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

Katie Graham (Author), Katherine M. Spadaro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 5, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0415206774 | ISBN-13: 978-0415206778 | Edition: Pap/Cas/Co

Colloquial Scottish Gaelic offers a series of stimulating and informative lessons in modern Gaelic, the historic language of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. The lessons are based on everyday situations and relationships, and the step-by-step approach has been devised to make speaking, reading and writing Scottish Gaelic easy and enjoyable. No previous knowledge of the language is required.
Features include:
* emphasis on up-to-date, conversational language
* clear explanations of how the language works
* helpful grammar notes
* comprehensive vocabulary lists (Scottish Gaelic-English and English-Scottish Gaelic)
* lively illustrations throughout.
These cassettes, which accompany the coursebook will help perfect your listening and pronunciation skills.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Katie Graham has taught Scottish Gaelic at the University of Sydney. She is currently teaching part-time at the University's Centre for Continuing Education. She has contributed to Lonely Planet and is the Gaelic Editor of An Teachdaire Gaidhealach published quarterly in Sydney. Katherine Spandaro has taught English as a Second Language in university centres in Australia and Europe, most recently at International Training Centre of United Nations, in Turin.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; Pap/Cas/Co edition (April 5, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415206774
• ISBN-13: 978-0415206778
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.5 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,274,819 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #83 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > Gaelic

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good in some ways, problematic in others, December 1, 2005

By 

T. Leigh "Gaelic teacher, MA in Gaelic Studie... (Connecticut, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Colloquial Scottish Gaelic: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series) (Paperback)

One thing Colloquial Scottish Gaelic does very well is focusing on the phrases, expressions and idioms that are such an important part of the Gaelic language. However, the coverage of grammar is skimpy and inadequate. The pronunciation and spelling section at the beginning of the book is also quite poorly done; a lot of essential information is missing. In addition, what information there is describes a general Hebridean pronunciation, but the speakers on the accompanying recording have rather strong Lewis accents, and Lewis Gaelic is the most phonologically distinct dialect in the Hebrides; in short, the book describes (incompletely) one way of pronouncing Gaelic while the recordings feature another. I have personally had several students who got lost and confused trying to teach themselves with Colloquial Scottish Gaelic for this reason. So while I would say that this course is good supplementary material for somebody who already has studied some Gaelic, I do not recommend it as a first course for new students of the language.

50 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Similar to Teach Yourself Scottish Gaelic, August 2, 2001

By A Customer

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This review is from: Colloquial Scottish Gaelic: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series) (Paperback)

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.

34 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not for a beginner., February 5, 2002

By 

Jerry E. Nichols (Mesa, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Colloquial Scottish Gaelic: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series) (Audio Cassette)

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.