Customer Reviews

Gaelic Dictionary (Teach Yourself)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a student of Celtic languages, I am the first to speak out against the Teach Yourself (TY) courses for Welsh, Irish, and Gaelic (Scottish). I have purchased all three of these courses, and I was disappointed to find them little more than glorifed "travel phrase" books with CD's.

If you are seriously wanting to learn one of these languages, you can save your time and money by purchasing something else...believe me, there are better courses out there. However, if reason you are learning these languages is you want some simple phrases and vocabulary for a trip or maybe some special event...then a TY course "might" be what you are looking for.

Now having said that...this is a positive review!!!

In fact, I feel that the TY dictionary might be one of the best Scottish Gaelic dictionaries on the market right now...and there are a lot out there.

I have a few of the most recently published dictionaries, and I can tell you that while they are nice to have...they were not designed for beginning students. It is easy to get lost, confused, and just plain upset with the mass volume of choices and examples given for the entries.

A student just starting out needs to be able to open a book, find the word in their language or the language they are learning, and have only a few options...

And that is exactly what TY has created...while the Amazon site says there are over 30,000 entries, the book itself only claims 24,000. However, that is more than enough for a beginner, and having gone through it...I know that the vocabulary is modern, numerous, and capable of covering any situation that even the most advanced speaker will find themselves in.

So while I may have a hard time giving a friend the TY Gaelic language learning course...I would have no hesitation in giving them the TY Gaelic Dictionary.

A dictionary can be your best friend or your worst enemey when you are learning a language. And TY has created a very friendly dictionary to help you.

This is the best two-way Scottish Gaelic dictionary on the market, and the first dictionary that every student of the language should buy. Excellent coverage of vocabulary, including modern coinages, and contemporary usage. The appendices (grammar reference, personal and place names) are useful, though they could have been laid out better.

I am not, by any means, disappointed by this dictionary, as I bought it with the assumption that it would be just adequate for my needs. I very much needed a working Gaelic dictionary that was within a reasonable price-range and would serve my current (fairly elementary) level of Gaelic.

If my sole criterion were the number of headwords provided, I might actually be quite pleased with this dictionary- it covers quite a good range of vocabulary and functions well as a reading aid for intermediate texts. My biggest complaint however, is the lack of examples, guides to usage etc that would allow the user to: a) identify the correct translation of Gaelic lexis and b) correctly choose and be able to actively use the sought-after word in Gaelic. As it stands, there are just lists of translations with little or no indications of how to use the lexis presented in sentences nor any guide to the register, appropriacy etc.of items.

Of course, this is a beginner's dictionary- but in many ways that makes it all the more necessary to provide cues to assist the learner. I am a language teacher myself and know only too well the pitfalls of poor dictionary use and bad translations. Gaelic especially, is quite an idiomatic language and has a strong, structural orientation towards "lexical chunking". Boyd and Robertson's Teach Yourself Gaelic" textbook shows a high awareness of this aspect of the language- if only they'd applied the same diligence to this dictionary!

It is a great book if you already know how to pronounce the words, but if you don't, I would not recommed this book. If you do, it's wonderful. Lots of gaelic names and places and simple phrases to say. Would be very helpful in Scotland or Ireland, even to just look up the word.

Teach Yourself Gaelic Dictionary (Teach Yourself)

This is a very useful book for those learning Gaelic, but cannot replace the need for access to fluent Gaelic speakers in learning this difficult language.

This little but packed dictionary is just what I needed in order to begin learning Gaelic. The text book needs help as I see it with a dictionary to acquint me with some different words. It is easy to carry.

I do have a few Gaelic/English dictionaries and this one does beat them all when it comes down vocabulary. There are far more entries in this dictionary than several others of a comparable price. It is indeed a good purchase, however, this dictionary does not help the student with pronunciation, or grammatical setup in using words in the language. I really could have used some help on these two, especially when one considers just how "different" the Gaelic is from English.

Letters have a tendency to change their sound completely depending on where the letter is in the word itself, what other letters (or VOWELS!) surround that letter, etc.... It's crazy that this dictionary will be geared towards the beginner and not help out at all with how these words are suppose to sound like! I would be a bit more forgiving if Gaelic was a "phonetic" language like Spanish or German (hard to lose a spelling bee competition in these languages, just sound out the word and you have the spelling 99% of the time).

I also wished that there were more "common phrases" examples so I could see how the grammar works. At least have some examples on how to use the word properly in the language, so I don't end up sounding like someone who doesn't know how to talk! For example, do I say "a thide da uair," or, "da uair a thide," if I wanted to say, "for two hours?" This is just an example, and luckily, I know the latter is the correct way of saying it.

So, for these reasons I say, it is a good dictionary, but it could be a lot better! Especially when one considers how phonetically challenged Gaelic is (because of fewer letters in the alphabet) and so this dictionary is very frustrating to me, a beginner! That's all I got. Thanks.

I have no idea why this book says you can teach yourself Gaelic. There is nothing in it to help with pronunciation, dialect, nothing. It's basically just a dictionary. If you want to really learn Gaelic get an audio program to help you.