Hugo Language Course: Scottish Gaelic In Three Months (with Cassettes) [Paperback]

DK Publishing (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0789444399 | ISBN-13: 978-0789444394 | Publication Date: June 1, 1999 | Edition: Pap/Cas

Now learning a foreign language can be enjoyable as well as challenging, and not require a trip back to the classroom. Available in both book-only or book-and-cassette format, these Three-Month Language Courses are outstanding self-study programs designed for the individual seeking to acquire a good working knowledge of a language in a short amount of time. Devoting just over an hour daily to the course, the program provides grammar lessons, contextual conversion drills, relevant word lists, and graded exercises, giving you an immediate and practical grasp of the language. In addition, pronunciation is made easy with Hugo's unique "imitated pronunciation" system, which represents foreign sounds with English syllables. Whether you are a businessman tackling an international account, a student preparing for an adventurous holiday, or simply a lover of new languages, the Three-Month Language Course makes learning easy, satisfying, and more fun than ever before.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: DK ADULT; Pap/Cas edition (June 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789444399
• ISBN-13: 978-0789444394
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.2 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,585,488 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Review of Scottish Gaelic in 3 Months, February 10, 2000

By 

Wendy McInnis (canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scottish Gaelic in Three Months (Hugo's Three Month Language Series) (Paperback)

To Whom it May Concern: We are using this book in our Gaelic class, here in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. We have used other books, but have found this one to be the best. It is clearly written, easy to understand, and we are making progress quickly, more quickly than we hoped. We like to make up short stories, conversations, and translate very easy stories and songs. I would like to recommend this book to anyone wishing to learn very basic Gaelic quickly.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Scottish Gaelic in Three Months, February 8, 2000

By 

Robert Whelan (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Scottish Gaelic in Three Months (Hugo's Three Month Language Series) (Paperback)

Tha an leabhar gle' mhath! It really makes learning Gaelic easy, with a minimum of grammar terms which are unfamiliar to most people. Only the basics are taught, with non-essential points left out. Especially good for a Gaelic speaker as a brush-up, but is excellent for anyone who wants to quickly obtain a good knowledge of the modern Scottish Gaelic language. Suas leis a' Ghaidhlig!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of the best, sadly out of print, December 1, 2005

By 

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

This review is from: Scottish Gaelic in Three Months (Hugo's Three Month Language Series) (Paperback)

This is one of the best introductory courses for Scottish Gaelic. It is a tragedy that the entire "Three Months" series was taken out of print, and only a few major languages have been republished. Hopefully Scottish Gaelic in Three Months will be republished also, sometime in the near future.

The pronunciation section at the beginning of the book is one of the best, with proper, accurate IPA transcriptions rather than the strange and wholly inadequate English-base "phonetic" transcriptions which are unfortunately common elsewhere. In addition, many (but not all) of the vocabulary lists in the lessons also have IPA given for the words, a great boon; I only wish that this had been done more consistently throughout the entire course. The grammatical explanations are concise and well explained, and probably the best to be found in just about any Gaelic textbook. The one problematic area is the section on prepositions, which oddly only teaches one construction which is common enough in the spoken language, but leaves out the construction which is the norm in the written language.

The only other problem I have with the book is that the author uses some idiosyncratic spellings which, while generally reflecting actual pronunciation better than the usual spellings, may serve to confuse learners who may move on from this course only to discover that they rarely or never see certain words spelt in actual Gaelic usage as they are spelt in the book. I would have preferred the standard (or rather, as Gaelic has no standard, the customary) spellings to have been used throughout the book.

One previous reviewer did not like the accompanying recordings, but they are well done. While the speakers may speak rather slowly and perhaps enunciate overcarefully at times, no doubt for the sake of beginners who need to get used to the Gaelic sound systen, all the Gaelic on the recordings is correct, accurate, and crystal clear. My only criticism is that there are only two or three speakers; I would have preferred more speakers, a wider variety of voices and accents.

All in all, this is an excellent course, and if you are able to find a second-hand copy, I absolutely recommend getting it.