Dìreach 'son fios a leigeil dhuibh uile gu bheil foirm a' chunntas-sluaigh a' tighinn air adhart gu luath Tha e air eadar-theangachadh chun a' Ghàidhlig a-nis, agus 's e fìor dheagh eadar-theangachadh a th' ann! Rinn mise an proofreading.
Tha am foirm 24 duilleagan de dh'fhaide am-bliadhna-sa... [le barrachd ma 's math leibh!] Bithear a' faighneachd mu dheidhinn a h-uile càil agus tha tòrr a bharrachd ceistean ann mu chànan na bha ann an turas mu dheireadh.
Am bi thu a' bruidhinn: Beurla, Gàidhlig neo Beurla Albannach [Beurla Chruaidh]?
Tuigsinn, Bruidhinn, Leughadh, Sgrìobhadh
Dè cho math 's a tha thu a' bruidhinn na Beurla?
Glè mhath, Math, Chan eil math, Chan eil idir
Am bi sibh a' cleachdadh cànan eile, seach Beurla, aig an taigh?
Bithidh/Cha bhith
Tha e a' coimhead math. Cuimhnichibh gum b' urrainn dhuibh an fhoirm lìonadh a-staigh air pàipear neo air loidhne an turas seo!
Last edited by *Alasdair* on Sun Aug 08, 2010 7:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
... innis dhuinn a-rithist... Cuin an toisich thu Gàidhlig ionnsachadh?
To be blunt, it's ridiculous how much Gaelic work is going to non-Gaels these days.
And that's not a slight on Alasdair. I've been studying Spanish just as long as he's been studying Gaelic, and while I can fool people into thinking I'm Spanish (and admittedly being short with dark hair and eyes helps here) I'm certainly not qualified to proof-read official documents. I may know the "rules", but I will never have that knack of knowing what turn-of-phrase works right. And in Spanish, at least we know the rules. Gaelic is still in dire need of a genuine corpus study, and as the Gaelic world gets more and more polluted by learner errors, the chances of getting a genuine picture of native language are getting harder and harder.
Oh well, it could be worse, we could be Welsh. The most popular course for Welsh learners is riddled with anglicisms... there's a native speaker doing the course with me for credit points, and she complained about a few ommisions, a couple of which I immediately recognised as being far more like Gaelic than the structures we'd been taught.
Saoilidh mi gur e 'deasachadh' am facal a tha ag iarraidh.
"I've been studying Spanish just as long as he's been studying Gaelic, and while I can fool people into thinking I'm Spanish..."
I think it depends partly on how you attack the problem. For myself, my exposure to French began as a teen, even though it's been 20+ years since I no longer speak it on a daily basis, when I meet French speakers, be they from Quebec, France or elsewhere, they assume that I am Canadian.
There's a french conversation group here. Usually it's a mix of native or near-speakers and what I'll call book learners. The last time I went though, it was just a few book learners. The book learners as a group are passionate about grammar, but they also make lots of mistakes. Usually because they're tr*nsl*t*ng from English into French in their heads, so their speech is often full of anglicisms. Usually I don't say anything. But last time, when only two of us had yet arrived, the other person said the following: "j'ai joint [whatever it was she was joining, a club, group or whatever" I said, "c'est 'je me suis joint à ... ' qu'on dit " She disagreed. I couldn't really explain to her why except that you hear one and not the other. Later I mentionned it to my wife. She grew up in an English family surrounded by French but she never really got conversational. She said it was 'je me suis joint à' but she couldn't say why either. So I looked it up. I've got a Petit Robert. And sure enough, turns out my wife and I were right.
I am not sure what it is but I think maybe the difference is, in one case when someone learns another language, it's an adjunct, an add on to their first language whereas in another case, the new language is independent of the first.
Yes, but as I say, I can fool people into thinking I'm Spanish -- my command of the language is pretty natural, and in the end, that's what language is, a natural way people speak. But there will always be something that I don't have the reflex for, and there probably won't be any book out there to tell me how that little thing works, but it's something a native would catch straight away.
There are two things that non-natives don't do: tr*nsl*t* into the language and proof-read the language. This is a universal across all languages. Gaelic is shafting itself right royally by accepting a situation that no other language would accept.
Well I'm not certain it's so unequivocal. Milan Kundera no longer writes in Czech - he writes in French and I doubt writing a novel is easier than tr*nsl*t*ng one. I find it hard to believe he's he only author who writes in a language other than his first either.
And you seem to imply that a native always does have that reflex, but there are dialects: just recently my father accused me of using anglicised Czech, as I used the expression já byl for "I was", whereas standard Czech demands the auxiliary verb: já jsem byl (lit. "I am was"). Now the former is a quite natural contraction where I live now, yet he "caught it straightaway" as an Anglicism as it sounds unnatural where I come from [and where he stayed].
And in addition to dialects there's the old tempora mutantur. Things like A kde strávíte vy vaši dovolenou? ("And where will youz spend your holidays?") instead of using the indefinite possessive pronoun (which has no equivalent in English or German or wherever the above sentence came from), A kde strávíte vy svou dovolenou?, were sticking out like a sore thumb from posters after '89 and a common target of ridicule: "Buggers wanna advertise in Bohemia and don't know Czech". Nowadays you hear this and others in colloquial speech just as often, and AFAICT only fogeys like me still perceive it as something "unnatural".
Last edited by Thrissel on Sat Aug 07, 2010 2:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"There are two things that non-natives don't do: tr*nsl***** into the language and proof-read the language."
Disagree. Re-occurring theme, that only native speakers get good in a language. Montreal is filled with people who have become very good in another language. If I were interviewing for someone whose duties included proofreading, I would not necessarily choose the native speaker (English or French) over the non-native speaker, even if that was their primary function. Besides, proofreading is not that hard. Nothing magical about it. I do it at work all the time and if I'd chosen to remain in Montreal with French being my work language, I'd feel comfortable doing it.
Ma tha thu airson teacsaichean a cheartachadh, feumaidh ìre chànain glè àrd a bhith agad, bho thùs ann no às.
Nuair a chaidh mi dhan oilthigh ann am Portagail, sgrìobh mi cùisean is dh'iarr mi do charaidean aig an robh a' Phortuguese bho thùs ceartachadh a chuir riutha. Bha aonar glè mhath le seo, ach bha an tèile direach dona is fhuair mi fhìn mearachdan às a dèidh air sgàth 's nach robh mi air a' chànan ionnsachadh ach dà bhliadhna. Às dèidh bliadhna, thuirt àrd-ollamh dhomh gum biodh mo chuid sgrìobhaidh nas fhèarr na bha aig mòr-chuid nan oileanach eile aig an robh a' chànan bho thùs. Tha mi air mòran a chall a-nis air sgàth 's nach d' fhuair mi cleachdadh nas motha, ach b' àbhaist don ìre agam a bhith glè àrd aig an àm.
Thòisch mi ann an 2006 gu ceart, agus as dèidh dà bhliadhna a chur seachad aig an t-Sabhail tha mi cinnteach gu bheil mo chuid Ghàidhlig math gu leòr 'son a bhith a' leughadh ceistean mar, "Cia mheud daoine a tha fuireach aig an taigh seo?". These documents have already been translated, by a native Argyll speaker no less, checked, checked again then sent to me to check for any remaining mistakes in spelling. It is not my job as proofreader to change the document grammatically or lingustically - I just follow the rules of GOC and make sure the Gaelic is "correct" [whether you agree with GOC or not]. Then, after I have standardised/corrected the Gaelic it goes back to be checked again.
Also, when you have official documents, such as the Census, with things like "Cad ainm dhuibh?" written on them, it is neither "correct" nor widely understood. It equates to the same as the English one asking, "Fit's yer name?" These documents need to have a set standard of language [by which, I mean that spelling is correct throughout, and not changed 2 lines down, and that they follow standard Gaelic [unless otherwise stated]].
@Seonaidh:
Tha mi duilich gun d'rinn mi mearachd bheag, ach tha rudan mar siud a' tachairt sa Bheurla cuideachd. Chan eil duine sam bith coileanta. Cuideachd, san là an-diugh tha "spell check" againne air na coimpiutairean.
Regarding "Gaelic royally shafting itself", I don't see any other native, or semi-speaker, clamouring to do the job. If native people can't bother themselves with it, then it is either up to us, as advanced learners, or it gets left to rot with all the other minority languages which are in the same position.
Last edited by *Alasdair* on Mon Aug 09, 2010 1:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
- no problem. Fhad 's nach eil "srìobhadh" an teacsa C-S na h-Alba! Tha thu air mòran phuingean mhath a dhèanamh cuideachd - mar sin Bannrigh na Mearachd (chan eil mi ag aontachadh idir le sin - 's i ìre mhath dha-riribh a th' aice).
Tapadh leat airson innse dhuinn ciamar a dh'obraicheas a leithid de proofreading, Alasdair. Agus tha thu ceart gu bheil e nas fhasa a bhith a' gearain na a bhith a' dèanamh rudeigin feumail
Tha Alba làn de dhaoine a tha a' sgriobhadh 's a' bruidhinn nan dreuchdan ann an cànan nach robh aca bho thùs. 'S e Gàidheal a th' annta. Cum ort Alasdair.
*Alasdair* wrote:Regarding "Gaelic royally shafting itself", I don't see any other native, or semi-speaker, clamouring to do the job. If native people can't bother themselves with it, then it is either up to us, as advanced learners, or it gets left to rot with all the other minority languages which are in the same position.
An cànan, an taghadh.
If native people can't bother themselves with it, it dies.
Mar a tha mi ag radh anns mo "ire cànain": chan eil Gàidhlig agam, 's cha bhi... air sgàths gur eil Gall a th' annam agus chan urrainn dhomh seo atharrachadh.
'Cad ainm dhuibh' agus 'Fit's yer name' , bhithinnsa toilichte leis an dà chuid. tha cus cac seachad air tuigsinn ri leughadh (Gàidhlig agus Beurla) san leithid ud. Thuirt cuideigin rium aig àm a thàinig a' chiad plana Gàidhlig a-mach: 'Chan eil mise a' dèanamh bun no barr dheth sa Ghàidhlig agus Beurla.'
Tha e air eadar-theangachadh chun a' Ghàidhlig a-nis, agus 's e fìor dheagh eadar-theangachadh a th' ann! Rinn mise an proofreading.
