TACHARTAS A1+ CÈIT. ’26

ALL-LEVELS EVENT MAY ’26

[English only, otherwise I’ll be here all night…]

On Saturday 9th May, fifteen of us got together at An Lòchran to hold another event for Gaelic beginners and intermediate learners 🙂 Here’s a summary, without a Gaelic translation on this occasion due to time constraints on my side, sorry!

We kicked off with our usual exercise of introducing ourselves on our tables, using simple phrases such as Is mise…, Tha mi à…, Tha mi a’ fuireach ann an…, and so on. These expressions were displayed on the screen, and you can view all the slides we used at the bottom of this page ⬇️

Next, we did a wee interactive exercise featuring 15 sentences in Gaelic. We went through them all together, with people from each table reading them out and translating them into English. This included several question words (Ciamar…, Càite…, Dè…, Cò às…, A bheil…?, An e…?) and the appropriate answers to these.

After this was done, we tried a short conversation exercise on our tables, where we took it in turns to ask and answer basic questions, with the aim of building a simple Gaelic conversation. Examples included “Ciamar a tha thu?” (How are you?), “Cò às a tha thu?” (Where are you from?), and “A bheil thu ag ionnsachadh Gàidhlig?” (Are you learning Gaelic?). Everyone did their best to answer the questions in Gaelic 👏

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After a tea and coffee break, we did a wee Gaelic quiz 😎 In our teams, we answered 10 questions, all of which you’ll find on the slides down below ⬇️ The teams - who were all named after a month of the year (useful Gaelic to know, right? 🙂) - had to translate what was on the screen into English, or figure out which multiple-choice answer was correct. For instance - can you crack #9, without looking it up in the dictionary?

“Caillidh fiù ’s an Grioglachan a chùrsa.”

a. You win some, you lose some.
b. You can’t be happy all the time.
c. Mistakes happen to the best of us.

After 10 questions, we declared An Dàmhair (October) the winning team with 9 points 👏 The other teams - An Lùnastal (August), An Cèitean (May) and Am Màrt (March) - were close behind, with all teams performing well! On a related note, did you know that the first 8 months of the year are all masculine? That’s why May is An Cèitean, because if it were feminine it’d be A’ Chèitean (behaving the same way as “a’ chaileag”, girl, which is feminine).

August is the cut-off point for this. The remaining four months are all feminine - which is why September is An t-Sultain and November is An t-Samhain, because if they were masculine they’d be An Sultain and An Samhain (behaving the same way as “an seòmar”, room, which is masculine).

Moving on…we rounded things off for the afternoon by playing a fun round of Mad Libs 😁 This is where each team was given a story in Gaelic, but several blanks were put in. They had to fill in the blanks, and the results were quite humorous, as you would imagine! Here’s a wee overview of what each team came up with (blank fill-ins in bold):

Ann an 2024, bha mise agus mo charaid Iain a’ dol gu baile air a bheil Inbhir Nis. Bha sinn a’ dol ann airson caora a lorg.

In 2024, my friend Iain and I were going to a town called Inverness. We were going there to find a sheep.

- An Dàmhair, A’ Chearc Fhortanach
(the chicken ultimately escaped, but the sheep gets it 🐑)

Bha baga dearg agam, agus bha tòrr aran agus hama na bhroinn. Nuair a dhanns sinn a-steach dhan bhaile, ’s e cearc uabhasach mòr a’ chiad rud a chunnaic sinn. Bha i na seasamh ann an teas-meadhan nan sràidean.

I had a red bag, and there was lots of bread and ham inside it. When we danced into the town, the first thing we saw was a massive chicken. It was standing right in the middle of the street(s).

- An Lùnastal, Sealg a’ Chàise
(the rest involves some farmer dude and a magic cow 🐮)

“Na gabh dragh,” thuirt mi. “Tha fios agam ciamar a gheibh sinn cuidhteas an rud seo!” Thug mi aran a-mach; ach an uair sin, nochd bodach. Dh’èigh e: “Dè an Donas a tha sibhse a’ dèanamh an seo?!” Thòisich e air ruith ann an cearcallan. Bha againn ri ruith gu luath airson faighinn air falbh bhuaithe.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I know how we’ll get rid of this thing!” I took out some bread; but then, an old man appeared. "He yelled: “What the Hell are you lot doing here?!” He started to run around in circles. We had to run quickly in order to get away from him.

- An Cèitean
(this story was so good they couldn’t think of a title 😁)

Mu dheireadh thall, ràinig sinn an taigh-òsta. Dh’fhosgail sinn e, agus lorg sinn stail dhraoidheil! Bha e comasach dhuinn uisge-beatha a dhèanamh leatha. ’S e an turas a bh’ fheàrr a bh’ agam a-riamh.

Finally, we reached the hotel. We opened it, and we found a magic pot still! We were able to make whisky with it. It was the best trip of my life.

- Am Màrt, An Staile Dhraoidheil
(mine’s a Lagavulin 16, please)

We rounded the afternoon off by mentioning this month’s creative writing competition, which is actually a Gaelic crossword you can find HERE. We’ve already had one submission, so as they say, you gotta be in it to win it! Thank you to everyone who came along, and to those who helped tidy away at the end. Three of us (Stephen, Eli and meself) went next door to the Lismore for a wee drink afterwards.

See you next time - and good luck with the learning!

Andy, Stephen and your An Lòchran team xx