TACHARTAS A1+ ÒGMH. ’26
ALL-LEVELS EVENT JUNE ’26
On Saturday 13th June, we had another full house at An Lòchran for our monthly A1/A2/B1 learners’ event! Here’s a summary of what we got up to.
We began with our customary exercise of introducing ourselves on our tables, using simple phrases such as Is mise…, Tha mi à…, Tha mi a’ fuireach ann an…, etc. We worked on this exercise in threes and fours, while we waited for a few others to trickle in.
Next, we held an interactive learning session which didn’t feature the usual sentences I put on the screen, but a bit of role-play from table to table 🙂 This was based around the question words (Ciamar…, Cò…, Carson…, Dè…, etc.), and some appropriate answers to questions that feature these. Those in attendance also got to meet my questionable acting skills 😁🙈 But people seemed to enjoy it, and that’s what language learning should be - fun!
We then tried a spoken exercise for 20 minutes on our tables, where people would ask each other simple questions in turn - e.g. “Ciamar a tha thu?” (How are you?), “Cò às a tha thu?” (Where are you from?), and “Carson a tha thu ag ionnsachadh Gàidhlig?” (Why are you learning Gaelic?) - and do their best to answer these. Sample sentences were on the screen, but people were encouraged to expand upon these, if possible. Everyone gave it a fair shot, so well done 👏
☕🫖🍵
After taking a 20-minute break for tea, coffee and buscuits, we got creative! We played a game involving building sentences together, and seeing if we could remember not only the key word, but the context as well. This, as a general rule, is much more useful for remembering vocabulary than just learning individual words by rote. Here are some examples of what we came up with (the underlined words are what each table thought up and added in):
sgoil
Tha i ag obair mar thidsear anns an sgoil ionadail.
(She’s working as a teacher in the local school.)
(this was Stephen’s table, and they had something a little more sweary than this too, but I won’t repeat it 😁)
rud
Nach goid sinn an rud air fad.
(Let’s just steal the whole thing).
(speaking of “learning in context”, what’s the betting people have learned the word goid from how many times Duolingo has given them Tha Màiri a’ goid drathais a-rithist? Told you the method was useful 😁)
saoghal
’S e àite neònach a th’ ann an saoghal poileataigs.
(The world of politics is a strange place.)
Fancy a go yourself? See below ⬇️ for the full slide deck and all 8 sample sentences!
We brought the afternoon to a close by looking at some opportunities for further learning - which you’ll also find among the slides below. You can also check out some pics of people having fun at the event, taken kindly by Goiridh 📸 After breaking into two separate big groups (one for free-form Gaelic conversation, the other for sharing feedback in English), we tidied everything away, and that rounded off another wee afternoon at An Lòchran.
Six of us also headed down t’ road to the Lismore for a wee drink afterwards, to keep the Gaelic/English conversation going and enjoy some good craic. Always a pleasure!
See you all next time - and keep going, even if it’s not always easy!
Andy, Stephen and your An Lòchran team xx
