent and dropping the last 'r'.

Then the same again for the plural... but with someone vomiting added on.? 

Edited by thplinth
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Glad to hear you are enjoying it, Chaff. You can try Sabhal Mor Ostaig - you might even get on a course now, think they started in September, but they are very friendly there and might be able to squeeze you in to An Cursa Inntrigidh which is a once a week/phone tutorial course.  From the sounds of it, and that's a fair slog you have been doing - I reckon you could definitely be able to cope with ACI.

I did up to Cursa Comais, and started on the degree program, but work got in the way and I'm shockingly had a very lazy Gaelic 2021, so I'll need to get watching Alba more again to retain a bit. 

It's a brilliant language, and you'll love learning the names, sites, places etc of many parts of Scotland and understanding what they mean rather than their bastardised Scots/English name which often doesn't tell us anything.

I'm doing Spanish on Duolingo right now, and having a bit of Gaelic and Icelandic is definitely helping the learning process of trying to add another language.

http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/en/cursaichean/an-cursa-inntrigidh

Feel free to PM, or email the college. They are really helpful and nice people.

 

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