Each day a new Breton sentence (would this work for Gaelic?)

[Gràisg]

Saoil am bi a leithid seo feumail nan robh e ri fhaighinn sa Ghaidlig - 'Each day a new Gaelic senctence'?
http://www.ofis-bzh.org/upload/ouvrage/ ... ichier.pdf
'S e leabhar beag a th' ann 'leabhar pòcaid' mar a chanas iad.

Air a chuir ri cheile le oifis ar Brezhoneg, tha am fear Bretnais/frangais agamsa mu thràth. Saoilidh mi gum biodh e feumail don t-seòrsa neachd ionnsachaidh a tha feuchainn ri adhartas luath a dhèanamh ann an còmhraidh. Chan eil aon rud a dhith nam bheachdsa 's e sin fuaimneachadh.

'J a n u a r y1
Good morning/afternoon ! Hello !
Good evening !
Good night, sleep well !
Yes
No
Good bye !
Good luck !
See you soon !
See you later !
See you next time !
See you tomorrow!
See you next week !
Sorry !
Thank you.Many thanks.
(You're) welcome.
Pleased to meet you !
How do you do ?
Welcome !
One moment, please.
May I keep you waiting, please ?
Would you please speak slowly ?
What's your name ?
My name is Enora.
Who are you ? My name is Tomaz.
What about you ?Who are you?
Who is he ? /Who's that man?
This ‘s/He's my father.
Who is she ? /Who's that woman?
This ‘s/She's my mother.
Who are those children ?
They are my cousins.

Demat !
Nozvezh vat !
Noz vat, kousk mat !
Ya
Ket / Nann
Kenavo !
Chañs vat !
Ken ar c'hentañ !
Ken diwezhatoc'h !
D'ar c'hentañ gwel !
A-benn warc'hoazh !
A-benn ar sizhun all !
Ma digarezit !
Trugarez.Trugarez vras.
Mann ebet.
Ur blijadur !
Plijet on oc'h ober anaoudegezh ganeoc'h.
Degemer mat / Donemat.
Ur pennadig,mar plij.
Gallout a rit gortoz un tammig,mar plij ?
Komzit un tammig goustatoc'h,mar plij.
Petra eo da anv ?
Enora on / Enora eo ma anv.
Piv out-te ? Tomaz a vez graet ac'hanon.
Ha c'hwi, piv oc'h ?
Piv eo an den-se ?
Ma zad eo.
Piv eo ar vaouez-se ?
Ma mamm eo.
Piv eo ar vugale-se

[Seonaidh]

Good morning/afternoon ! Hello ! Bore/Pnawn da! Hylo!
Good evening ! Noswaith dda!
Good night, sleep well ! Nos da, cwsg yn dda!
Yes Ie [agus mòran rud eile, mar sa Ghàidhlig]
No Nage [ditto]
Good bye ! Hwyl!
Good luck ! Siawns da!
See you soon ! Tan toc!
See you later ! Tan y man!
See you next time ! Tan y tro nesa!
See you tomorrow! Tan yfory!
See you next week ! Tan yr wythnos nesa!
Sorry ! Mae'n ddrwg gen' i!
Thank you.Many thanks. Diolch. Diolch yn fawr.
(You're) welcome. Croeso.
Pleased to meet you ! Falch dy weld di!
How do you do ? Sut mae?
Welcome ! Croeso!
One moment, please. Funud, os gweli'n dda.
May I keep you waiting, please ? Ga i d'adael yn ymaros plis?
Would you please speak slowly ? Wnei di siarad yn arafach?
What's your name ? Be' 'di d'enw di?
My name is Enora. Ynyr ydw i.
Who are you ? My name is Tomaz. Pwy wyt ti? Tomos ydw i.
What about you ?Who are you? Be amdani di? Pwy wyt ti?
Who is he ? /Who's that man? Pwy ydy o? Pwy y dyn 'cw?
This ‘s/He's my father. Dyma nhad i / Nhad i ydy o.
Who is she ? /Who's that woman? Pwy ydy hi? Pwy'r fenyw 'cw?
This ‘s/She's my mother. Dyma mam i / Mam i ydy hi.
Who are those children ? Pwy ydy'r plant acw?
They are my cousins. Nghefndred ydyn nhw.

Demat ! Latha math!
Nozvezh vat ! Feasgar math!
Noz vat, kousk mat ! Oidhche mhath, cadal gu math.
Ya Seadh [etc...]
Ket / Nann Chan e [etc....]
Kenavo ! Mar sin leat!
Chañs vat ! Deagh chothrom!
Ken ar c'hentañ ! Chì mi thu!
Ken diwezhatoc'h ! ...nas fhaide!
D'ar c'hentañ gwel ! ...an ath thuras
A-benn warc'hoazh ! ...a-màireach
A-benn ar sizhun all ! ...an t-seachdain seo tighinn
Ma digarezit ! Tha mi duilich!
Trugarez.Trugarez vras. Taing. Mòran taing.
Mann ebet. Fàilte.
Ur blijadur ! Tha mi toilichte air d' fhaicinn!
Plijet on oc'h ober anaoudegezh ganeoc'h. Ciamar a tha thu?
Degemer mat / Donemat. Fàilte.
Ur pennadig,mar plij. Mionaid, mas toil leat.
Gallout a rit gortoz un tammig,mar plij ? An urrainn dhut feitheamh beagan?
Komzit un tammig goustatoc'h,mar plij. Bruidhinn nas luaithe, mas toil leat
Petra eo da anv ? Dè an t-ainm a th' ort?
Enora on / Enora eo ma anv. 'S mise Eanora / 'S e Eanora an t-ainm a th' orm
Piv out-te ? Tomaz a vez graet ac'hanon. Cò thusa? 'S e Tomas an t-ainm a th' ormsa.
Ha c'hwi, piv oc'h ? Is sibh, cò sibhse?
Piv eo an den-se ? Cò an duine ud?
Ma zad eo. Siud m' athair.
Piv eo ar vaouez-se ? Cò am boireannach ud?
Ma mamm eo. Siud mo mhàthair.
Piv eo ar vugale-se Cò a' chlann ud?

dh'iaoch... Dh'fheuch mi eadar-theangachadh a dhèanamh Cuimris-Gàidhlig mar eisimpleir. Ach chan eil mi cinnteach gum biodh sin deagh bheachd airson taic a chur dhan Ghàidhlig.

[GunChleoc]

Saoilidh mi fiù 's mura biodh thu ga chleachdadh airson seantans ùr ionnsachadh gach latha, bhiodh a leithid feumail mar phrase book airson an luchd-tòiseachaidh.

[Níall Beag]

I'm sorry, but I don't think that's any sort of way to learn a language.

You'll notice that there are lots and lots of books, CDs etc etc that do exactly this for all sorts of languages

If they were any use, you'd be flooded in recommendations for them and there would be loads of people who could speak half-a-dozen languages.

Stock phrases please people because they can pretend to be learn something when they're really not.

Trying to fill in a template like that is also a bad idea -- aside from the obvious "yes/no" problem, there's so many variations on "goodbye".

In particular, you can see the classic "good afternoon/good night" problem. In English, good afternoon means hello, but good night means goodbye -- a bit inconsistent, I'm sure you'll agree. As this inconsistency in English (which is also in French, so it doesn't matter whether the list was originally in English or French) makes the list slightly vague and confusing, so they've had to put in "good night, sleep well" in order to clarify.

And then we get into the realms of the hyperliteral, the seemingly unconnected and the arbitrary.

Hyperliteral: "see you soon" -- have you heard anyone say "chi mi a dh'aithghearr thu"? I haven't, but I've seen it in this type of template course, because they've got a gap to fill.

Seemingly unconnected:
You've got a nice pattern going. Good morning... madainn mhath (hyperliteral tr*nsl*t**n again, incidentally. Every native I know tells me never to say it) good afternoon... feasgar math, good night... oidhche mhath; good luck........ gur e math a theid leat.
There's an assumed pattern on the part of the author of the template, and he had the goal of teaching adjectives by examples, and he forgot something very important: if all languages were the same, we wouldn't need to learn them!

Arbitrary:
Bye, Goodbye, Cheerio, Cheers, Tara
Beannachd leat, Slan leat, Mar sin leat, Tioraidh
How do you chose which goes with which? Arbitrary


Template teaching fails because it forces you to redesign the language to fit the methodology, whereas what you should be doing is designing a methodology to fit the language.

[Gràisg]

Seonaidh ‘s math a rinn thu cùm ort chan eil ach aon mhìos deug air fhàgail dhut.

Nèill cha robh mi a-mach air seo mar ‘peilear airgid’ eile ach dìreach rudeigin tarraingeach, spòrsail, annasach agus feumail agus a bharrachd air sin rudeigin air mullach dad sam bith eil a bhiodh luchd-ionnsachaidh a dhèanamh.
Ma ‘s math mo chuimhne cha do chosg am fear Fraingis/Brezhoneg ach 1euro.

[Thrissel]

Good morning... madainn mhath (hyperliteral tr*nsl***** again, incidentally. Every native I know tells me never to say it).

That interests me, partly because of this, but more because it leaves me without knowledge what they do say in the morning. I suppose "Hallo" would do in informal contact (or would it be just "Madainn"? I've really no clue), but in formal context? Simply "Latha math", which would seem to me rather unidiomatic in English?

[Seonaidh]

Eau well ("Uisge tobhar"), nuair a bha mi sa Ghàidhealtachd an t-seachdain seo chaidh bha mòran ag innse "Madainn mhath!" dhomh sa mhadainn.

Ach sin e, nach e. Seo mise le mo phrasebook ann am Paris a' faighneachd "Où est le Tour Eiffel, s'il vous plait?" - 's e magnifique sin, a' faireachdainn direach phròiseil - ach seo am Frangach a' freagairt "Ah. bla bla si vous bla bla , mais je bla bla, et alors bla bla Metro bla bla..." agus mise càillte. "Excusez moi, mais parlez-vous Gaelique?" - agus am Frangach bochd (a tha à Breatann, mar a thachras) ag ràdh "Mais je parle en fran,cais - komza tu brezhonek?" Is mise ag ràdh "Non - parlez-vous la langue d'Ecosse, Gaelique?"... Agus mu dheireadh thall seo mise ag ràdh "CÀITE A BHEIL AN TÙR EIFFEL?" agus am Frangach ag ràdh "I NOT SPEAK ENGLISH GOOD"...

Aidh, sin an fhìrinn a th' aig Njorl - chan eil phrasebook na dhòigh mhath airson cànan ionnsachadh. Ach bidh e a' brosnachadh deannan duine an cànan ionnsachadh gu ceart.

[Níall Beag]

Good morning... madainn mhath (hyperliteral tr*nsl***** again, incidentally. Every native I know tells me never to say it).

That interests me, partly because of this, but more because it leaves me without knowledge what they do say in the morning. I suppose "Hallo" would do in informal contact (or would it be just "Madainn"? I've really no clue), but in formal context? Simply "Latha math", which would seem to me rather unidiomatic in English?

Yes, that's the one. All across Europe they say "good day" in the morning, with the exception of the Germanic languages, where you can usually say "good day" at any time during daylight hours, and where there's the option of saying "good morning" in the morning.

Yes, "Madainn mhath" is getting picked up -- but it all started from hyperliteral phrase books of the language which sadly seem to have been used to inform the language of the FtMnG.

I'm not saying it's wrong but it is still restricted to a particular section of society (learners, Comunn nan Pàrant, and under-21s). Yes, I'm a learner, but it is not my goal to speak like one.

Language changes, but learners should not be the vanguard of change.

[Thrissel]

All across Europe they say "good day" in the morning, with the exception of the Germanic languages, where you can usually say "good day" at any time during daylight hours, and where there's the option of saying "good morning" in the morning.

Not only Germanic ones - I'm not sure about other Slavic languages, but at least in Czech and Slovak this is the case as well, and in some situations (breakfast, meeting workmates when coming to work &c) "good morning" is the phrase used. (To be more precise, these two languages have no exact equivalent of English morning - there's ráno, which means "early morning", and dopoledne/dopoludnie, which means the rest of it until noon, and what I said applies to ráno.)

Language changes, but learners should not be the vanguard of change.

I couldn't agree with you more on that one, though.

[Seonaidh]

My theory is that languages change fastest when they get new speakers. So, while learners may not wish to be responsible for changing language, they often are - particularly when their number is significant compared with non-learners.

As they increasingly say in English these days, "Live with it - innit"

[Níall Beag]

Not only Germanic ones - I'm not sure about other Slavic languages, but at least in Czech and Slovak this is the case as well,

Ah... I didn't know that.

Polish and Russian stick with "good day" as the morning greeting of choice. I wouldn't bet against the Czech/Slovak thing being a Germanicisation due to Prussian/Austro-Hungarian influences, mind....

Edit: tell a lie... the serbs et al actually do say good morning. They say "good day" in the afternoon. My mistake, sorry.

[akerbeltz]

Phrasebooks have other uses... I would hazard a guess that few people actually ever use a phrasebook to maintain a conversation in a language they can't handle to some extent without it. Otherwise I'd be running around Glasgow with a Weegie Phrasebook...

I have always found them useful for another reason - register. When you study a language it's quite easy picking up the grammatical structures but on idiom and register, that often puts you wrong.

To quote an example, when I was at the Basque Euskaltegi, my homework once involved the tr*nsl*t**n of the phrase "Let's see". I did a beautiful, spot on tr*nsl*t**n as "Ikus dezagun" involving the root for "see" and the 3rd person absolutive-subjunctive-1st person plural ergative-subordination suffix auxiliary. Boy was I proud. And boy did we have a laugh when i was told that that was totally correct but totally the wrong thing to say here. People just use "ea ba" which is a stock phrase you can't analyse literally.

Phrasebooks (well written ones) can put you right on what is actually appropriate to say in everyday contexts. For that, I've always found them useful.

Language changes, but learners should not be the vanguard of change.

Yet invariably they are and always have been. Learners have given birth to Tok Pisin, Bislama, Kriol and Papiamentu. American English was born when they absorbed more then 50% non native speakers, Cantonese was the result of indigenous Thai groups learning Tang Chinese and most Romance languages I dare say involved a massive base of non-native speakers.

[Níall Beag]

To quote an example, when I was at the Basque Euskaltegi, my homework once involved the tr*nsl***** of the phrase "Let's see". I did a beautiful, spot on tr*nsl***** as "Ikus dezagun" involving the root for "see" and the 3rd person absolutive-subjunctive-1st person plural ergative-subordination suffix auxiliary. Boy was I proud. And boy did we have a laugh when i was told that that was totally correct but totally the wrong thing to say here. People just use "ea ba" which is a stock phrase you can't analyse literally.

Ah, but you've no idea how lucky you were that you were allowed to tr*nsl*t*. When I looked into euskaltegiak, they were all doing nasty immersive stuff, because explaining the language in simple terms that you understand clearly is worse for a learner than being bombarded with strange grammatical constructs that bear little or no relation to anything he/she already knows.... :-/

Phrasebooks (well written ones) can put you right on what is actually appropriate to say in everyday contexts. For that, I've always found them useful.

Why put "well written ones" in brackets? It's the most important part of the argument! I've seen more badly written phrasebooks than good ones -- it seems that many academics see phrasebooks as beneath them, and phrasebook duties fall to hack writers who've never even heard of corpora.

Edit: The usefulness of phrasebooks is further reduced by dialectal variation. For example, I've never seen a phrasebook that tells you which regions a particular informal greeting is used in.

Language changes, but learners should not be the vanguard of change.

Yet invariably they are and always have been. Learners have given birth to Tok Pisin, Bislama, Kriol and Papiamentu. American English was born when they absorbed more then 50% non native speakers, Cantonese was the result of indigenous Thai groups learning Tang Chinese and most Romance languages I dare say involved a massive base of non-native speakers.

That's exactly the problem. I've said it before and I'll say it again: creating a new "creole" Gaelic (let's call it "Galaig" in deference to the many speakers who can't lengthen vowels or make broad/slender distinctions) will do nothing but increase the marginalisation of Gaelic speakers. There's already resentment among some about the exam board "hijacking" the language. As the amount of Galaig increases on BBC Alba and in the Comhairle nan Leabhraichean catalogue, so will Gàidhlig decrease -- Galaig steals resources from Gàidhlig, and worse: it claims that in doing so, it is helping Gàidhlig.

[akerbeltz]

There's already resentment among some about the exam board "hijacking" the language.

Then they should stop sitting around on their fat arses and go out and do something for/with Gàidhlig. People like that annoy me intensely. Like people who have never seen the inside of a voting booth who will bitch endlessly about crap government. If you think your neighbours children Galick sucks, then speak more Gàidhlig with them. If you think there are not enough Barra speakers on the BBC, then apply for the sodding job advert next time.

Taking cheap shots from the side just doesn't cut it.

And yes, I know this isn't your fault Niall

[Seonaidh]

Tha agam ri radh gum b' fhearr leam torr daoine fhaicinn (no a chluinntinn...) a' bruidhinn "Galaig"comhla na dhaibhsan Beurla a bhruidhinn fhathast. Seadh, bidh sinn an dochas gum bi iad a' bruidhinn Gaidhlig, ach 's fheudar dhuinn aghaidh a chur air compromise - 's fhearr na neoni (uil, chan e Neoni gu dearbh!).