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Colloquial Scottish Gaelic: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series)

Colloquial Scottish Gaelic: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series)

List Price: $20.95
Your Price: $20.95
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Similar to Teach Yourself Scottish Gaelic
Review: I'd rate this just shy of 4 stars. I'm a beginner who's been through TY Gaelic a couple of times on my own. This book and cassette follow a similar format with dialogs supplemented by grammar sections. One difference is that this book gives a translation of the dialog rather than word/phrase definitions. I prefer the latter, since then you can use those words/phrases as building blocks while the translation gives you it all at once.

One nice thing about Colloquial SG is that there are multiple, subject-related dialogs in each chapter. Another useful feature is the descriptions of how Gaelic words and phrases work in relation to English syntax. Colloquial is more casual in it's approach to the learner: a positive. There are also various word puzzles to work on. However, I found TY Gaelic to have better cultural sections.

The set I bought features two cassettes, as does TY Gaelic. Colloquial Gaelic features more male speakers (although they don't seem as "lively" as the female speakers) on the tapes than does TY Gaelic. Also, like TYG, this book uses simplistic cartoons in the exercises, which I disliked.

Overall, I was glad to buy this book/cassette set for it's slightly different material, different speakers (accents, pronunciation, gender), and more casual approach than Teach Yourself Gaelic. The two complement each other more than they overlap.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not for a beginner.
Review: Look elsewhere for a beginning point in gaelic. This course seems to be okay for a person that has some gaelic understanding. A beginner starts like a child learning names of things and people and then basic adjectives. The basic verbs come next and then more sophisticated conjugations.
The tapes do follow the book but they go too quick driving me crazy pushing "stop, rewind and play" to repeat the word. The book gives the sounds of the vowels and consonants but many of the words heard on the tape defy any attempt to construct the same word phonetically as found in print. If you have an apptitude in languages then you could try this method of learning but if you are like most of us - don't! I have studied other languages but nothing like this ancient Gaelic, it has only 16 letters in its alphabet.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: easy to read but difficuilt to master
Review: There's a long preamble, the pronunciation is very accurately explained, it runs later.
If you have some knowledge of Scottish Gaelic, it can be useful to have a rehearsal in little time; gaelic songs and crosswords are unvaluable.
Well, it's everything but an introduction to the language; I would be curious to know someone that has really become proficient only with the aid of that book.
If you don't want to forget your Gaelic, try it


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