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57 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
GOOD BOOK FOR GETTING A GRASP OF GAELIC, 27 Oct 2000
By A Customer
If you've ever listened to the Radio Scotland Gaelic services, you'll know that Gaelic sounds like a difficult enough language to get your ears round even before you start learning it. But for those of you who listen wistfully, wishing to be able to speak it with ease and flair, I can promise that after a read through this book, you can (by making the effort) become familiar with the language fairly quickly. Even if you are not the type of person who can readily pick up grammar points, this book explains it well, giving good concrete examples which are not ridden with exceptions and using words that won't send you scrambling to find for the glossary at the back. I read through the book along with listening to the cassette, and one of the handiest things about it is that you can listen to the tape without the book and thus improve pronounciation. All in all, it makes it possible to learn Gaelic through self study, and with a bit of drive and determination, I would imagine that even people who consider language learning a form of torture, may be able to pick up enough to have them picking up a Runrig album and singing along loudly in full confidence !
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but not enough by itself, 24 Feb 2008
Possibly the best teach yourself option currently available, but its difficult to learn from books and cd alone. A face-to-face course is highly beneficial. I started learning from this, then got other books and took a couple of courses.
The content is good, and you could have a reasonable conversation using it, but only if the other participants kept to its content and pronounciation. Even a simple conversation with a 'real' gaelic speaker may be difficult to understand though, partly because they will use vocabulary not covered, but also because of 'localised' pronounciation and word use - I am told a gaelic speaker can easily identify Skye gaelic, Harris gaelic, various sub areas of Lewis gaelic, BBC gaelic etc.
There are lots of variations from community to community (even neighbouring villages) in pronounciation etc. I didn't understand this fully from this book and was still left with quite a few questions. I would recommend the following book as a supplement:
Scots Gaelic - A Brief Introduction (Paperback)
by George Robert McLennan (Author)
You will probably also need a dictionary and if at all possible book yourself onto a course.
For something a bit more in depth I rate the following:
Gaelic Verbs: Systemised and Simplified (Paperback)
by Colin B.D. Mark (Author)
Finally, watch the Rocket Post and feel clever about understanding the small snippets of gaelic used (mainly hello & how are you).
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Flawed, but the most enjoyable of the Gaelic self-tuition books, 29 April 2010
In my opinion this is the middle one of the three currently available Gaelic self-tuition books (see my other reviews). Although I didn't rate it much at first, as time has gone by it has become the one that I most enjoy dipping into.
It is by far the fattest of the three, at 344 pages, but the typeface and layout make it look a wee bit cluttered. It is divided into 23 shortish lessons, with a sensible progression of material and a good structure. The vocabulary lists are annoying in that they present entire phrases most of the time, but despite this, the explanations of grammar are clear and comprehensive, much better than the Colloquial book, though not as good as the In Twelve Weeks book. The dialogues are very lively, both in the book and on the CD, and there is a great set of exercises in each lesson.
The audio material is not as comprehensive as the Colloquial book, there being just one CD, but it is so much more listenable than the Colloquial. There is also some information about Gaelic culture, very welcome lists of place names, forenames and surnames, and a good Gaelic-English vocabulary list (but not the other way round). Like most Gaelic books, it falls down very badly in not having any printed pronunciation.
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