Learn Scots Gaelic

If you are Scottish, you can learn Scots Gaelic to reconnect with your roots. Although everyone in Scotland speaks English (or at least Scots English which is a slightly different beast), many people also speak Scots Gaelic. People of Scottish ancestry throughout Canada, the US, Australia, New Zealand, England and throughout the world maintain interest in the language as well.

Scots Gaelic is a celtic language, closely related to Irish Gaelic and Manx, and a little less closely related to Welsh, Cornish and Breton. Like its cousin Celtic languages, there are few published resources to learn Scots Gaelic, but there are a decent number of online sources to learn from, and there are plenty of resources to use to maintain your knowledge of Scots Gaelic, once you've learned a bit.

Internet/Free BBC Learn Scots Gaelic The BBC has a number of good resources for learning languages, particularly those of the British Isles. This is a series of lessons for the beginner with audio files. There are also lots of additional resources to use when you have gained some proficiency with Scots Gaelic at the BBC homepage for Scots Gaelic.

Internet/Free TAIC Scots Gaelic Lessons Extensive grammar-based lessons for beginners with plenty of audio files.

Internet/Free Gaelic Lessons Online A free online tutorial for learning Scots Gaelic. It's grammar-based, has basic vocabulary and reading practices.

Internet/Free Scottish Radiance This site has a lot of general information on Scots Gaelic, phrases, everyday sayings and with audio files.

Internet/Free Scots Gaelic Resource Directory This is a great list of quality resource links to learn Scots Gaelic and put it to use when you've learned some.


Software/Inexpensive
Teach Me Gaelic!
This is one of the few commercial products dedicated to learning Scots Gaelic. Linguashop makes their language teaching software method in a variety of uncommon languages and thankfully, Gaelic is one of them. The software is easy to use and easy to customize. It comes with audio cd's and a small booklet. It is reasonably comprehensive and provides a good foundation for any language.

Software/Inexpensive
101 Languages of the World
This CD-Rom makes a great study aid for almost any language student. For a bargain price you get thousands of vocabulary words and hundreds of in-context sentences in dialogues all with audio in dozens of languages, including Scots Gaelic. It's a good supplement for languages like Spanish or Japanese (for which there are many resources) and also for languages like Hawaiian, Estonian or Basque, which have very few resources. The student of several languages will get the most benefit from it. Read my review of 101 Languages of the World.

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- Thomas Mann