How to Spot a Feminine Noun

Feminine nouns change words that follow them. It's useful to know how to spot them quickly and I will show you 6 ways to do just that.

You don't need to master grammar-speak or linguistic jargon to improve the accuracy of your Gaelic. They're useful in some situations but certainly are NOT the only way to learn Gaelic.
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Thanks for stopping by!
-Jason

[professorracc.]

Another way to remember the gender of a word, which I do with my german too, is to remember it with the article.

For example, if you remember 'am balach' for 'the boy' instead of just 'balach' and 'a' bheurla' for ''(the) english" instead of just 'beurla' then if you know your forms you will know the gender. Helps you learn the forms too.

[jazex]

This is very helpful the duolingo course does not explain why sone things get lenited after some words but not others so I just had to guess I had no idea it had to do with gender until now

[robertofranciscomonsalvesp]

Thanks for the useful tips. They help a lot. Now, making mistakes is good for learning better...but of course looking it up in a dictionary is always safer. Bò is very similar to the Spanish and Italian words for "buey" and "bue"(bull). The same with "caoira" for "cabra" and "capra"(goat). This helps remembering as well. Gracias por la lección.

[juliegilmore]

One of my biggest questions ha been how do i know if it is feminine or masculine. This really helped to understand.

[scotansgeulaiche]

Here's a question for a Gàidhlig speaker, Jason. Asking "Dè an t-ainm air a' bheinn?" (What is the name of the mountain?) I gave and expected the answer from my students " 'S e Stob Dearg a th'oirre" or "Is e Stob..." One of my students asked would it not be "Is i Stob Dearg..." using "i" because mountain is a feminine noun. I said that it was grammatically correct to use "Is i..." meaning "she / it is...", because we know we are talking about a feminine noun, mountain, but that I couldn't think to have heard it used by the few Gàidhlig speakers that I know. Your thoughts? What do speakers actually say when using the " 'S e" construction in such circumstances?

[connermcdonald]

Thanks Jason for your teaching....all four of my grandparents came from Alba so I got a smattering of Gaelic along the way; but your videos help tighten things up. Air son an cuidich, morain taing

[happytraveller]

Ding ding ding!!! And final 'e' or 'i' for the winner as to why some words get lenited and some do not. As in Madainn mhath and feasgar math. Now this makes sense. Of course, until I run into the exceptions... this will still be tricky with the spoken word because you can't 'see' the final vowel when someone is talking and if your hearing is rubbish like mine is. I would expect this will help more when reading the words until you really get to know the language as a whole better and then it will all just click...at least that's what I'm hoping.

[FUSIONJAZZMAN]

Should we be looking up the gender when we learn the word, or is it okay to learn the word without knowing the gender? A lot of materials and programs don't tell you the gender unfortunately and it's not always easy to look it up all the time.

[Seumas-MacDhaibhidh]

"If they'd like to pay me, please get in touch!" Hahahahaha, a Dheusain, tha thu èibhinn!"

[kurtbogle]

My ancestors used to own ships, One of them was, The Concert of Glasgow.

[kalinadesseaux]

Question: what about a male sheep, the ram, how do say it?

[barkleyburker]

just watched this video..good but went to dictionary..punched in caileag. got the word, run down thru the phrases and in some cases they did not include the caileag which is in the phrase. was it intended for me to insert caileag or not use the word. the phrase was every girl who wished to have a career? whats up thanks

[annmacleod]

If people are saying I can't speak the scottish gealic why would I just write the language that doesn't make sense .

[kurtbogle]

Pero, Italian se egual a espanol, no egual a gail.

[kurtbogle]

To Celts Feminine is Devine. I don't however think that's all inclusive and across the board.