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Bho Gàidhilg go Gaeilge: Having one helps the other, sort of

Bho Gàidhilg go Gaeilge: Having one helps the other, sort of Jeff W. Justice Department of Celtic and Scottish Studies The University of Edinburgh While the Celtic languages are my passion and current research priority, they are not the first that I learned. I took Castilian Spanish for several years during my secondary education, and I became fairly fluent in it. Then the Internet became generally accessible, and I found myself scouring Spanish-language news sources, but also occasionally reading items in Portuguese and finding that – with a modicum of help from a dictionary – that I could read it as well, despite having never had any formal coursework in it. I still pick up only bits here and there when I hear European or Brazilian Portuguese, but I have still have few problems reading it. (I became fluent in French later on, and that also helped, but that’s a story for another day.)   Having prior experience learning any new language made easier for me the task of learning