Celtic Team - Study Group

[David1917]

You people really are not helping. I so badly want to stick to only three languages this year, but reading this thread is making me really miss my Kernewek books...

Do it

[David1917]

I finished SSIC 1-10 this morning. I did each lesson twice before moving to the next. I think it's a great little introduction, and now got me more excited on doing that other KDL online course. The one I have zero time for? Yep, that one. Which writing system should I use? I think KK is more widely used, right? And the 1st gen KDL course might be KK, so at least I'll have consistency with the two courses.

I did find some weird mistakes/inconsistencies in SSIC, but I can't really complain for a free course. It was funny that around Lesson 6 he started referring to them as "Challenges" rather than "Lessons." There were a few constructions they never gave you up front and so you wouldn't know how to construct the sentence at first listen. Finally, pronunciation was erratic in some places (ninzu raiz thym / ninzus raiz thym) or (me rabea / me rabu) are the ones that come to mind immediately. I guess as a resurrected language it's not going to be super solid? Either way, I'm pleased with the introduction and ready to move on. Hopefully they come out with a Level 2 sometime soon.

[IronMike]

I didn't really have any issues reading Cornish in FSS (standard written form) or KK, the differences aren't that bad. Same with Unified. Granted, most of the stuff I read was beginner stuff. With the exception of Bewnans Meryasek, which I think was in Unified, which really didn't look all that different from Kernewek Kemmyn (or however you spell that).

If I were to do KDL again, I'd do it in the FSS as that's the future...

[Xenops]

Duolingo just released their beta version of Scottish Gaelic. I could tell that it uses actual recordings, but I was wondering how the pronunciation is?

[IronMike]

Saw this at my local bookstore. Anyone know if it is worth buying? Price-wise it isn't too bad.

[tph]

Has anyone used Michel Thomas Irish and if so what were your impressions of it? It's not out very long so reviews are thin on the ground.

Had a miserable time with Irish at school here in Ireland as a kid many years ago, but now I would love to study it and be able to at least hold a conversation in it.

I have used Michel Thomas in the past for Spanish and was very impressed with the method and if the Irish course is as good, I would be very interested in giving it a go.

[Cèid Donn]

I have no experience with any of the Michael Thomas series in any languages and I'm not sure if I was aware there was one for Irish.

I have wondered if we should start a new Celtic language study group thread since the author of this thread is, as I understand, deceased and some of his other threads have been locked by the admin. Granted it's not urgent since interest in Celtic languages here is pretty low, but if anyone has an opinion on that, feel free to speak up.

Anyhow, while I'm here, two recent resources:

Irish: Routledge released Colloquial Irish 2. I have not seen a copy nor seen any feedback on it. But as someone who has used the Kindle versions for Breton and Scottish Gaelic from this series I would warn away from buying the Kindle version of this--the Breton and Gaelic versions have serious formatting problems, in particular with the appendices and tables.

Cornish: Clozemaster just released a course for Cornish. It has almost 4000 sentence which makes it by far the longest course for a Celtic language on Clozemaster so far, although compared to more popular languages on the site, it's still very short. Lots of repetition, which is good or bad depending on your perspective, but it covers a lot of basic vocab. If you're not afraid of groping around in the dark, it's not a bad way to drive in head-first with Cornish. I'm not good enough at Cornish to attest to the quality of the sentences but I'm about 85% through the course and all the sentences strike me as legit in terms of the Brythonic grammar and syntax that I'm familiar with from Welsh and Breton. Less common vocab appears to agree with Gerlyver Kernewek.

[księżycowy]

Irish: Routledge released Colloquial Irish 2. I have not seen a copy nor seen any feedback on it. But as someone who has used the Kindle versions for Breton and Scottish Gaelic from this series I would warn away from buying the Kindle version of this--the Breton and Gaelic versions have serious formatting problems, in particular with the appendices and tables.

Having picked up a paperback copy myself not long ago, I'd recommend it to anyone who was looking for a follow up to CI1, or as a further supplement to Ó Siadhail's Learning Irish. It continues pretty much in the same vain as CI1, with the only major change being that you are expected to be using a dictionary to look up unknown words and the like (the authors recommend Ó Dónaill, as accessed through teanglann.ie or focloir.ie). The text still focuses on the dialect of Cois Fharrige.