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Blas na Gàidhlig: The Practical Guide to Scottish Gaelic Pronunciation [Hardcover]

Michael Bauer , Jim Daily
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

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Book Description

31 Mar 2011
This book tackles the thorny issue of Scottish Gaelic pronunciation in an engaging and clear manner without loosing track of the bigger picture and the fine detail. It was written with three main reader groups in mind:
- adult learners of Gaelic (from total beginner up to highly advanced learners who want to improve their pronunciation and comprehension skills)
- teachers and tutors of Gaelic who wish to become more effective in teaching pronunciation to adult learners of the language
- native speakers of the language who wish to gain a better understanding of how their language works.
It assumes no prior knowledge and takes the reader on a complete journey through the marvels of the Gaelic sound system. It comes with over 120 sets of exercises, numerous sound files that can be accessed via the publisher's website, both technical and entertaining illustrations and a recipe for some Christmas baking.

No single solution will ever exist which will solve all the problems facing the learners of Gaelic when it comes to pronunciation but, without doubt, this book will help learners and teachers of the language take a large step forwards.


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Product details

  • Hardcover: 592 pages
  • Publisher: Akerbeltz (31 Mar 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1907165002
  • ISBN-13: 978-1907165009
  • Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.6 x 4.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 431,799 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • See Complete Table of Contents

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Review

Blas na Gàidhlig should encourage more people to learn to speak the language correctly - and for that, Michael Bauer is due a big "tapadh leat" from the Gaelic community.
--Cothrom, Issue 68 (Summer 2011), by Ruairidh MacIlleathain

From the Back Cover

Most learners of Gaelic - and native speakers in particular - agree that having a good accent is very important. Ditto for people who teach Gaelic to adults and need to be able to explain a thing or two about pronunciation. But how to get there is not always so obvious.

This is where this book, its many sound files and more than 120 sets of exercises come in. It will take you - whether you're a complete beginner; a semi- or fully-fluent learner; or an interested native speaker - on a fascinating journey through the gubbins of this intriguing language. All you need is a thirst for knowledge because great care has gone into making a complicated topic as accessible as possible to everyone.

In a way, it will be your resident Gaelic granny. Always there for you, never makes you feel stupid, full of anecdotes, flawless Gaelic and even some home baking. Teann a-nall 's thoir dhomh do làmh!


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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By GF
Format:Hardcover
As far as I'm aware this is the first comprehensive guide to the "sound system" of Scottish Gaelic for a general readership. I have taught Gaelic (my first language) for about 10 years now and this will be an excellent resource when it comes to explaining and "showing" how the language's sounds are made. Gaelic grammar is no more complex than your average European language, but the wealth and subtlety of the sounds that are used to speak it are rarely encountered in any one tongue and are underestimated, by learners and teachers alike. Because of this the book may look like a daunting read - at 512 pages it's certainly not short - but it's not a chore to get through. It is very straightforward and readable and - as the front cover says - eminently practical. As well as introducing readers to the supremely sensible International Phonetic Alphabet(IPA - the characters you see in brackets next to a word in dictionaries or on wikipedia) Bauer shows how key sounds are made and gives practical tips on how to practise them. Engaging with native speakers of Scottish Gaelic is a huge challenge for learners; if you don't have a good accent they're likely to switch to English after the first sentence you utter. This book, along with the author's audio material online, is a huge step forward in helping to overcome that. The proof of the pudding...well, I've heard the author in a Gaelic radio interview and his accent is perfect or, as we'd say at home "Tha blas na Gàidhlig aige".
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Essential for long-distance learners 4 Jun 2011
Format:Hardcover
Definitely worth the price, especially taking into account it is accompanied by some 450MB of sound files, featuring the words appearing in the text, which are (legally!) downloadable from the Net for free.

Part 1 is a short explanation of the importance of acquiring good pronunciation; Part 2 decribes, one by one, all Gaelic vowels and consonants (the sounds, rather than the letters; to make this part more digestible, there are a few pieces of related trivia scattered around). Part 3 explains how these sound interact with each other: this includes intonation, word stress or sounds disappearing in fast speech as well as single and jumping lenition, slenderization or preaspiration. Part 4 then looks at how these sound are put into the Gaelic spelling system.

The two most important appendices are a 'Wordlist' with pronunciations given not only for the basic forms, but also for genitives and plurals, comparatives, verbal nouns &c, including more detailed tables for irregular verbs. The other is a 'Guide to Reading Gaelic', about 250 rules following which one can, going letter by letter, 'reconstruct' the pronunciation of a particular Gaelic word from the way it's written.

The author managed to write a book that is quite enjoyable and highly informative at the same time, while the sound files leave no doubt about how should a particular phonetic transcription really sound. I should especially recommend it to everybody who studies Gaelic without the possibility of being in a regular contact with a native speaker always at the ready to point out the mistakes a learner will inevitably do.

(One warning, though: if your native language isn't English, brace yourself for finding out about a thing or two you're doing bad in that language as well.)
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars really helpful read, highly recommended 29 May 2011
By Ciara
Format:Hardcover
I was slightly worried when I ordered this book because when I flicked through Lookinside, it looked so much more serious than any other Gaelic book I ever bought. But I was very pleasantly surprised when I got it. It's very well written and laid out and not at all over-the-head of someone like myself who's last time in a classroom is more than a decade back. It doesn't assume you know anything about the language or the way it's sounds work and take you through step by step. It's a bit like an Idiots Guide but without making me feel like an idiot.

It has a logical progression but the nice thing is that you can also just jump somewhere, our night class teacher was trying to explain something about aspiration but left everyone a bit confused. So I looked it up and had a couple of epiphynies. I took it in to show her and she says she's got to get one herself, she says she can say everything right but doesn't know why or how to explain it,

There's also loads of sound files to go with the book on the publishers webiste which makes it even better. It sounds expensive but when you realise how much you're getting, it's money well spent. No regrets and I recommend ti to any learner!
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