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12/4/2020

3 simple things to improve your pronunciation

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You have studied all the phonics and have been working hard on learning words and grammar but you feel like your pronunciation could be improved. Well here are three tips that are simple but can make a lot of difference. 

1. Is you emPHAsis on the wrong syllABLE?

Emphasis can seem like a little thing but it can make a lot of difference to how a word sounds. In Scottish Gaelic the emphasis is almost always on the first syllable. 
Here are some examples:

agam  ---> AGam
ionnsachadh --->IONNsachadh
madainn -----> MADainn

As with any rule there are a few exceptions. Words that have an accent in another syllable will have the emphasis on the accented syllable i.e.  buntàta. Words that are barrowed from other languages may have different emphasis as well. The last main exception are words that used to be two words such as airson, which used to be air son. 

2. Voiced and unvoiced letters

There are some sounds that use the same mouth shape but make two different sounds depending on whether or not you use your voice. These are called voiced/unvoiced letter pairs. There are three of them in Scottish Gaelic:

voiced                       unvoiced
  D                                  T
  G                                  C
  B                                   P

In Scottish Gaelic if the voiced letter is the first letter in the word it will make its proper voiced sound. However if it is in the middle or the end of the word it will most likely change to the unvoiced version. Here are some examples:

agad  sounds like   akat
leabaidh sounds like leapaidh
madainn  sounds like matainn

A lot of the unvoiced D's in the middle and ends of words in old spelling have been changed to T's in new spelling. Such as èisd/èist,  an-dràsda/ an-dràsta. So depending on when and where the Gaelic you are reading was written there will bi more or less of these voiced/unvoiced letters. 

3. Those crazy double letters

There are three letter that double in Gaelic, L, N,R. You may recognize this gang of letters as they hang out together a lot. When one of these letters doubles it makes a change to the vowel next to it. These sound changes are really important because they often make the difference between one word and another. Here are some examples:

sin   sounds like  shin
sinn  sound like sheen
an    sounds like  an (ie English an apple)
ann  sounds like awn
tòl  sounds like toll (English)
toll sounds like tawl 
 
The first four examples there are things you will likely use in daily conversation and getting them right can go a long way toward making your Gaelic sound good. 

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11/4/2020

Interesting visuals

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here are some fun things to look at and think about

There is a lot of crossover in the sets of Gaelic vocabulary for body parts and landscapes/place names
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There are a few different ways of looking at definite articles in Gaelic (nominative)

chart:
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flow chart
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all the choices 
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​How learning one word can help you learn lots of other words
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3/11/2020

Slenderisation

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So you've mastered lenition and you are keeping an eye out for broad and slender vowels and you are feeling pretty good when along comes slenderisation!
  "What" you exclaim, "I thought I knew about all the ways words change in Gaelic"! 
Slenderisation is a change that happens to the end of words (mostly nouns) in Gaelic. It happens in a few places, in the vocative case of male names, in some plurals, in many nouns in the genitive case, and historically in feminine nouns in the dative case*. 
"But what is it"?!
Slenderisation is when the vowel before the last consonant in a word is changed to a slender vowel. If a word ends in a vowel or is already slender nothing changes. However, if the vowel before the last consonant is broad it will change.

Here are some examples from each of the categories.
vocative:  Seumas ---> a Sheumais (James)
Plural:  bodach ---> bodaich (old man)
Genitive: balach ---> balaich (boy)
feminine dative: gainmheach ----> air a' ghainmhich (sand)

As you can see many times you can just stick an i, especially if your word ends in -ach(bodach-->bodaich). If, like gainmheach it ends in -each you just change it to -ich. Likewise if your word ends in -adh it will change to -aidh and eadh will change to idh. However some times it is a bit more complicated.
Here are a few more examples:

cnoc ---> cnuic (plural) (hill)
bòrd ----> bùird (genitive and plural)(table)
ceòl -----> ciùil (genitive)(music)
here you can see that o or ò  will change to ui/ùi also noting that the e in ceòl changes to i.

a can change in a lot of ways:

cat ---->cait (genitive and plural)(cat)
ràc ---> ràic (genitive)(rake)
bàs---> bàis(genitive)(death)
fàs--->fàis(genitive) (growth)
cas ---->cois(dative) (foot)
bas---> bòise(genitive) (palm of hand)
mac ---> mic(genitive and plural) (son)
falt ---->fuilt (genitive) (hair)

However a/à---ai/ài is the most common.

ia--->èi
Niall ----> a Nèill (vocative) (Nial)
grian ---> grèin(dative) (sun)

ea-->ei
Mìcheal---> a Mhìcheil (vocative) (Michael)
each----> eich (genitive and plural) (horse)

-ear--->ir
fear----fir(genitive and plural) (man)

eu--> èi/eòi
eun---> eòin (genitive and plural) (bird)
leug----> lèig(genitive) (gemstone)
feur--->feòir (genitive and plural) (grass)

io/ìo---> i/ì
sìol--->sìl(genitive and plural) (seed)

"Ok, but how do I know what to use?" 

So if you are looking for a genitive or a plural you can find them easily enough in a dictionary. If you are trying to figure out the vocative of a masculine name you will have to look at the list above and find which one matches your word best. 
The slenderisation of feminine nouns in the dative case seems to be something that a lot of people no longer do. But it does appear in some phrases and in older writen Gaelic. If you want to figure it out, again you'd have to look at the list and find the best match. 

There is a nice list of these changes in the Appendices (pg.193/194) of Scottish Gaelic in Three Months by Roibeard O Maolalaigh and Iain MacAonghuis published by Dorling Kindersley (1998 for the version I have) which I consulted in writing this blog post. 
Later editions of this book were published with the title of Scottish Gaelic in Twelve Weeks.  
 

 


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11/18/2018

Getting to know the Gaelic Alphabet: 'F'

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We have been talking about some of the stronger characters in the Gaelic alphabet, this week we are going to look a weaker character; the letter F. 
F only makes one sound regardless of whether it is broad or slender and that is the F sound we are used to in English. 
When it is lenited is looses all its sound, it just gives up and makes no sound at all. 
And, it will lenite at the drop of a had. Really f will lenite when no other letter will. 
Any word that has a lenited F in the front of it should be treated as if it begins with the letter that follows the lenited F. 
For feminine nouns that begin with F the definite article would like to be a' +lenition but when F lenites and the sound goes away that doesn't work anymore because you end up with two vowel sounds together, so the article changes to an + lenition. 

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10/28/2018

Gaelic Alphabet part 2

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As we mentioned last week D is the best friend of T. D is quite a complex character. He hangs out with T when broad but ventures off on his own to make a "J" sound when slender. Like T he is resistant to lenition but when he does he has a different best friend, G. In fact dh and gh make the same sounds both when broad and slender. When broad they make a sound that English it is as if a 'g' were made in the very back of the throat. When slender they act like an English 'y', like the 'y' in yellow  at the beginning of a word, like the 'y' in monkey at the end. "idh' as a word ending is more common than 'igh' and is used for borrow words that end in the 'ee' sound and as the ending of independent (positive statement) verbs in the future tense.  

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10/21/2018

The Gaelic alphabet is full of characters

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Whether you have just begun to learn Gaelic or have been learning for a while, you will have noticed that the Gaelic alphabet works quite differently to the English (or  almost any other) alphabet. 
I like to think of the letters as people with their own personalities. Once you get to know them you can predict how they are going to behave in different situations.
​So with that in mind let me introduce you to a few interesting people:

T

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The letter T has a strong personality, you might even say stubborn. It wants its voice heard so it will resist lenition where possible. When it does lenite it makes an 'H' sound.
 It likes to hang out with its best friend D. They are good friends and make sounds that are closer to each other than the English sounds.
When it gets around the slender vowels it makes a 'ch' sound. 

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10/1/2017

5 points sur lesquels le français joue en votre faveur

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Vous êtes francophones et l’apprentissage du gaélique vous donne parfois du fil à retordre?
Voici un petit article pour vous remonter le moral !
Il est bon parfois de se rappeler ce qui joue en notre faveur plutôt que le contraire. Et vous verrez que sur certains points, votre langue maternelle vous simplifiera la vie !

     1. La forme polie
Le gaélique utilise également une forme polie. Comme en français, elle correspond à la 2e personne du pluriel.
  • thu = tu (informel)
  • sibh = vous (pluriel et forme polie)
En tant que locuteur du français, vous avez déjà le réflexe d’utiliser la forme de politesse dans les situations requises. Ce qui représente une gymnastique mentale laborieuse pour une personne anglophone vous viendra naturellement et vous évitera bien des faux-pas !     2. Le verbe « faire »
Pour ceux qui peinaient à comprendre la différence entre les deux verbes faire de l’anglais « make » et « do », rassurez-vous, la question ne se posera pas en gaélique puisque, comme en français, on n’utilise qu’un seul verbe dans toutes les situations. (Ouf !)
  • Dèan !, a’ dèanamh = faire​

​    3. Le pronom relatif
En anglais, le pronom relatif « that » peut être utilisé ou omis :
  • The language that I am using / the language I am using.
En gaélique, comme en français, la particule qui introduit la phrase relative ne peut pas être omise :
  • An duine a tha mi a’ faicinn = l’homme que je vois.

​  4. La place de l’adjectif
A quelques exceptions près, le gaélique place l’adjectif après le nom qu’il décrit. Voilà donc un effort de moins que vous aurez à fournir puisqu’ici encore, le gaélique est semblable au français.
  • an cù geal = le chien blanc

​  5. Le genre des noms
Et pour finir, les noms communs gaéliques ont un genre grammatical. Ils peuvent être soit masculins, soit féminins. Une particularité de plus à laquelle vous êtes habitués !
  • an t-aran (masc.) = le pain
  • a’ ghrian (fém.) = le soleil

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7/16/2014

7 Gaelic words you (probably) didn't know were Gaelic

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Here are some words that we use in English that have Gaelic origins
1. galore   -------> gu leòr              plenty/enough
2. smashing------> is math sin     that is good
3. glen -----------> gleann                valley
4. clan -----------> clann                     children
5. cairn ----------> cairn                    mound of stones
6. plaid ----------> plaide                  blanket
7. banshee -----> bean shithe      femai fairy

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7/13/2014

Let's get creative

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Here are some creative ways to help you learn Gaelic:
1. Talking photo frames and other talking things


Talking photo frames are easy to come by and not too expensive ( around $10-$20 USD. Use them to help you learn vocabulary. You can print or draw a picture of the thing or activity you are learning and then record the word or phrase to the frame. Put the frame some place you will see it often and listen to the sound whenever you go by. 
Also look for other 'talking' things that you can use in the same way. Educational companies that make products for children with additional needs are also a good place to find recordable products 
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2. Having trouble remembering colors?
All you need is a box of crayons, a pen, sticky notes and a coloring book.

Write the Gaelic color names on the sticky end of the sticky note. Cut the sticky note to the right width and wrap it around your crayons. Use your Gaelic crayons to draw or color or leave the by the phone for taking messages.
You may want to stick to the smaller packs of crayons as it could be difficult to translate and remember 120 different colors.

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    Authors

    Caroline has been involved with Gaelic for more than 18 years. She has degrees in Celtic Studies and Gaelic Medium Teaching.

    Marine lives in the french-speaking part of Switzerland. She has been learning Gaelic with Caroline since 2013 and has just  completed An Cùrsa Adhartais at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig.

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  • Home
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    • refund, attendance, privacy and anti discrimination policies
  • Blog Mios na Gaidhlig
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      • Beginner Gaelic Classes
      • Advanced Beginner Class
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      • Advanced Gaelic Class
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