8 Things I did to Learn Scottish Gaelic

You can learn Scottish Gaelic today, and Scottish history tour guide Bruce Fummey has some suggestions from his own experiences learning Gaelic. He'd tried eight different ways and gives his opinions on which are best.

...or just buy me coffee here

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[Bredaxe]

I watch Gaelic with Jason! He's great. I hope the language makes a comeback for Scotland. Erasing a peoples language is a horrible thing.

[irenebas]

As a native Spanish speaker I can tell you that learning a second or a third language is very helpfull for your brain. Not only it makes you think in a different way, it makes you discover a whole new world.
My first meeting with Gaelic language was reading a book... aye, a romantic book with Highlanders 😁. and curiosity won because of a joke in Gaelic in the story. But the very first time I heard it was here!! So I have to thank you Bruce and I'll tell you in Spanish:
Gracias por tu maravilloso trabajo, que tengas un hermoso día.
Beannachd caraid

[KrisHughes]

The Duolingo Gaelic thing is a great place to start. Quite a bit better than other Duo languages, in my opinion, because it uses recordings of real native speakers - with a wide variety of accents - and you need to be prepared for that!

[Coursier]

As teenager (American but very interested in the Scottish side of my family) I tried to learn Scottish Gaelic from a book I bought from Borders. It was brutally hard and I was heartbroken to give up. I have since learned French fairly well, but you’ve motivated me to look at my options now in the internet age and see if I can do it! Alas it won’t help for my trip to Scotland in a few weeks, but maybe for next year!

[mairianncullen]

I did Duolingo and then moved on to online beginners' course LearnGaelic. Also added in YouTube SpeakGaelic, plus linked podcasts, then the linked online lesson. Time and repetition are key. Recently added Miss MacDonald's YouTube channel for kids, to try to remember days of the week, months of the year, numbers etc. 🙂

[brucehartnell]

As an old punk rocker, I suggest buying a record by Oi Polloi. One of Scotland’s finest.
This channel is great. Very informative and hilarious.
My interests stem from a woman from Edinburgh I met in Germany in 1983. She is a life long friend and the one that got away. This channel brings back great memories of her for me.

[jamieduncombe]

I'm Scottish started learning in p4 never kept it up embarrassed too say our government should try and bring it into the schools there's more gaelic speakers abroad love the vids big man

[sassandsavvy]

I'm a Bavarian living in the Bavarian Highlands, the alpine region. No Gaelic speaking people around here. However, I love languages and my heart beats Scottish, at a tender age of 59 I am learning my 7th language - Scottish Gaelic.

I can inly applaude to everything you said in this video. Learning Gaelic is fun and with constant repetition it works quite well. I worked with an old BBC course on YouTube for a while but the audio quality wasn't sgoinnel, no real interaction. Now I'm doing endless repetitions on duolingo and for grammar and the fun factor, I'm watching Jason's videos which are a great help.. This guy is one heck of a language teacher, his love for Gaelic is contagious if you're not infected already..

If an old goat fromrural Bavaria can learn Gaelic - everyone can. It's very unlikly to find one here but in my younger days my secret of quick progress in learning a language was to find a boyfriend who's a native speaker... just saying 😉

Sadly, my friends in Scotlad don't have Gaelic and sven if I'll never meet anyone I could speak Gaelic with, it's still worth learning.... if you have Scotland in your heart.

Beannachdan blàth à Bavaria🙋🏻‍♀️

[deanworsley]

I wanted to learn since I discovered Runrig, loads of their songs obviously in Gaelic and I just love the sound of the language

[macleod]

I'm a Gaelic learner so thank you for this one!

[annegreen]

I can thoroughly recommend Jason's channel. He's got a great teaching style & my Gaelic has improved loads since I found his lessons.

[dabsafe]

“Oh, there’s a bar!” 🤣🥃🍺 Being a retired Canadian I have found myself relearning the French that I studied in secondary school 50 years ago. The downside is that unless you use the language around native speakers it becomes forgotten. The last time I visited Quebec where French is the primary language spoken, I found myself subconsciously sliding back in to the language and then being “shocked” when I returned to the English speaking world. My Scottish Gran grew up around her Gran that spoke Gaelic exclusively and learning my heritage language is something I would like to try in the near future. Thanks for the videos and keep them coming. 🇨🇦🎸😎🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[McConnachy]

I've been on duolingo for 1500 days now. Coming from the north east of Scotland, I find pronunciation very easy. What surprised me was the number of words we would use in NE Scots dialect that are Gaelic words, but then we arent too many generations away from when our forebearers spoke it. In my area it was banned by the lairds after the act of 'union'. But in a glen further north, Strathdon, the last Gaelic speaker passed away in the 1980s

[odetbeauvoisin]

PS thanks for the super video; it feels like a chat over a cuppa.

[tricksandtunesHQ]

I began my journey learning gaelic at the start of the first UK lockdown, started with the duolingo course, and then moving on to books, gaelic in 12 weeks, blas na gàidhlig. I also discovered around the same time that my partner was expecting my son. So I made it my goal, no I made it my personal mission to have the first words to my son be in gaelic.

My advice to people that are looking to start learning gaelic is, go for it! You will never learn if you don't try, yes there will be days where you have very little motivation. But you will get through it.

[tireachan]

As a native Irish Speaker I've been learning Scots Gaelic recently. My interest was peaked a year ago when my wife was watching 'Outlander' and all of a sudden I was able to hear entire sentences that I understood. It was almost like when I first heard the Ulster Irish Dialect and struggled to follow but got the meaning. It's a fantastic language and it comes with some outstanding benefits of understanding the depth of meaning behind Highland Culture that is conveyed by contemporary Scottish Gaelic musicians who every bit rival their Irish Gaelic counterparts in terms of Gaelic Musical Tradition.

[hawfcut]

I've been wanting to learn Gaelic for a while now. I want me and my kids to speak what was supposed to be our mother tongue. When I hear it, I feel robbed, cheated of a birth right.
Edit: I already had followed Jason, but I'll tell a fib and say you sent me anyway.

[tK-bens]

I've been learning Irish in fits and bursts. The phrases and words that stick with me over the years is the ones I hear or use with native speakers

[Alpvagabund]

I’m actually learning it right now. I don’t really know why, because I’m a German-Norwegian teenager from America, but I am. I just have always been fascinated by Scottish culture and history, and I figured that there’s not much that’s more Scottish than Scottish Gaelic. I’ve been doing it on Duolingo for a while now, and I’m fine at it. I hope to one day be fluent🤞🤞🤞

[everleeherdson]

Absolutely beautiful language, so unique and exciting!