Teach Yourself Gaelic Complete Course

Rating:
Summary: TY Irish is another book
Review: "Teach Yourself Irish" by Diarmuid O Se' and Joseph Sheilds is the book for Irish Gaelic. 'Irish' is how the Irish people themselves translate 'Geailige' into English. They are rightly proud of the Irish language. I found the "TY Irish" (book and tapes) to be an efficient introduction to Irish and a good companion set to Micheal O Siadhail's "Learning Irish" (with 4 tapes), which is quite comprehensive. I highly recommend acquiring more than one series to learn Irish. Sla'n.

Rating:
Summary: TY Irish is another book
Review: "Teach Yourself Irish" by Diarmuid O Se' and Joseph Sheilds is the book for Irish Gaelic. 'Irish' is how the Irish people themselves translate 'Geailige' into English. They are rightly proud of the Irish language. I found the "TY Irish" (book and tapes) to be an efficient introduction to Irish and a good companion set to Micheal O Siadhail's "Learning Irish" (with 4 tapes), which is quite comprehensive. I highly recommend acquiring more than one series to learn Irish. Sla'n.

Rating:
Summary: VERY helpful.
Review: 'T is a wee bit difficult to get used to in the beginning with the start being straight forward Gaidhlig. Once ye get used to it though, 't becomes a very good teaching course. Ye may need an English-Gaelic dictionary along with it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!! Beanachd Leibh!!

Rating:
Summary: Tha e GLÈ math!
Review: Ò, tha gràdh agam dhut, CHO mòràn,a Ghàidhlig! 'S toil leam seo leabhar glè mòràn agus is miann leam tuilleadh às seo cànain àlainn. Seadh, bidh gràdh agam air seo cànain gu bràth. Feumach air cuideachadh. Ma 's e bhur toil e. I'm only starting this book, but I have learned a LOT. I don't usually do all the excercises, but I make up my own to see how well I can perform. So far, this is an excellent course- wonderfully explained, good use of words, interesting facts about Alba (Scotland), this is just beautifully done. And the language is just SO beautiful! The Celtic languages are MUCH more beautiful and romantic than the latin languages in my opinion. I just can't and won't believe nor accept the frail condition this ethereal tounge is in. The Celtic languages MUST BE SAVED! Tha gràdh agam dhuinn uile cho mòràn, an ceòl agus na diathan sin tha iad. Tha iad uile ceòl, bàrdach, agus Dia fhèin. Ò, bhithinn anns an dùthaich daonnan, sin Alba breagha, an t-Eilean Sgithneach, Inbhir Nis, Glaschu, h-uile rud. M'Alba, tha gràdh agus miann agam dhuit.Buy this course and learn it! You will NOT regret it! Sure, it is hard, but you get the hang of it. I HIGHLY recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but not the best
Review: First, I would like to make one point absolutely clear: this book DOES NOT teach you Irish(-Gaelic), it teaches Scottish-Gaelic. I am a speaker of Irish myself, and I've met at least tens of beginners who have wanted to learn the Gaelic language of Ireland (Gaeilge, in Irish), and confused it with the Gaelic language of Scotland (Gaidhlig, in Scottish Gaelic). So, if you want to learn Irish, I would recommend "Learning Irish" by Micheal O Siadhail instead. If, however, Scottish Gaelic is the language you want to learn, this book is indeed quite good, provided you buy the book as well as the tapes (Gaelic pronunciation can be very confusing for beginners). This book is based largely on standard Gaelic, and contains conversations, word-lists and grammar explanations. The structure is quite clear and straight-forward, and should not present any major problems to the dedicated learner.

I would, however, want to point out the fact that a new Gaelic course will be available in a few months, Colloquail Gaelic. From what I've seen of that book, it is the best book on Gaelic available, and if you don't need to learn Gaelic immediately, I would advise you to wait. As someone with experience from language-corses in 23 languages, I have to say that the books in the Teach Yourself series normally belong to the worst books. This book is not so bad as most other in the TY-series, but I would advice you to wait for the "Colloquial Gaelic".

Rating:
Summary: Where's the beef?
Review: I am a student of foreign language grammars and have a good collection of old and new texts in several languages... I consider the Teach Yourself Gaelic book and tapes to be at the very top of my list for several reasons. First, the conversations are extremely well designed and recorded. All points of grammar are contextualized by examples and very cleverly imbedded in the conversations, which are lively, pertinent to general conversation needs, and do not bore one even after many repetitions. If one memorizes the conversations the most important features of Gaelic grammar will be learned more or less automatically without the drudgery of the intensive prescriptive explanations and fill-in-the-blank drills which are endemic in most gammars. Second, points of grammar are stripped of the dross and complexity which can turn off the beginning student. Grammar is presented logically, succinctly, and in a brain-friendly manner. Third, the vocabulary used is both comprehensive and useful for general conversation needs. I teach Gaelic... and I highly recommen this course.

Rating:
Summary: Nice book... but a bit of confusion..
Review: I bought the book a while ago from my University's bookstore thinking it would be a book to learn more about Irish Gaelic...boy was I wrong.

This book teaches the SCOTTISH version of Gaelic, NOT the Irish version. It says it nowhere in the description. It's a very nice book despite it not being the language I wanted.

I'd suggest you not buy this book though. There's a version out with tapes.

Rating:
Summary: Teach Yourself [Scots] Gaelic
Review: I got this tape and book set about 2 1/2 years ago in 1999. I started on my own with absolutely no one else to practice with. In the summer of 2001 I went to Scotland to attend a short 2 week course in Scottish Gaelic at Sabhal Mor Ostaig on the Isle of Skye. They had 8 levels, one per week. After I had my interview they put me straight into level 5! Mind you, I had NO ONE else to speak with. The tapes REALLY help with the pronunciation, which is the hardest thing about this language in my opinion, b/c words are not spelled how they sound to an native English speaker. If you read through every part of the chapter and treat it just like a textbook, and if you do all of the exercises in the book in the proper way, you will have no choice but to learn this language as best as it is possible without a live teacher. If you want to get back in touch with your Scottish roots, or you just love the celts and want to feel cool by speaking a beautiful and ancient language, then this book and tape set is for you.

Rating:
Summary: Perfect for those with no other way of instruction
Review: I got this tape and book set about 2 1/2 years ago in 1999. I started on my own with absolutely no one else to practice with. In the summer of 2001 I went to Scotland to attend a short 2 week course in Scottish Gaelic at Sabhal Mor Ostaig on the Isle of Skye. They had 8 levels, one per week. After I had my interview they put me straight into level 5! Mind you, I had NO ONE else to speak with. The tapes REALLY help with the pronunciation, which is the hardest thing about this language in my opinion, b/c words are not spelled how they sound to an native English speaker. If you read through every part of the chapter and treat it just like a textbook, and if you do all of the exercises in the book in the proper way, you will have no choice but to learn this language as best as it is possible without a live teacher. If you want to get back in touch with your Scottish roots, or you just love the celts and want to feel cool by speaking a beautiful and ancient language, then this book and tape set is for you.

Rating:
Summary: best of its kind
Review: I have been teaching myself Gaelic, with varying success, for about 10 years now, and I still haven't come across a better learning tool for the Gaelic beginner than this book-and-cassettes set. It is organized systematically and has the up-to-date orthography. Once one gets through it one will have learned all the basics of Gaelic grammar. Certainly, it is a little lacking in the vocabulary department, but in my view this is not a flaw, since the purpose of the set is to teach the structure of the Gaelic language. Combined with "Everyday Gaelic" and a couple of good dictionaries you have everything you need to learn Gaelic.