Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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!

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.

To Whom it May Concern: We are using this book in our Gaelic class, held here in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. We have used other books, but all agree that this one is the best so far! It is clearly written, easy to understand, and we find we are making much more progress that we thought possible. Therefore, I would like to recommend this book to anyone wishing to learn Scottish Gaelic quickly. We like to make up short stories and conversations, and to translate easy works! Hope this has been of help to you.

That's me, when it comes to learning a new language. I could never really understand what was necessary, nor make the connections needed to learn new languages with any skill. This course made it very easy and I am amazed that I was able to pick up the very daunting (at first) Scottish Gaelic language. I highly recommend both the book and the tapes. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't do one without the other. This is a very good program!

Synopsis: A fine book ruined by the worst language tapes I've ever heard!

I really wish that I had only bought the book. The book is well-written, & suprisingly easy to read even though there are many technical & grammatical terms used. THe authors have done a fine job writing it.

The only real criticism that I havbe of the text is that instead of spelling with the proper Gaelic names for letters & accent marks, this is entirely anglicized. In practice, I find that learning to recite the alphabet & to spell words in the new language is an important psychological adjunct to acquiring a new language. Also, I believe that learning the grammatical terms in Gaelic would also bolster the confidence of the learner. I have had to supplement this with material from another course. I would hope that a later edition of this book might correct what I regard as its only serious oversight.

However, the tapes are another matter. In my opinion, they desperately need to be re-done. First, too much is crammed into too short a time span on the tape. Adequate time is not allowed for the learner to repeat the audio lessons that are so necessary. The recommendation given is to constantly pause & rewind the tape. This will result in you patience, if not also your tapes & cassette player, wearing out rather quickly.

As an excuse for this, the learner is cautioned that speaking too slowly will create poor language habits. Yet compared to other taped Gaelic courses & radio broadcasts that I've heard, the vocal intonation of the presumably native speakers seem so exaggerated as to engender its own bad habits! The effect of this to my ears is to create a shameful caricature of spoken Scots Gaelic for which I can accept no excuse.

The instructor on the tape seems pedantic & condescending, reinforcing the most negative stereotype of the educated Briton imaginable, at least to American ears. Especially during the Pronunciation phase of the course, I found listening to this instructor nearly unbearable! This is a shame because the text had been so well-written.

Do yourself a favor: buy the book but find some native Gaelic speakers to redo the tapes for you!

I borrowed this from the local library recently. The price on the back of the box was $24.95 new! You would be crazy to pay the asking price here.

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.

Good book, but I didn't know that there was an audio component to go with the book. Would like to understand the pronunciation of this language.....and I believe the audio component would be of great benefit.

I didn't succeed in learning Scottish Gaelic in three months: that is less a reflection on the book than it is on my application. My objective, in buying this book was to be able to understand simple written Gaelic and to write some for myself.

This book provides a simple explanation of the essential grammar and model sentences. Importantly to people like me who are seeking to read and write Gaelic rather than to speak it, the book contains key phrases and word lists which enable you to build a simple vocabulary quite quickly.

I've had this book for over ten years now. I still harbour a desire to understand the spoken language as well as to read it. As for so many others, this is part of my heritage. My great grandfather was the last member of my direct family to be fluent in Gaelic and while I have memories of my grandfather speaking some as well - that is over 40 years ago.

Scottish Gaelic is a beautiful language, and has a long oral tradition. While less than 2% of the population of Scotland speak Gaelic, there are many learning it. It is part of the Scottish heritage, and Gaelic language classes can often be found where Scottish emigrants have settled.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith