Saturday Gaelic Club

Yesterday was our first visit to Glasgow’s Saturday Gaelic Club – hopefully the first of many. My husband finally uttered his first Gaelic words and can now introduce himself, tell you where he’s from and where he lives, ask how you’re feeling and answer the question, tell you he likes football, and he can also introduce someone else!* Not bad for a morning’s work. I was quite pleased because most of the work we covered today I’ve been working on with my CD so it gave me the confidence to try it out, and it also gave me something on which to build the new vocabulary. I think we should feel particularly proud of ourselves because our one year old daughter was running around the room, distracting us, for the whole lesson as there is nowhere for the under 2s to go, sadly.

Our son was downstairs in the children’s club where they can draw pictures, play games and sing songs in Gaelic. We were worried he would feel swamped by the language and left out as everyone already had friends, but we needn’t have worried as there were other children who have only just started and will be going to school after the summer, too. And I think children are a lot more adaptable than we give them credit for. At the end of the day, it’s nice to know that we’re building up some friendships for him before he gets there.

The club takes place in the Glasgow Gaelic School and today was the first time our son has ever seen the building where he will be spending so much of his future. By going at the weekends he can grow more used to the gym/assembly hall where his group plays, and he got a snack in the lunch hall. All of this is good preparation for him, particularly as there are some concerns he may have Asperger’s/dyspraxia/something else unknown to us just now, and so he can find new places and routines more challenging. Hopefully in August he’ll be used to the school and will be able to behave appropriately when he’s there because sadly that wasn’t the case today.

I explained to the play leader that our son has some additional challenges and that when he gets stressed or excited he will run everywhere. I think that after a good start to his session, he became rather more challenging than I think they were prepared for though, so we’ll need to think about the best way to deal with it for next week, because as stressful as it is worrying about how he’s coping, today has been beneficial for all of us and we will be going back. He enjoyed telling us in the car on the way home that he’d played “What’s the time Mr Wolf” in Gaelic and was able to practise some of his numbers. He had pictures he’d drawn to bring home and put on his wall, and daddy was able to speak a little Gaelic with him for the first time which both of them enjoyed.

As for me, it was great to actually speak some Gaelic out loud rather than just holding wonderful (if limited) conversations in my head. I’ve also met other parents in exactly my position so I can speak with them about some of the issues that crop up rather than just writing them here and sending them out into the great unknown.

There’s so much more that I could say about our 2 hours yesterday morning (well, just under because parking is a nightmare!) but for now I’ll simply say mòran taing (thank you very much) to our tutor, Josie.



*Some of this week's vocabulary. (Please correct me if I’ve got anything wrong – so many accents and grammar points to learn!)

Is mise…. My name is….
Cò às a tha sibh? – Where are you from? (NOT where do you live.)
‘S ann às An Eaglais Bhric à tha mi. I am from Falkirk
A bheil sibh a’ fuireach? Where do you live?
Tha mi a’ fuireach ann an Glaschu. I live in Glasgow.
Ciamar a tha sibh? How are you?
Ha gu math – I’m good.

There was lots more but you can find most of it here.

Learning together

One of the challenges facing us as we enter Gaelic medium education is that we have no Gaelic speakers at home. Whilst we’ve spoken to some parents of children in the Glasgow Gaelic School who have told us that though they have not learned the language their children are still doing well, we feel it’s important for us all, as a family, to learn as much as we can.

My son is perfectly happy to pick things up, arriving at nursery each day with a list of words he wants to understand – so far he has had a burning desire to learn “please,” “blue,” “toilet” and “sticky” – and is happy to ask when he doesn’t understand. I am eager to learn, and try to read what I can. I have located online beginners courses, played the children’s games on the BBC website, signed up for the Gaelic 2012 project and am awaiting the beginning of my distance learning course in about a month. My one year old daughter will probably find the whole thing easiest of all because she won’t remember a time when there weren’t two languages floating around in her world.

It’s my husband who is going to find the whole thing hardest.

He’s always been very keen on the idea of GME, and says he wants to learn Gaelic but just doesn’t know when he’ll get the time. Part of me wants to shake him and tell him to make the time, and another part understands that as I work 3 nights a week it will be harder for him to get out to learn it. I think he would get a lot out of an Ùlpan course but as they generally require 2 nights a week minimum (and course fees), it probably isn’t feasible just now. To be honest, I think a lot of his reluctance is more to do with being self conscious about using Gaelic in front of anyone else – so he won’t even try the CDs in the car, and I can understand that, but ultimately we all need to get over our nerves if we truly want to learn Gaelic.



So, even though we’re all learning Gaelic in different ways, to help us all get started I made little cards this afternoon to stick all the way up the stairs so that we can practice numbers on the way up and colours on the way down. Yes, it’s the frustrated teacher in me (I’m on a career break from primary teaching at the moment and clearly missing it) – everything is colourful and, of course, laminated, but hopefully it will help us start to grasp the basics.

I think we’re also going to start learning a useful phrase or two each week. We’ve been concentrating on greetings for my son’s nursery so next week we’ll be starting with manners, because no matter where we are, manners are always appreciated. I like the Highland Council’s Gaelic Toolkit because we can listen to native speakers rather than trying to read phonetics - so this will be our starting point for next week.

Mas e ur toil e (please), if anyone has any other/better suggestions for how we can learn together then I’d love to hear them.

Mòran taing (many thanks)!

How doo yoo think in Gah-lick?

Peace reigned this afternoon as both children fell asleep in the car on the way to their grandparents. Whilst the children sleeping is always a magical moment, it’s not one I feel I can take real advantage of when I’m in the car. I’m limited to the CDs that are in reach and to be honest, I’m sick of listening to Alvin & The Chipmunks, Cars: The Movie, and Christmas CDs (yes, we have not been able to put the Christmas CDs away, though I’m not too bothered because they always fall asleep during Away in a Manger. If I’m honest, for that reason alone it’s a bit of a favourite of mine).

Stuck driving through a lovely Scottish blizzard, I started running through all the different Gaelic phrases I’ve already managed to pick up. I held mini conversations in my head in which my Gaelic was perfect and where I was even able to hold my own with my son’s new Gaelic teachers (obviously a dream then.) Although I should probably have been giving more thought to my driving given the increasingly treacherous conditions, I was instead thinking of my son’s new Gaelic words – boo-yuh and doo. (Gaelic speakers – don’t panic, I know that’s not how they’re spelt.)

Boo-yuh and doo. It was at that moment I realised that through teaching myself the little Gaelic that I know, I have no idea how to spell/read/recognise pretty much any of it. In my head, as I practise the words yellow and black, I don’t think of buidhe and dubh, I think of boo-yuh and doo. I tried a few of my other phrases out – “kimmer a ha oo, catch a vell doh stocanin…?”* and realised the same thing was happening.
But why!?
I’m not new to language learning. I studied French right through to first year at University, and I picked up Italian when I was there, too. Yet, in all my years of studying language I’ve never noticed this phenomenon. As I pondered this further (hey, it was that or listen to the Chipmunks squealing, “Bad Romance”), I think I had a Eureka moment.
When I’ve learned a language before I’ve always been sat at a desk, reading the language whilst an experienced speaker of the language taught me to read what I was seeing. I haven’t needed phonetic pronunciation guides. However, with Gaelic, if I’m reading it in a book or online I seek out the text with the pronunciation beside it, ignore the Gaelic and jump straight to the sounds. When I’m in the car, I just make it up myself. This is great for learning to hold a conversation, but I don’t think it’s going to stand up to scrutiny when my son starts to bring his reading books home.
So how do I get around this? How do I go from my fake Gaelic to the real thing? How do I get to the point where I can look at the Gaelic and sound it out myself? Answers on a postcard (or as a comment if you prefer) please!
Until someone comes up with a good alternative, I think I’m going to have to go with doing my best to force myself to look at the Gaelic first, try to pronounce it and then check it again. It could be almost like being back at school doing lasacawac (Look and Say and Cover and Write and Check)!

Good luck to any other Gaelic learners out there, and remember, if you work out how to think it properly then let me know.


* How are you, where are your socks…? (proper Gaelic to follow when I track it down).

First Day Nerves

This week was my son’s first week at his Gaelic nursery and, so far, he loves it. In fact, I had to drag my screaming child from the room this afternoon because he wanted me to go away for longer and let him stay. All the way to nursery yesterday he was practising how to tell them his name and then couldn’t resist telling every member of staff who passed him on the way into the room. “Is mise…” (Is misha….) the whole way there. So sweet. He asked them to remind him how to say good morning – though it was the afternoon – and he was desperate to find out how to say, “please.” If only he were always so eager at home…

Today was the Chinese New Year themed day so they got Chinese food at snack (apparently the noodles were nippy but the rice was good) and I was able to peek in and see him painting his own Chinese fan. He was very proud that he can now tell me two colours – dubh (doo) for black, and buidhe (booyuh) for yellow. He tells me that he is going to be my teacher now.

As for me, so far I’ve chickened out of using the little Gaelic I know. So, whilst my son gets an A+, I get a definite, “must try harder,” on my report card.

On the plus side, I heard back from Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic medium college on the Isle of Skye, and I have got my place on An Cùrsa Inntrigidh – the entry level distance learning course. Soon enough I’ll get all the information through and I can pick a suitable time to do my telephone tutorial. I’m very excited! Maybe then I’ll summon up the courage to speak in his nursery.

Watch this space!

Cò às a tha sibh?

This is the "Question of the Week" on the Gaelic 2012 board on http://www.foramnagaidhlig.net/ and, although my very first Question, one that I felt I could answer.  Already, from the first couple of units on my Gaelic CD course I could understand the question and knew basically how to answer, so it should be straight forward, yes?

Clearly not for me.

The question, "Cò às a tha sibh?" asks, "where are you from?" and the simple answer to this is that I'm from Falkirk - rather prettily known as An Eaglais Bhreac, or in Scots as The Speckled Kirk/Spotty Church/Egglesbrech.  However, although I have learned a few phrases I have yet to learn enough grammar to work out quite how to structure this.

I went with:  "Tha mi à An Eaglais Bhreac, ach tha mi a' fuireach ann an Glaschu an-dràsta," (I'm from Falkirk, but I live in Glasgow just now," after much debate about whether it was "Tha mi à" or "Tha mi às."  After waiting with baited breath, a kind (and far more experienced) Gaelic speaker explained that the second sentence was fine, but the first sentence should actually be "Tha mi às an Eaglais Bhric."  I clearly need to read up on the dative case...

So far, it looks like signing up to the Gaelic 2012 project is a good thing.  It's going to force me to move past the basics.

I may even work out how to pronounce it all!

Tìoraidh an-dràsta!

Off to the local sgoil-àraich - Gaelic Nursery School

Well, the day is drawing near for us to head off to the local Gaelic nursery.  I went in yesterday morning to make sure all the forms were completed, to run through my son's education plan, and to get our first "settling in" date.  So, assuming we're all healthy, next Tuesday is our first day.  We go in for half an hour and see how it goes from there.

They were very keen for me to change from 3 afternoons to 5, and reduce his regular morning sessions to 3 instead.  I'm reluctant to do this because my son is well settled in his nursery.  He has friends, he knows the routines and he's got the support he needs in place there.  After spending 18 months with them, I feel it would be a shame to miss out on the last few months.  Plus, at the moment there's no guarantee that he'll get into the Glasgow Gaelic School so I'm loathe to remove him from his current nursery.  We should hopefully know around Easter time so I'll revisit the issue then.

In the meantime, we're going back through our Gaelic Nursery Language Links books - written for parents of children in Gaelic nurseries but who have no Gaelic themselves(http://www.gaelicforfun.edin.org/) - and revise some of the phrases he might be hearing.  I'm also going to add the Gaelic numbers (and pronunciation)to his number chart in our playroom.  Together we can practise counting to ten at least.  He's told me he's going to teach me...

1 aon 2 dhà 3 trì 4 ceithir 5 còig

6 sia 7 seachd 8 ochd 9 naoi 10 deich

Here goes!

Mar sin leibh!

Gaelic 2012

I don't know where the time goes.  It seems like only yesterday my oldest child was just a babe in arms, and yet this month I have to register him for school.  How did that happen!?  If you'd asked me 4 years ago how difficult picking a school would be, I would have told you that it wasn't difficult at all.  Surely they just go to their local school?  But now I'm finding the answer is somewhat different.

As I started to look at all the local schools I came across the Sgoil Ghàidhlig Ghlaschu - the Glasgow Gaelic School and was intrigued.  If you've never come across it before it's a 3-18 establishment where the children are immersed in Gaelic.  Until mid way through primary 3 they are taught exclusively in Gaelic, and even after that it is the first language of the classroom.  The secondary school is part of the same building and one progresses naturally from the other.  I'd heard about the Gaelic school before in passing but had never really looked into it.  However, the more I read the more I liked.

I liked:

• that my children would become fluent in another language; something I feel will stand them in good stead for future language learning,
• that research into bilingualism has shown benefits not just linguistically but socially as children learn to appreciate multiple cultures, and cognitively as they appear to display greater flexibility of thought. 
• that the Gaelic school was considered a good school with good results.  Obviously as they only learn English reading & writing from P3 at that stage they are behind English medium peers, but this gap has generally disappeared by P5, with many GME pupils exceeding their EME peers.
• that it maintains a part of Scottish culture.  Having grown up being told that my ancestors are from the Isle of Skye I've always been interested in that area.

Now obviously I hope that they will have good language skills, appreciate lots of cultures and be able to think flexibly regardless of the school they ultimately go to, but it can't be a bad thing, can it?

So it's a done deal, isn't it?  Clearly it's a great option and why wouldn't we send our children there?  Why wouldn't everyone?

Only it's not as simple as that.  If we go with the Glasgow Gaelic School we're signing up to something very different from the education that we experienced.  My husband and I have no Gaelic, and neither does anyone else in our family.  Although over 60% of the families in the Glasgow Gaelic School don't have Gaelic at home and tell us it's not absolutely essential, if we are to send our children to this school then it's only fair to commit to learning what we can of the language ourselves - are we ready for that? 

It's also a decision that attracts a lot of opinions from other people.  Some are simply intrigued.  They've looked at the option themselves but don't feel confident taking the plunge, so are interested in the reasons we think it's the best option for our family.  Others don't understand and don't take the time to find out more.  They just raise their eyebrows and label us "mad."

I have also had some negative comments.  A group of people I know very strongly said that we should not send our son there.  They were not big fans of the Gaelic school and made that very clear.  It definitely made us go right back to the start and go through all of our options and research again.  We've visited the school and raised the issues that had been raised to me, and we were satisfied with the answers and liked what we saw.

We've also looked into our hearts and we know that this is what feels right.

So, we've bought some bilingual nursery books for our son which he loves and uses the vocabulary randomly.  We play our CD in the car and we've also enrolled our son in a local GME nursery starting this month to see how he takes to it before taking the full plunge in August.  I've also applied for the distance learning course - An Cùrsa Inntrigidh - from the Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on Skye, and signed up with http://www.gaelic2012.org/ to keep in touch with other people who have made the resolution that this year is the year that they will learn Gaelic.

I suppose only time will tell if this is the right decision for us, but for just now we're going to dive right in and enjoy the ride.

Tìoraidh an-dràsta - bye for now!