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WizardofOwls 
Posted: 13-May-2005, 08:22 PM
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Hello! Welcome to the Celtic Languages forum! I am so glad that you decided to visit with us! Would you take just a moment and tell us a little about yourself? We would all like to get to know you better!

Thanks for stopping by!

And Happy Learning!

This post has been edited by WizardofOwls on 24-Nov-2005, 05:09 AM


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Slàn agus beannachd,
Allen R. Alderman

'S i Alba tìr mo chridhe. 'S i Gàidhlig cànan m' anama.
Scotland is the land of my heart. Gaelic is the language of my soul.
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WizardofOwls 
Posted: 13-May-2005, 08:54 PM
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Hello everyone!

I thought I'd introduce myself for all of our new members!

My name is Allen Alderman, and I live in Wytheville, Virginia in the US. I am 40 years old and have been married for the last 18 years to a wonderful woman named Jenette. We have a daughter named Tiffany who is 12 and in the 6th grade. I am a Christian and attend a Pentecostal Holiness church.

For now English is the only language I speak fluently. I had two years of Spanish in high school, but remember very little of it. I am trying to teach myself to speak Scottish Gaelic. Someday I would like to be fluent, but even if I never reach that level, I am enjoying the process. Once I master the Gaelic, I would also like to try to learn the other Celtic Languages (Welsh, Cornish, Breton, and Irish and Manx Gaelic) as well as Spanish, Russian, and Hebrew. I have been learning Gaelic for about 10-12 years though, and would only consider myself to be somewhere between advanced beginner and intermediate level. Obviously, this is a difficult language for me! smile.gif

I discovered Scottish Gaelic completely by accident! I had just discovered the Irish band Clannad and had decided that I wanted to learn the language so that I could understand the lyrics. At the time, I was completely ignorant of the fact that there was more than one variety of Gaelic! While trying to find books to learn Irish, I learned of the existence of Scottish Gaelic. Boy, did I have a tough choice to make! Since I have a family tie (though weak) to Scotland through my mother (McKay), I finally decided to go with the Scottish.

For me the most rewarding part of learning Gaelic has been the dear friends I have made from all over the world along the way as a result. Faileas and Cù Dubh in Scotland, CelticRose in Arizona, Deborah White (of Distant Oaks) in California, Marina Ludvigova in Russia to name just a few.

For those who are just beginning this marvelous learning journey, I would like to offer a little bit of advice:

1) Do something related to your language everyday! Try to work through a lesson. Learn some vocabulary. Listen to songs sung in your target language - even if you don't understand a word! Babies can't speak the language either, but in just hearing the words spoken or sung, they are learning sounds, intonation and inflection. It can help you too!
2) Foster friendships with those who speak the language. They are wonderful sources of help and inspiration. And even if at some point you decide to give up, you'll still have made some wonderful friends!
3) Find the best sources available for learning your language. Ask around. Search the internet. There is some good stuff out there if you know what to look for!
4) Tough it out! There will be times when you feel like giving up. It will seem impossible and you'll wonder why you are bothering to do this in the first place. But stick to it! Nothing worth having is ever easy!
5) Some good books I would like to recommend:
How to Learn a Foreign Language by Graham E. Fuller
How to Learn Any Language by Barry Farber
Help your Child With a Foreign Language by Opal Dunn (though written to help children, these techniques are easily adapted to help an adult)
These three books are crammed full of ideas to help you learn!
6) Pass it on! All of the Celtic Languages are struggling and can use any help, no matter how small, that you can offer! If a friend wants to learn a word or two, teach them. Who knows? Maybe you will inspire them to go on and learn the language! And pass it on to your children too!

For more information about me, look on this page:
http://www.celticradio.net/php/forums/inde...?showtopic=6685

This post has been edited by WizardofOwls on 15-May-2005, 11:18 PM
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CelticRoz 
Posted: 14-May-2005, 07:04 PM
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Hi Allen! I want to thank you for all the hard work you have put into this forum so those of us can try to learn the Celtic languages. I ran into Scots Gaelic by accident too. I started off with Irish as I was listening to a lot of Irish music at the time. Then I found this site and started listening to all the music on Highlander radio and discovered musical artists such a Runrig, Capercaillie and others who sang in the Scots Gaelic. Being of Scots-Irish descent it was a bit of a tough decision for me too, but I chose the latter as I became obsessed with all things Scottish as I learned more about it's people, history and country. Now it is my goal to visit there in the next year or two.

I am very much a beginner in the Scots Gaelic and I have struggled with the grammar and just remembering certain things as I have the attention span of a five year old, I think. biggrin.gif At times I wonder why I am doing this, especially when it gets really difficult. With Gaelic it is like learning two languages! How to read the way it looks and how to read how it is pronounced! Yikes! But it is something that I have a desire to learn for no other reason. But like Allen said you have to keep at it every day and listen to it every day, mostly through music. Iit has been especially fun to learn with other like-minded folks who want to see this beautiful language never die. And those who speak it so much better than I are always so curteous to help me see my way. Many thanks to all of you who have done that for me.

I hope very much that others will join us and don't be afraid to try. If I can get this far, any of you can!

Slan leibh
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Cù Dubh 
Posted: 15-May-2005, 09:55 AM
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Hi everybody, I was born in Glasgow - Scotland's biggest and bestest city wink.gif and i now live just outside the city. I'm married & have 2 wonderful children. Like half the population of Glasgow i have Scottish & Irish ancestry, but it was Scottish Gaelic that i decided to learn about 2 years ago. I don't know why really. I have no Highland or Scottish Gaelic connections that i'm aware of (my grandparents spoke Irish Gaelic), maybe i just wanted to understand all those Gaelic tv & radio programmes laugh.gif . I never made any serious effort to learn at the begining, but the more i've learned the more i've wanted to learn. I don't got to night classes or anything like that .I just pick it up from books, the internet & watching Kids programmes on bbc Alba laugh.gif Many times i've thought of giving it up, but something always makes me pick the books back up. Someday i hope to be fluent, but when...who knows? unsure.gif smile.gif


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Bruidhinnibh Gàidhlig Rium.
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Faileas 
Posted: 15-May-2005, 12:48 PM
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Hallo, alltogether - my name is Faileas aka Kela Calltain and I live on the Isle of Skye. I have run into Scotland and Gaidhlig via the Scottish band Runrig, who sing a lot in Gaidhlig and about Scotland. Ergo I wanted to see what they sang about and the language sounded great. Therefore i went on a tour around Scotland in 1997 that was (and of course searching for books to learn gaidhlig), and went back, and went back, and went back, and went back .... , and stayed biggrin.gif.

I started with tapes people sent me in their kindness when I first advertised in the fanclub magazine of RR, then ordered the series 1 of Speaking our Language. Frome there I progressed to Teach yourself Gaidhlig (with tape) and when I finally moved here I did the Cursa Inntrigidh (the Acces Course) of Sabhal Mor Ostaig in Sleat, which is a distance learning course with cds, written excercises, telefone conferences and monthly tutorials. I can only recommend it to you. It really gives you the basics for advanced further studies - such as the Cursa Comais ( Immersion Course) which ends with the Certificate of Higher Education. It also counts as first year of the degree course which I would love to do if I had the finances for it. These ten months left me quite fluent and it helps me a lot in my contact with the locals here.

Apart from that - Gaidhlig is a fire inside me that keeps burning and burning and burning - and I am really set to set others ablaze with it hehe. tongue.gif thumbs_up.gif


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Scottish in Heart :-))

In the darkest heart the pride of man will walk allone

's ged tha mi fada bhuat cha dhealaich sinn a chaoidh

Darkover RPG
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Siarls 
Posted: 15-May-2005, 03:04 PM
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Helo pawb.

My name's Siarls and I live in the Lliw Valley, near Swansea in Wales. I study Welsh and Italian at the University of Wales Swansea.

My mother's Welsh, but my father's Scottish. He lives near Glasgow now, but his family originally come from Nairn. I still have family there, I think.

I speak Welsh and English, but feel I have a duty to my paternal ancestry - and should speak Gaidhlig. Hard work, despite already speaking a Celtic language.
I also speak French and Spanish (with a really strong accent) and would like to learn Catalan.
I live for languages and could do nothing else. Without languages, I'd be nothing!


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Gwlad, gwlad, pleidiol wyf i´m gwlad
Tra môr yn fur
I'r bur hoff bau
O bydded i´r heniaith barhau
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gwenynen 
Posted: 15-May-2005, 11:00 PM
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Thanks, Wizard, for leading me to this thread. I somehow couldn't find it yesterday.

Hi, everybody. I'm Gwenynen. It means 'bee' in Welsh. I chose this forum name to remember Gwenynen Gwent which was the bardic name of Lady Llanover. She was English but born in Wales in the 19th century. She used her wealth to promote Welsh language and culture.

I'm so happy to be a part of this friendly forum. As you can see, my interest is in Wales and learning Welsh. Like some of you, I chanced upon this language and started learning without knowing how hard it was going to be. I've been learning it on my own as there's no one else who shares my interest where I live. Siarls has been great in helping me so patiently. I have no Welsh ancestry but I consider myself Welsh at heart.

Though Welsh and Scottish Gaelic seem so different (when they are both Celtic languages,) the passion for learning these minority languages is the same. It's so encouraging to hear you all.

I'm from Japan and Japanese is my mother tongue. (I'm in USA now.) If anyone needs help with Japanese, I'd be more than happy to help. By the way, I'm married and the mother of six children. (It's not typo. Six.)


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Weithiau, mae'r ateb i'n problemau o dan ein trwynau, dim ond bod angen i ni gymryd cam yn ôl ac edrych eto. - Stuart Kerner
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Eiric 
Posted: 16-May-2005, 12:12 AM
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Realm: Sweden, but me heart's in Scotland - An t-Suain, ach tha mo chridhe às ann Alba

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Halò! My name is Johan Eiric and I was born in a wee Swedish town called Vännäs, which btw is situated in the far north. I have been studying Gàidhlig for a while, actually I started to learn Irish first but since my friend from Erin left to move home to Gailimh, I started to learn Gàidhlig instead. Not that I have a teacher, but I love languages and learn fast. Some time a´go I started a thread called anyone interested in Gàidhlig on scotland.com where I taught basic Gàidhlig. It was really just to keep my self learning... I am a student at the International Upper-Seondary School in Linköping (in southern Sweden) and I study English, German, French will study Spanish, I also study Drama, social science etcetera. My school is quite unique in Sweden, we follow a historical timeline, or to put it simple we pretty much use drama in all our examworks, and learn everything much more thouroughly (? SPELLING) I love indigenous peoples and Celtic culture, and best of all, with the school anyway, my english teacher's from Alba, my french teacher's from Breizh...


Slàn!


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Anam Ceilteach

About Indigenous Peoples
If you ever needed a Gàidhlig dictionary

If you think you can hold me down
I beg to differ
If you think you can twist my words
I'll sing forever



Tha gach uile dhuine air a bhreth saor agus co-ionnan ann an urram 's ann an còirichean. Tha iad air am breth le reusan is le cogais agus mar sin bu chòir dhaibh a bhith beò nam measg fhein ann an spiorad bràthaireil

If you think you can hold me down
I beg to differ
If you think you can twist my words
I'll sing forever
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susieq76 
Posted: 20-May-2005, 03:47 PM
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Hello! My name is Susanna, and I live in the middle of North Carolina. I am a 28 year old single mother with a beautiful 9 year old daughter and attend school at a local private college. I am of Scots/Irish descent, someone once saying it was something like %75 Irish & 25% Scottish, but I wouldn't bet on that being the truth.

I love learning all languages like Siarls here, and speak Spanish. I tried to learn Gaelic, but whether through pure slackness or maddening difficulty, I dropped the language. When Macfive said that he was looking for someone to moderate the Wales forum, I jumped at the chance, having an uncle whose family is from Wales. I have fallen in love with the country and it's beautiful language, and now that I am on break for a bit, can devote myself to learning more Welsh and trying to begin practicing it. I am so happy that there is a forum for those of us who thrive on Celtic Languages, and you couldn't have a better moderator than Allen biggrin.gif Pop on over to the Wales forum sometime (sorry, had to plug my forum as well) and take a look around!!

In the future I would love to learn Punjabi, Old English, and a few other languages to boot, and hope to go over to Wales again in the future (I just got back from there) and do some studying.


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"Alas for those who never sing and die with all their music left in them" - Oliver Wendell Holmes
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austaff 
Posted: 21-May-2005, 11:56 PM
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Cyfachion Pawb

Greetings from tropical Queensland. I live in Brisbane the capitol of Queensland it is a very clean fresh city and is in the sub tropics so it is more or less summer all year round. biggrin.gif

I am originally from Penygraig in the Rhondda Valleys but migrated here in 1972 in search of the sun and a better future for my children and found just that here it truly is the land of oppurtunity so much so that I now call myself a welshborn Australian.

I have just started learming welsh (9months) my nephew attends a welsh school in the Rhondda so I thought it would be great to be able to speak welsh to him the next time he visits with us here in Aus.

My first language is sad to say english we were never really taught welsh as most people in the valleys spoke english so it is a challenge noe in learning the language of heaven but as no one here speaks welsh it is not easy to learn as I think you need someone to talk to who can help correct the very many mistakes etc

But with a bit of luck and a lot of help I may someday ber ablr to speak y iaith

hywl
Keith


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A fo ben bid bont
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Maddie 
Posted: 04-Jun-2005, 06:52 PM
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Just found this thread and as I am bored... yes, that's almost to be enjoyed... usually I'm bogged down in work.

Like many here, I speak more than one language but for me it's not just about the command of a language, it's much more. The human aspect, the culture, is what intrigues me most.

I can't tell you why Gaidhlig, the Scottish Gaelic, but I know where this language resides: right there, in my heart.

Well, I admit, I don't think I have good command of either language... rolleyes.gif



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stoirmeil 
Posted: 07-Jun-2005, 05:50 PM
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I'm Lynn Dion, and I live in New York City (for now. . . ). I guess you could say I'm a sucker for endangered languages, since I spent about 15 years learning Yiddish from scratch and staying with it long enough to teach a few hundred people over the years to speak, read and write it (that's a New York possibility for ya). I still love it, I always will. But my attraction for Scots gaelic goes way back earlier than that, and I have it from my dad, who is of good northern french celtic stock (both norman and breton), but was stationed in the Highlands during World War II and never, never got over it. I think people bring something emotional to the study of these "dying" (but never dead) languages; I surely saw more emotional baggage than could fill the Queen Mary in my yiddish students -- no disparagement intended, and I both respected their love and used it shamelessly to get the language into them. tongue.gif For me, with Gaelic now, it is to give something back to the huge part of me that is my father (whether I will it or not), after losing him with too many things left unsaid, and eventually to bring him home.

I also sing, and teaching (and learning) languages through song is the biggest tool I know about.

That, and writing language learning material for children, fairy tales, and the like, and I am bigtime looking forward to getting good enough with gaelic to do that soon!
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Nancy-Raven 
Posted: 07-Jul-2005, 09:36 PM
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I'm Nancy-Raven Hellfire and live in Canada , Quebec , 1hour from the city of Montreal.French is my first language and english I second(good at 80%).I wasn't a very good student in high school , I was more a raven , you know when people see you they run away because you bring bad luck.Pretty close of that.My interest for scottish gaelic and for Scotland start when I do research for medieval things.This culture interest me very much.For medieval activity I have decided to be between a celt and a scot lady from the middle age and learning gaelic seem for me a way to give more credibility to the character.My interest give me a lot of surprise like the tartan story,it was a big and nice surprise.

I am not married and single.I'm a pastrycook , I cannot live without dessert and chocolate.I'm not a very popular person , except for some friend who like dessert.I have no scottish or celtic blood.Ancestor of my mother are from France and on the side of my father I know only a little bit , but really little from them.All I know is they are italian.

I start gaelic recently , not so difficult at all.What is difficult is to jump to site to site because I didn't found 1 site that can give grammar , pronunciation and conversation clearly in each lesson,more slowly but more complete.I also like this site in general and hope to have some friend here.
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GunChleoc 
Posted: 02-Aug-2006, 01:29 AM
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Halò a h-uile duine!
Hi everybody!

I thought I'd just check in and say hi over here too...

I'm from Germany, and besides German and English I also speak Portuguese, and some few smatterings of this and that. No Celtic ties whatsoever AFAIK, but since everybody and his brother came through Germany way back when, who knows? laugh.gif

I've been learning Scottish Gaelic since a friend of mine dragged me to a Runrig concert last winter. I just thought the language sounded very beautiful, and I still do smile.gif

And I found music a great way for practicing the pronunciation punk.gif


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'S e saoghal a th' anns gach cànan
Fòram na Gàidhlig
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