Hit my 100-day streak on Duolingo yesterday, Scottish Gaelic everyday, plus a couple days poking around Irish when I got bored.
I feel like I'm maybe at the 102 level in a language class, if I'd paid attention in a language class instead of drawing cartoons.
I don't try to win the Duolingo leaderboard game, I just crank it out rock-solid 4 or 5 lessons a day.
NEAT THINGS ABOUT SCOTTISH GAELIC:
I see lots of Norse, French, and Latin vocabulary hiding in there, similar to English. No surprise given the influences. Mostly the same as Irish, with some spelling differences and meaning shifts-- the Scottish word "to speak" comes off as "to brawl" in Irish.
"Bod ort" (sounds like Bo Torsht) means "a dick on you." Can be used like "Fuck it," or maybe literally. "Tha mo thon goirt" (Ha mo hohn gorshch) is "my ass is sore."
Apparently there's some Pictish influence. Supposedly the Picts spoke a language more closely related to Welsh, and Picts lived everywhere the Scotti settled when they came over from Ireland and they boinked and had bebbies. The Scottish verb system is simpler than the Irish one, and I am told (by people in Youtube videos) that the original Irish system altered in Scottish to match up with a Welsh-like one thanks to these Picts.
(Though why it couldn't have come from the Similar-to-Welsh extinct Cumbrian language, spoken in SW Scotland in the Kingdom of Strathclyde, I know not.)
I mentioned that I sometimes snuck over to Irish Duolingo. Mostly able to puzzle it out, probably mostly because I'm just a language nerd rather than any pan-Celtic comprehension. The vibe of the two courses is different: the Irish speakers sound like humorless schoolteachers trying to enforce discipline, while the Scottish ones sound happy to see you and they're pouring you a drink. Only a handful of contributors to each course, but that's how it struck me.
SCOTTISH GAELIC IN MY LIFE NOW:
As stated before, I speak it with my dog, and work on Duolingo in our den with my wife playing whatever game she's into. I will shout the answers either in Gaelic, or my best Rob Roy rendition of English. As a result, my wife now knows enough to shout out some answers first if I get slack.
There is a subculture here of people who know a little, and I have drawn them out with artwork inscribed with Gaelic phrases. Then we yell it back and forth like savages. Picked up some commissions from the bagpiper crowd. But the main thing it's fun.