Speak Gaelic in the Garden

Embracing our native language

With our origins very much planted in the Highlands, we want to embrace our Gaelic roots with an introduction to our native language for our team and customers. Gardening is for everyone and we want to share some of the wonderful Gaelic words which relate to the garden, gardening, plants and wildlife.

We introduced our ‘Gaelic for Gardeners’ project in 2022 with some short videos incorporating lots of lovely phrases, through Anna from our outdoor team whose first language is Gaelic.  From there we hope to include more dual language signage across the garden centre as well as more videos, fun learning and local Gaelic school visits.

We’re also collaborating with BBC ALBA, who featured our Gaelic for Gardeners project on their An La programme and have welcomed their news teams on a number of occasions when they filming local news pieces.

Why not visit our YouTube channel and learn about some of the key gardening phrases brought to you by Anna from our outdoor team. Look out for more videos coming soon.

If there’s anything you’d like to see featured in our ‘Gaelic for Gardeners’ project, please get in touch by emailing Siobhan MacBean at: siobhan@simpsonsgc.co.uk.

Learn more Scottish Gaelic

If you’re interested in learning more Gaelic, you can do so through by visiting the following websites:

• LearnGaelic – Beginners, Intermediate and Proficient speaker levels on the LearnGaelic website
• Duolingo – Learn online and through an app for beginners. Nearly 5 million people are subscribed to learn Gaelic on Duolingo and you can find out more on the Duolingo website.
• GaelicCourses.com – Online bespoke classes from North Uist
• You can also start your Gaelic journey at: www.speakgaelic.scot

Gaelic dictionaries and vocabularies

• Am Faclair Beag – offers an online Gaelic Dictionary
• Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba (AÀA) (Gaelic Place-Names of Scotland) is the national advisory partnership for Gaelic place-names in Scotland and provides a free resource on the Gaelic forms of place-names on the Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba website
• Faclair Nàdair SNH – Scotland’s Nature Agency has an online dictionary of Gaelic nature words on the NatureScot website
• Faclair Gàidhlig Àrainneachd Eachdraidheil Alba – the Historic Environment Scotland website has a Gaelic thesaurus available in the learning section
• As well as lessons, LearnGaelic also offers a dictionary with example phrases in the LearnGaelic dictionary