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1mta
This is a way of assessing a Gaelic book's readability, or level of challenge, for you. Simply choose a random page (or just start from the beginning) noting words you need to look up. Some people like to underline in pencil, some prefer to keep their books pristine and make a note separately. Whichever way you do it, STOP when you reach a total of five words. Then count the number of words you have read. This number is your 5-word score.
Of course it's only a rough measure - another page might have given a different result. But it's still a useful indication.
I like to pencil the score on the inside front cover, or on the title page. If you revisit it from time to time, you can see your improvement - and there will be some, if you read Gaelic regularly, even for 5-
10 minutes a day.
A 5-word score could be useful as a tag on LT (librarything). If we came up with a standard format, it would be a step towards a grading system that would be of benefit to everybody.
What do people think?
Of course it's only a rough measure - another page might have given a different result. But it's still a useful indication.
I like to pencil the score on the inside front cover, or on the title page. If you revisit it from time to time, you can see your improvement - and there will be some, if you read Gaelic regularly, even for 5-
10 minutes a day.
A 5-word score could be useful as a tag on LT (librarything). If we came up with a standard format, it would be a step towards a grading system that would be of benefit to everybody.
What do people think?
2LesMiserables
What happens if I max out my 5 on the 5th word? ;-)
3mta
Then you have a five word score of 5. If you actually look up those 5 words, and then read on, the worst that can happen is that you double your score to 10! :)
4mta
So, inspired by this group, I actually got round to starting Sgeulachd Bheniàmin Coineanach. My 5-word score is 68. That's 5 words I was actually forced to look up - I don't count words I can guess from context. That's four pages of text, in this book.
What were the five words?
sìnteag - a hop, a bound
thog e air - he set off (familiar words in unfamiliar expressions count)
mùtan - a muff
luibhean - herbs
lus na tùise - lavender
I was kicking myself over that last one - it's in the illustration! Without that, it would have been a much higher score - but that's the way it goes. It's not a competition, it's a way of assessing how easy a text is to read.
I put these, and many more, onto a vocab list I created at http://www.flashcardexchange.com/
This is a site where you can create flashcards - a Q&A list on a topic. Flashcard Exchange (FCX for short) is a bit primitive by current web standards, but it does what it says on the tin, for free. I use it quite a lot.
If you want to see my Benjamin Bunny vocab list of 60 words and expressions (so far) they should be visible tomorrow (I did say it was a bit primitive!). You can try this link
http://www.flashcardexchange.com/flashcards/list/1425056
but it might not work (reasons too boring to go into).
Alternatively, you can access them by going to the site, and choosing "Directory". There's a search box in the top right - you might need to scroll over to see it. Enter the tag "beatrix".
The cards are in the order the words appear in the text. You can view them as a list while you read, test yourself on them or play a memory game.
Wouldn't it be great if we could create co-operative vocab lists for any Gaelic book? This would be possible on FCX, but if anyone knows of a better free to use site, I'd love to hear of it.
What were the five words?
sìnteag - a hop, a bound
thog e air - he set off (familiar words in unfamiliar expressions count)
mùtan - a muff
luibhean - herbs
lus na tùise - lavender
I was kicking myself over that last one - it's in the illustration! Without that, it would have been a much higher score - but that's the way it goes. It's not a competition, it's a way of assessing how easy a text is to read.
I put these, and many more, onto a vocab list I created at http://www.flashcardexchange.com/
This is a site where you can create flashcards - a Q&A list on a topic. Flashcard Exchange (FCX for short) is a bit primitive by current web standards, but it does what it says on the tin, for free. I use it quite a lot.
If you want to see my Benjamin Bunny vocab list of 60 words and expressions (so far) they should be visible tomorrow (I did say it was a bit primitive!). You can try this link
http://www.flashcardexchange.com/flashcards/list/1425056
but it might not work (reasons too boring to go into).
Alternatively, you can access them by going to the site, and choosing "Directory". There's a search box in the top right - you might need to scroll over to see it. Enter the tag "beatrix".
The cards are in the order the words appear in the text. You can view them as a list while you read, test yourself on them or play a memory game.
Wouldn't it be great if we could create co-operative vocab lists for any Gaelic book? This would be possible on FCX, but if anyone knows of a better free to use site, I'd love to hear of it.
5MacShealbhaich
I like this idea. I'm going to give it a go when I can find some minutes to spare in the next couple of days. I reckon that I might make LesMiserables score.
6mta
Do let us know how you get on!
I have finished Sgeulachd Bheniamin Coineanach now - what a delight!
As it was so short, I calculated 5-word scores as I read, and they went like this: 68, 374, 893 and finally 1128, the number of words in the book. In this case, I felt justified in adding the previous total at each point, as a lot of the words were coming up again and I remembered them. This would not always be the case, so I wouldn't always do it.
I looked up 19 words in total, so it works out that I'm having to look up roughly 1 word in every 60, which reflects the fact that this was, for me, a nice, easy read.
This is far from always being the case, of course! With something like a novel, I would probably just work out an average number of words per line, and do a 5-word score two or three times, or on a re-read, to compare with a first read.
There was one word that eluded me, however. Not surprisingly I could not find the word "clo-rabaid" in the dictionary. Literally, it means "rabbit cloth", and it is mentioned on page 11 as the material which Mrs Rabbit uses in her mitten-knitting business. Could it be a kind of homespun angora? I'd love to know what word Beatrix Potter used, but I don't have the book and have never read it in English, so if anyone can check that for me, I'd be very grateful. The page number is presumably the same, as it has to match the illustration.
Two other expressions to treasure are "cruinn-leum" - "a precisely _targetted leap", and "air a h-ur chur" (grave accent on "ur"), meaning "newly planted" - try saying it aloud!
(Edited to correct annoying typo)
I have finished Sgeulachd Bheniamin Coineanach now - what a delight!
As it was so short, I calculated 5-word scores as I read, and they went like this: 68, 374, 893 and finally 1128, the number of words in the book. In this case, I felt justified in adding the previous total at each point, as a lot of the words were coming up again and I remembered them. This would not always be the case, so I wouldn't always do it.
I looked up 19 words in total, so it works out that I'm having to look up roughly 1 word in every 60, which reflects the fact that this was, for me, a nice, easy read.
This is far from always being the case, of course! With something like a novel, I would probably just work out an average number of words per line, and do a 5-word score two or three times, or on a re-read, to compare with a first read.
There was one word that eluded me, however. Not surprisingly I could not find the word "clo-rabaid" in the dictionary. Literally, it means "rabbit cloth", and it is mentioned on page 11 as the material which Mrs Rabbit uses in her mitten-knitting business. Could it be a kind of homespun angora? I'd love to know what word Beatrix Potter used, but I don't have the book and have never read it in English, so if anyone can check that for me, I'd be very grateful. The page number is presumably the same, as it has to match the illustration.
Two other expressions to treasure are "cruinn-leum" - "a precisely _targetted leap", and "air a h-ur chur" (grave accent on "ur"), meaning "newly planted" - try saying it aloud!
(Edited to correct annoying typo)
7mta
Read a short story, Taibhs (Ghost), from Eadar Da Sgeul, with a five word score (for me) of 645, using an estimated average of 11 words per line.
Again, an easy read, and not a bad story (though not a particularly good one, either).
I see, now that I have it, that the book is aimed at high school children, so I hope it will be quite accessible.
And upbeat. If there's one thing I hate, it's struggling through difficult grammar and tortuous sentence construction, to find that the main character, with whom I have gone to the trouble of identifying, commits suicide. Or the story starts with someone wondering where their life has gone, as they sit beside a terminal patient in a bleak hospital ward while the rain lashes down outside, and ends with them still wondering, the patient still dying and the rain still lashing.
Gimme a break! I think a lot of Gaelic writers equate "serious" with "grim". Is it the Highland weather?
What do people think? And can anyone recommend an amusing, witty, entertaining short story?
I'll let you know if I come across any.
Again, an easy read, and not a bad story (though not a particularly good one, either).
I see, now that I have it, that the book is aimed at high school children, so I hope it will be quite accessible.
And upbeat. If there's one thing I hate, it's struggling through difficult grammar and tortuous sentence construction, to find that the main character, with whom I have gone to the trouble of identifying, commits suicide. Or the story starts with someone wondering where their life has gone, as they sit beside a terminal patient in a bleak hospital ward while the rain lashes down outside, and ends with them still wondering, the patient still dying and the rain still lashing.
Gimme a break! I think a lot of Gaelic writers equate "serious" with "grim". Is it the Highland weather?
What do people think? And can anyone recommend an amusing, witty, entertaining short story?
I'll let you know if I come across any.
8mta
5W740 - that's my 5 word score for the story Cafe Ranji by Domhnall Iain MacIomhair, from the collection Eadar Da Sgeul.
The story concerns a Gaelic-speaking Asian teenager who opens a cafe in the slily-named Hebridean village of Tobhtabost.
This was an exceptionally easy-to-read story - few unknown words, simple sentence construction and familiar locations and settings. it was also a very good short story - told with a sort of deadpan humour, and with an ending that is genuinely thought-provoking.
I heartily recommend it.
The story concerns a Gaelic-speaking Asian teenager who opens a cafe in the slily-named Hebridean village of Tobhtabost.
This was an exceptionally easy-to-read story - few unknown words, simple sentence construction and familiar locations and settings. it was also a very good short story - told with a sort of deadpan humour, and with an ending that is genuinely thought-provoking.
I heartily recommend it.
9mta
I'm using my five word scores as tags in the following format:
5W000
where "000" is replaced with the number of words read for 5 look-ups. I'm using trailing zeros - so 68 words shows as 5W068. This allows LT to list them in numerical order, so that I can now see a list of my books ordered by difficulty - most difficult first.
I've decided to limit it to a top value of 5W999, as that would represent a book in which I only had to look up five words in every 1,000 - whether it's five in every thousand, or five in every two thousand, it's still easy-peasy, and the tag is only really useful for grading the more difficult material. So 5W999 essentially represents a book that can be comfortably enjoyed with minimal use of the dictionary. There's only one, so far - our old friend Benjamin Bunny!
As a tag, the 5W score is of most use to me, of course, but perhaps still of some use to others, as the relative grades would probably be more or less valid, if not the actual numbers. In other words, if book A is easier for me than book B, then it's probably easier for you, too.
The score on any one book may change as I go through it. Most of the scores are an initial calculation, to see how much of a challenge the book is going to be. Mostly, that is the most useful information, so I'd probably leave it. Sometimes, however, an averaged out score is a truer reflection, so I'd edit it.
I'm hoping, that if enough of us use this system, we can work out a general grading system, of use to learners, as the differences in our reading fluency would average out. There are still plenty of things to consider, to I'm open to suggestions and comments.
Edited to correct my careless maths
5W000
where "000" is replaced with the number of words read for 5 look-ups. I'm using trailing zeros - so 68 words shows as 5W068. This allows LT to list them in numerical order, so that I can now see a list of my books ordered by difficulty - most difficult first.
I've decided to limit it to a top value of 5W999, as that would represent a book in which I only had to look up five words in every 1,000 - whether it's five in every thousand, or five in every two thousand, it's still easy-peasy, and the tag is only really useful for grading the more difficult material. So 5W999 essentially represents a book that can be comfortably enjoyed with minimal use of the dictionary. There's only one, so far - our old friend Benjamin Bunny!
As a tag, the 5W score is of most use to me, of course, but perhaps still of some use to others, as the relative grades would probably be more or less valid, if not the actual numbers. In other words, if book A is easier for me than book B, then it's probably easier for you, too.
The score on any one book may change as I go through it. Most of the scores are an initial calculation, to see how much of a challenge the book is going to be. Mostly, that is the most useful information, so I'd probably leave it. Sometimes, however, an averaged out score is a truer reflection, so I'd edit it.
I'm hoping, that if enough of us use this system, we can work out a general grading system, of use to learners, as the differences in our reading fluency would average out. There are still plenty of things to consider, to I'm open to suggestions and comments.
Edited to correct my careless maths
10mta
5W216 - my five-word score on the first story in Thall's A-Bhos, a collection of translations of classic short stories by Calum Greum and Donnchadh Mac Ill Iosa. There are 7 stories, one each from
Jorge Luis Borges
Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Damon Runyon
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Bernard Malamud
James Joyce and
Neil Munro
I'm starting with Borges, as he is one of my favourite writers - isn't he one of everyone's? The story is The Mirror and the Mask, and is set in Ireland, just after the battle of Clontarf.
My five words include a surprising one:
co-thoinnte - complicated (from toinn, twist)
gràisg - common people, riff-raff
faoin-sgeul - fiction ( lit "an idle tale")
aoireadh - satirise
luibhre - leprosy
Apparently, a well-turned satire can cause its victim to suffer from skin complaints, up to and including leprosy.
It's a little hard going, as the bard boasts of his skill in the technicalities of his profession, but of course, feels very natural in Gaelic.
Not sure if that will be true of the Damon Runyon one - whatever are they going to do with his language? I couldn't resist a quick glance - "Iasg gefillte" - now there's two words I never thought I'd see together in Gaelic!
Jorge Luis Borges
Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Damon Runyon
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Bernard Malamud
James Joyce and
Neil Munro
I'm starting with Borges, as he is one of my favourite writers - isn't he one of everyone's? The story is The Mirror and the Mask, and is set in Ireland, just after the battle of Clontarf.
My five words include a surprising one:
co-thoinnte - complicated (from toinn, twist)
gràisg - common people, riff-raff
faoin-sgeul - fiction ( lit "an idle tale")
aoireadh - satirise
luibhre - leprosy
Apparently, a well-turned satire can cause its victim to suffer from skin complaints, up to and including leprosy.
It's a little hard going, as the bard boasts of his skill in the technicalities of his profession, but of course, feels very natural in Gaelic.
Not sure if that will be true of the Damon Runyon one - whatever are they going to do with his language? I couldn't resist a quick glance - "Iasg gefillte" - now there's two words I never thought I'd see together in Gaelic!
11mta
5W999 - another easy-peasy title! Oidhche Mhath Sam by Amy Hest. It's for children just old enough to be read a bedtime story, and a Gaelic beginner could read it easily. You could almost read it without knowing any Gaelic at all.
If you do a tag search on 5W999, you will find those books that are the easiest of all. Most of them will be books for young children, so you get pretty pictures and a chance to assess your reading age as well.
If you do a tag search on 5W999, you will find those books that are the easiest of all. Most of them will be books for young children, so you get pretty pictures and a chance to assess your reading age as well.
12mta
5W145 - one hundred and forty-five words read for 5 looked up - that's my score on Sgeulachd Mhgr Ieremiah Iasgair by Beatrix Potter. Lots of fishy vocab, of course -
doirbeag - a minnow
stangar - a stickleback
geadas - a pike
I recommend it to any keen fisherpeople out there, as a useful source of words for fishing tackle and fishing.
It's also a very funny story, with superb illustrations - brilliant!
typo edit
doirbeag - a minnow
stangar - a stickleback
geadas - a pike
I recommend it to any keen fisherpeople out there, as a useful source of words for fishing tackle and fishing.
It's also a very funny story, with superb illustrations - brilliant!
typo edit
13mta
Here's where I got a bit fancy, recording my 5 word score for a short story in Eadar Da Sgeul. It's a retelling of the old ghostly hitchhiker story, called "An Lioft" ("The Lift"), by Monica Striewe, a Gaelic learner.
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