Well, I’m two-thirds of the way through my (challenge) time with Scottish Gaelic, but what do I have to show for it? And, where do I expect to be six days from now?
Okay, let’s start with the good stuff: I know how to say my name and ask how people are. I also know how to introduce some things about myself; where I work and where I live, for the most part. Plus, I feel like I’m getting the hang of the pronunciation (for the most part) and some of the spelling—so long as the words aren’t too long!
Buuuuut, I’m suffering from a lot of gaps and I’m not moving forward nearly as quickly as I thought I would.
Turns out, the Teach Yourself units are fairly comprehensive: I’m still on Unit Two, which is down to the fact that I know cramming it all at once isn’t helpful and so I’m trying not to rush through it.
The Memrise course I’ve been using, too, while helpful, has some spellings that are different from the coursebook. Not that I know what’s entirely accurate—some of those spellings are different from Duolingo, which are different from uTalk, which are different from the Learn Gaelic website… While it’s not the end of the world, it is frustrating; though considering some of the languages I want to tackle this year, I should probably get over that as soon as I can!
One good thing: I have found that using different sources has been a fun way of cementing concepts without having to go over grammar approximately 100 times! I don’t really read all of the Duolingo notes, so when I got to the grammar section in Teach Yourself today that talks about ‘to be’, it points out the different forms:
tha… – positive form of the present tense of ‘to be’ (Tha mi à Steòrnabhagh.)
chan eil… – negative form of the present tense of ‘to be’ (Chan eil mi à Bogha Mòr.)
a bheil… – question form of the present tense of ‘to be’ (A bheil sibh à Inbhir Nasann?)
I’d gone over sentences like this on Duolingo sometime in the past week, but this really helped make clear what I’d kind of intuitively figured out. I think ‘working out’ grammar is good and useful, but for me, in the early stages, it’s nice to get a clear explanation as well, so that I grasp it and, going forward, will be able to use it correctly.
(Well, most of the time, at least!)
Stats time!
So far, I’ve spent 578 minutes (or 9.63 hours) learning Gàidhlig, which means 292 minutes (4.87 hours) in the last six days. In total, it averages out to 48 minutes (0.79 hours) a day, so at least I’m keeping it consistent!
According to Memrise, I know 117 words, though I just started the Memrise Duolingo deck and haven’t actually gone through all the material I’ve covered on the tree yet. Still, I’m about where I wanted to be this week.
Here’s a breakdown of all my study time:
(That last segment with no label is Clozemaster, which I spent five minutes on and then realised is absolutely useless to me at this point.)
I’m still keeping Teach Yourself ahead of everything else, though its share of the chart has dipped a lot. Still, I don’t mind that as long as the LearnGaelic segment grows in the next week; I like the short lessons there and I’m up to 4/60 so I’d like to get through as many as possible in the next six days.
I’ve got another short text I had to write for one of the Teach Yourself exercises today:
‘S mise Teàrlag. Tha mi à Nottingham, ach tha mi ann an Lunnainn an-dràsta. Tha i meadhanach fuar. Tha mi a’ fuireach ann am flat ann an Lunnainn agus tha mi ag obair ann an oifis an seo. Tha an oifis glè shnog ach glè fhuar.
I’m Charlotte. I’m from Nottingham, but I’m in London now. It’s quite cold. I stay in a flat in London and I work in an office here. The office is very nice but very cold.
Also, I have some goals leading up to our finale on the 18th:
- Complete Aonad 2 and 3 in Teach Yourself Complete Scottish Gaelic.
- Have my Memrise deck and Duolingo tree at the same point re: progress.
- Be up to lesson 10 on the LearnGaelic beginners’ course.
- Prepare my video! 😱
Oh, and if anyone has any tips about shooting a video when you only have an iPhone (my webcam is old and bad) then uhh drop them below, thanks! Also, if you think there are any resources I need to try out in this final six days, let me know about those, too!
I’ll be back on Saturday! Mar sin leibh!