Learning Gaelic Through The Medium Of Greenock Morton And Ross County

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Well before we go into Gaelic let's start with this evening's FA cup victory of Newport over Leicester City. You know when Leicester equalised you thought you were about to see the sort of game where the plucky underdog got steamrollered by the top league opponent. But Newport bit back. They deserved the victory.

Just hope they're not drawn against West Ham in the next round.

Anyway earlier this morning I'd decided to start learning Gaelic by watching a football match on the BBC Iplayer. As I've mentioned before when starting to learn Welsh I would concentrate on two types of programmes, preschool and sports, for the simple reason that I'd have some idea what was going on.

Preschool programmes would teach me more on the vocabulary. Sports would be more to hear Gaelic being spoken even though I'd understand little. The point of listening at this time is just getting an ear to the language and tuning yourself in.

The match was a Scottish Championship (ie second tier) game between Greenock Morton and Ross County. Which was shown live last Friday on the BBC Gaelic channel BBC Alba. Ross County were leading the division and were the favourites for the night.

Now I must be honest the first half for the neutral was a dull affair. I know this through how much my attention was distracted by peripheral things.

Such as:

Ross County's shirt sponsors are a company called McEwen Fraser (who I learnt later are estate agents). Probably the most Scottish sounding sponsors you could get.

Greenock Morton seem a very local club judged by their advertising hoardings. For in the midst of national bookmakers you could also see hoardings for butchers, wedding and funeral services. All human life is there (and let's not forget the one for International fine Art Auctioneers).

The Greenock Morton shirt are blue hoops over a white background QPR style. Thing is as symbolism goes the fact the hoops dissolve as they go across the chest is not a good look.

Yes the match was that dull. The first half finished nil-nil. Which was consequently the first Gaelic word I learnt (Neonini).

The second half was almost as dull. But Greenock Morton scored. A poacher's goal but no matter. A goal is a goal. One - nil then. One being aon in Gaelic. Closest way I can describe the pronunciation is Un in French.

The only other bit of interest was the confrontation between a Greenock Morton player and the Ross County manager. Trust me when I say I haven't learnt the Gaelic for handbags at dawn.

So it ended One-nil. Later through Twitter later I've also learnt the word for weather "Aimsir".

The crawl in learning a language begins.

Until the next time.