Can rudeigin sa Chuimris

[Gràisg]

Làrach a chaidh a mholadh dhomh agus tha e a' còrdadh rium gu mòr:
http://www.saysomethinginwelsh.com/home/

Ach a' cleachdadh dòigh a tha connspaideachd?
'You don't need to read or write or do any revision - you just start speaking normally and naturally from the very beginning.

But we don't expect you to take our word for it!

Listen to the first lesson right here, right now - either the northern or the southern version - and if you like it, you can access another 25 half-hour lessons for free by clicking on 'Create your account' to gain access to our popular learners message board.'

[Seonaidh]

An deach? A bheil? Dè cho fileanta a tha thu a-nis sa Chuimris?

A bheil thu airson rudeigin mar "SSIG" a thoiseachadh? ("SaySomethingInGaelic")

Seadh, 's i an fhìrinn a th' innte gum bi a' mhòr-chuid overwhelming den luchd-ionnsachaidh a' tighinn à measg luchd-labhairt na Beurla, ach cha toigh leam am faicinn a' gabhail ris a' Bheurla airson inntrigeadh a dhèanamh. Leanaidh seo gu eadar-theangachadh an àite tuigsinn a' chànain mar a tha e.

[Níall Beag]

cha toigh leam am faicinn a' gabhail ris a' Bheurla airson inntrigeadh a dhèanamh. Leanaidh seo gu eadar-theangachadh an àite tuigsinn a' chànain mar a tha e.

That hoary old chestnut again.

Ged nach toil leatsa e, sin an doigh nas eifeagach cànan ionnsachadh.

Ma tha airson rudeigin a mhineachadh, feumaidh tu bruidhinn ann an cànan a thugas na luchd-eisteachd. As deidh mineachadh a ghabhail, bidh tuigse nas fhèarr aig a h-uile duine air an cànan mar a tha e.

[Níall Beag]

Incidentally, the way of teaching they're using is based on the courses by Michel Thomas, which is the model I'm looking at using to teach Gaelic. I'm not 100% happy with their pacing, but you get what you pay for, as they say, and £0.00 doesn't pay for a lot of trialling. If you want to develop a course you've got to spend a fair amount of time with test audiences, planning and adjusting for students' problems, and you're going to want to get something back for that.

Me, I'm not currently planning to produce a recorded course (not immediately, certainly) but instead do one-to-one and small group classes on-line.

Edit: they've missed out a few things that I think were quite important about the Michel Thomas method. In particular, MT didn't teach writing, but he did tell students spellings in order to clarify the differences between phonemes. The phonetic structure of Welsh is arguably more complicated than any of the languages Thomas recorded courses for (French, German, Italian and Spanish). Occasional comments on spelling would help in this Welsh course, I feel.

[Seonaidh]

'S e Beurla an cànan as doirbhe airson litreachaidh air a bheil mi eòlach. Tha Fraingis glè dhoirbh cuideachd. Cuimris, Spàinnis, Gàidhlig, Nirribhis - tha iad uile nas fhasa na Beurla no Fraingis. Ghoti (iasg sa Bheurla).

Ma tha thu airson rudeigin a mhìneachadh, feumaidh tu bruidhinn ann an cànan a thuigeas an luchd-èisteachd.

...mas urrainn dhut! Ach bhiodh freagairt mar "'S e apple/pomme/afal a th' ann an ubhal" nas fheàrr na "It means apple" no "C'est pomme" no "Afal 'di hynny".

[Níall Beag]

'S e Beurla an cànan as doirbhe airson litreachaidh air a bheil mi eòlach. Tha Fraingis glè dhoirbh cuideachd. Cuimris, Spàinnis, Gàidhlig, Nirribhis - tha iad uile nas fhasa na Beurla no Fraingis.

Did I suggest otherwise? No.

What I said was:
" he did tell students spellings in order to clarify the differences between phonemes. The phonetic structure of Welsh is arguably more complicated than any of the languages Thomas recorded courses for "

For the beginner, the regularity of Welsh spelling is a godsend. Trying to hear the difference between all the AEs, AUs, WYs YWs, EUs, WEUs etc is really hard on the ear, and it's very easy for the two or more of the different sounds to collapse to one. This is a particular problem for Welsh given that vowel phonemes change their sound based on position in the word.

It is more important initially to learn the phonemes than the accent -- accent is layered on top of the phoneme map. The strength of Welsh orthography is that (with the exception of mutations) is is phonemicallyregular, while not necessarily 100% phonetically regular. When you tell me how to spell a word, you tell me what the phonemes are.

If on the other hand you just say a word and I don't already have an internal phoneme map, I don't hear the phoneme information.

Ghoti (iasg sa Bheurla).

Shenanigans!

GH is /f/ only in word final position, or where a root word ending in -GH takes a suffix (rough-er, laugh-ing)
O is /ɪ/ in women only in certain accents. It is a deviant artefact of accent.
TI is only /ʃ/ in the suffix -tion, as the unstressed diphthong IO is not supported in English phonotactics, so the i is reduced to a slenderising particle (compare i in diphthongs in Polish, SI in Welsh and ... oh... Gaelic?!?) and the O to a schwa.

English orthography may be daft, but the "ghoti" strawman is even dafter.

And again irrelevant as I am not accusing Welsh of having a bad spelling system (except in terms of mutations)

Ma tha thu airson rudeigin a mhìneachadh, feumaidh tu bruidhinn ann an cànan a thuigeas an luchd-èisteachd.

...mas urrainn dhut! Ach bhiodh freagairt mar "'S e apple/pomme/afal a th' ann an ubhal" nas fheàrr na "It means apple" no "C'est pomme" no "Afal 'di hynny".

Why on Earth is that better? And more to the point, do you really consider that an explanation? Do you really explain an apple?

Most courses focus on apples and oranges mainly because they don't need to be explained. On the other hand, they leave out relatively simple things like "I want to do it", because of the peculiarity of possessives for direct objects and the like. This needs explained.

[Níall Beag]

I came to a juddering halt in the middle of lesson 6 due to confusion over sounds. The course is sorely lacking in the area of phonetics (not even bothering to mention the difference between R and RH) so I wouldn't recommend using it as your sole source of instruction.

Like most "revolutionary" courses, they have created a new course only out of what's missing in standard courses, and have failed to include the stuff that's good in normal courses. It's very much a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

That's definitely not to say that it's useless -- it's just quite far from complete.

[Seonaidh]

Rhagrith... Ti'n hoffi dadlau ond wyt? Dw'i'm yn. A 'na chdi, wrth sgwennu yn y Saesneg o hyd, er bod Gaeleg go iawn gen' ti - pam? Gan mai Saesneg di'r be-all-and-end-all o bopeth falla? Duw wir mod i'n gwneud camgymeriadau erchyll pryd dwi'n sgwennu'n yr Aeleg - dim ots, ni ddysg na cheisia. A be' di hyn? Fy hun yn sgwennu'n y Gymraeg - a pham lai? Os 'ti am sgwennu'n y Saesneg drwy'r amser, wir, pam lai? Gwna ymdrech achan! Mi fedri di. Paid a chwarae'r diogyn, hurtyn, Seisgarwr. Nid tydi hynny. Fel mae'n nhw'n deud, "Cùm ort!"

'S ann nas fhreagarraiche a bhiodh freagairt sa Ghàidhlig.

[Níall Beag]

'S ann nas fhreagarraiche a bhiodh freagairt sa Ghàidhlig.

Perhaps, but it would be more than a little ironic if I was my explanation was to becoms unclear because I was trying to avoid using English when what I'm trying to explain is that explanations normally become unclear when you try to avoid using English.....

[Seonaidh]

O, tha cuimhne agam air Donald Rumsfeldt...rudeigin mar "there are things we don't know we know we don't know" ma tha cuimhne ceart agam...

Chan ann "try to avoid using English" (no, dhomhsa, Cuimris) a tha an seo ach dèanamh oidhirp airson Gàidhlig a lorg sa chiad àite. O thi, 's ann doirbh a veces (Spàinnis), leis a h-uile cànan eile a' ruith dhan inntinn, a h-uile structair neo-Ghàidhlig, ach tha feum mas airson taic a chur dhan Ghàidhlig a tha sinn.

Seadh, tha luchd ionnsachaidh ùr air an làrach seo agus nuair a bhios iad a' cleachdadh Beurla, ceart gu leòr - chan eil dòigh aca airson Gàidhlig a chleachdadh fhathast. Ach tha Gàidhlig mhath agad fhèin! Nochdadh nach eil ùidh agad airson do Ghàidhlig a bhrosnachadh agus lorgaidh mi sin doirbh dha thuigsinn.