Multi - Gaeilge

[linguoboy]

Tá Caitlín ag léamh leabhar ina seomra. - Caitlín is reading a book in her room.

In Connacht Irish, I think leabhar would most likely be in the nominative, but genitive (leabhair) is Standard.

Nuair a bhíonn an t-am agam, scríobhfaidh mé litir chugat. - When I have time, I’ll write you a letter.
Ba mhaith liom tú a phósadh. - I want to marry you.
Ba mhaith le Caitlín dul a chodladh. - Caitlín wants to go to bed.

Dul a chodladh means "going to sleep". "Going to bed" is translated as dul a luí. (Luí is the verb-noun of luigh "lie".)

[Multiturquoise]

Go raibh maith agat! In which cases is it required to use the genitive case?

Which is correct?
Tá mé ag ithe ubh.
or
Tá mé ag ithe uibhe.

I'm slowly learning the language... Having only some minor mistakes makes me happy (but everyone makes mistakes, even in their mother tongue), and I'm impatient for the Irish course on Duolingo.

And one more question: Which books do you recommend me for learning Irish? Have you ever used Teach Yourself, Routledge (Colloquial and Grammar Workbooks) or Living Language Irish? If you did, can you please review those books for me?

[linguoboy]

Go raibh maith agat! In which cases is it required to use the genitive case?

Are you specifically talking about the objects of verb-nouns? Generally speaking, the genitive is used except with indefinite objects that are further qualified by some sort of modifier. Thus:

Tá Caitlín ag léamh leabhair. (indefinite, not further qualified)
Tá Caitlín ag léamh leabhar staire. (indefinite, further qualified)
Tá Caitlín ag léamh an leabhair. (definite, not further qualified)
Tá Caitlín ag léamh an leabhair staire. (definite, further qualified)

Which is correct?
Tá mé ag ithe ubh.
or
Tá mé ag ithe uibhe.

Both are, depending on dialect. In some varieties (e.g. Muskerry), ubh is treated as a masculine noun of the first declension. This means that ubh is both the nominative singular and the genitive plural while uibh is the nominative plural and genitive singular. In these varieties, Tá mé ag ithe ubh means "I'm eating eggs". In Standard Irish, ubh is an irregular feminine noun of the second declension with genitive singular in uibhe and plural (all cases) uibheacha (but uibhe after numberals). Tá mé ag ithe uibhe thus means "I'm eating an egg".

And one more question: Which books do you recommend me for learning Irish? Have you ever used Teach Yourself, Routledge (Colloquial and Grammar Workbooks) or Living Language Irish? If you did, can you please review those books for me?

I've used Teach Yourself Irish, but only the older edition which teaches Cork dialect. I can't speak to the current edition at all.

I'm also familiar with Learning Irish, which teaches the dialect of Cois Fhairrge (a Connacht variety). It's a solid introduction with lots of exercises.

[księżycowy]

And one more question: Which books do you recommend me for learning Irish? Have you ever used Teach Yourself, Routledge (Colloquial and Grammar Workbooks) or Living Language Irish? If you did, can you please review those books for me?

I'm also familiar with Learning Irish, which teaches the dialect of Cois Fhairrge (a Connacht variety). It's a solid introduction with lots of exercises.

I second Learning Irish, it is what I was using a while back (and hope to return to eventually). I found it quite a comprehensive course. The only short-coming I would point out is sometimes the explanations can be a bit lacking. I recommend supplementing with the Routledge Irish workbooks.

Living Irish, TY Irish and Colloquial Irish all pale in comparision really. The only thing I would say is, Colloquial can be a good way to pick up extra practice and more conversational language for Cois Fhairre. Other than that, it's not anything to write home about.

[Multiturquoise]

Which is more accurate? (Both may be partially wrong)
Fáiltíonn an Tuirc roimh duit.
or
Tá an Tuirc ag fáiltiú roimh duit.
?
(I wanted to mean "Turkey welcomes you.")

I need an accurate translation,

Thanks

[Ciarán12]

Which is more accurate? (Both may be partially wrong)
Fáiltíonn an Tuirc roimh duit.
or
Tá an Tuirc ag fáiltiú roimh duit.
?
(I wanted to mean "Turkey welcomes you.")

1) The expression only uses the preposition "roimh", not "roimh" followed by "do", so leave out the "duit" and conjugate "roimh" directly for the person being welcomed (the form for the second person singular would be "romhat").

2) I think out of the two of those the simple present is better than the present continuous, but I would actually prefer to use the construction "fáilte a chur roimh dhuine".

So my suggestion would be "Cuireann an Tuirc fáilte romhat" (if you are talking to one person) or "Cuireann an Tuirc fáilte romhaibh" (if you are addressing many people).

[Multiturquoise]

Which is more accurate? (Both may be partially wrong)
Fáiltíonn an Tuirc roimh duit.
or
Tá an Tuirc ag fáiltiú roimh duit.
?
(I wanted to mean "Turkey welcomes you.")

1) The expression only uses the preposition "roimh", not "roimh" followed by "do", so leave out the "duit" and conjugate "roimh" directly for the person being welcomed (the form for the second person singular would be "romhat").

2) I think out of the two of those the simple present is better than the present continuous, but I would actually prefer to use the construction "fáilte a chur roimh dhuine".

So my suggestion would be "Cuireann an Tuirc fáilte romhat" (if you are talking to one person) or "Cuireann an Tuirc fáilte romhaibh" (if you are addressing many people).

Go raibh míle maith agat, a Chiaráin! Now I have learnt something important!

I'll prepare an Irish-Turkish-Irish dictionary, because there are no books about Irish written in Turkish. They (or maybe I) may translate existing Irish books with English description into Turkish. But first, we need a dictionary.

[Multiturquoise]

Let's keep doing drills.

Tá a fhios ag mo chailín go bhfuil ocras orm. - My girlfriend knows that I'm hungry.
Is breá liom mo chailín. - I love my girlfriend.
Is mise an buachaill Cháit. - I'm Cáit's boyfriend.
Tá Eimíle ina cónaí sa Tuirc. - Eimíle lives in Turkey.
Tá Mallaidh ina cónaí in Ancara. - Mallaidh lives in Ankara.
Is tusa mo mhuirnín, a Eimíle! - You're my sweetheart, Eimíle!
Is mise Úna. - I'm Una.

And I want to ask you something. What's the difference between i and sa(n)?
And what's the difference between is mise and is ... mé?

[Ciarán12]

That all looks fine, just one thing:

Is breá liom mo chailín. - I love my girlfriend.

Is breá liom... tends to be used to talk about things you love, not people as far as I know.
Some alternatives:
Tá mé i ngrá le mo chailín.
Tá grá agam do mo chailín.
Tá grá agam ar mo chailín.
(Is) grá mo chroí í mo chailín.

And I want to ask you something. What's the difference between i and sa(n)?

sa is the form in the standard language that you get when you have i + an before a word beginning with a consonant. It is san before a vowel.

And what's the difference between is mise and is ... mé?

Is mise... is more emphatic. When introducing yourself, you would use Is mise Caitlín, not *Is Caitlín mé though.

[linguoboy]

Is mise an buachaill Cháit.

You never use an article with a noun when the noun qualifying it is definite.

[Multiturquoise]

Is mise an buachaill Cháit.

You never use an article with a noun when the noun qualifying it is definite.

It was my fault Thanks!

I'm writing a dialogue as a drill now. In the text, a girl called Úna introduces herself to a boy called Oisín.

Ú: Dia duit! Is mise Úna. Cad is ainm duit?
O: Dia's Muire dhuit, a Úna! Is mise Oisín. Conas atá tú?
Ú: Tá mé go han-bhreá, go raibh maith agat! Agus tusa?
O: Tá mé go breá freisin. Cén aois thú, a Úna?
Ú: Tá mé sé bliana déag d'aois. Agus tusa?
O: Tá mé cúig bliana déag d'aois. Cad as duit?
Ú: Is as Éirinn mé. Agus tusa?
O: Is as Éirinn mé freisin. Is deas casadh leat!
Ú: Go raibh maith agat!

Ú: Hello! I'm Úna. What's your name?
O: Hello, Úna! I'm Oisín. How are you?
Ú: I'm very fine, thank you! And you?
O: I'm fine too. How old are you, Úna?
Ú: I'm sixteen years old. And you?
O: I'm fifteen years old. Where are you from?
Ú: I'm from Ireland. And you?
O: I'm from Ireland too. Nice to meet you!
Ú: Thank you!

[linguoboy]

Is deas casadh leat!

This jarred me. Grammatically, there's nothing wrong with it, but it just feels so literally translated from English. It's not something I think native Irish speakers would typically say in this situation. They would just ask, "How are you?"

On top of that, casadh le has the sense of an unplanned meeting. In fact, it's usually used with the impersonal, i.e. Casadh liom/orm/umam é lit. "It turned with/on/about me him". So the meaning is something like, "I'm glad I ran into you", which might be appropriate to the situation or might not. Is deas bualadh leat is more common.

Generally, though, the meaning of "Nice to meet you" in English is similar to "Pleased to make your acquaintance." In Irish, this could be expressed as, "Tá áthas orm aithne a chur ort." But that sounds as formal to me as the English equivalent, if not more so.

[Ciarán12]

Is mise an buachaill Cháit.

You never use an article with a noun when the noun qualifying it is definite.

I always forget that proper names are definite.

Ú: Tá mé go han-bhreá, go raibh maith agat! Agus tusa?

"Tá mé go han-bhreá" sounds a but weird to me here, I've never heard anyone say it. I would say "Tá mé go breá" or "Tá mé go han-mhaith".

[Multiturquoise]

Thank you both, Ciarán12 and linguoboy!

I'm currently gathering the phrases I wrote (right ones, and corrected versions of the wrong ones that I wrote here) on Google Translate's Phrasebook. I don't post what I get from machine translation. I've just wanted to improve my Irish by saving all the phrases I wrote here to the Phrasebook. What do you think about this?

Here is a picture of it:

[Ciarán12]

There is no fada on the first "e" in "feiceáil", the rest looks okay to me.

What is Google Translate's Phrasebook by the way? I've never heard of it

[Multiturquoise]

There is no fada on the first "e" in "feiceáil", the rest looks okay to me.

What is Google Translate's Phrasebook by the way? I've never heard of it

Google Translate Phrasebook is a personal phrasebook, so you need to log in.

First, go to Google Translate, you will see an icon under your avatar.

[Multiturquoise]

The numbers from one to six cause lenition, and seven to ten cause eclipsis. I'm trying to keep this in my mind.

http://www.omniglot.com/language/numbers/irish.htm I'll use this as a reference.

Causes lenition:
1 aon
2 dhá/beirt
3 trí/tríur
4 ceithre/ceathrar
5 cúig/cúigear
6 sé/seisear

Causes eclipsis:
7 seacht/seachtar
8 ocht/ochtar
9 naoi/naonúr
10 deich/deichniúr

[linguoboy]

The numbers from one to six cause lenition, and seven to ten cause eclipsis. I'm trying to keep this in my mind.

Important caveat: This only applies when the following noun is singular. When it is in the plural (which is the usual practice with ceann and units of measurements, including years), it is still eclipsed after 7-10, but not lenited after 1-6. So trí cheantar "three districts" but trí cinn "three pieces/heads". (This is why it's sé bliana déag d'aois in your example above and not *sé bhliain déag.)

The personal numbers (beirt, tríúr, etc.) follow different rules because they are nouns, not attributive numerals. Historically, they took the genitive plural, but nowadays the nominative singular is more common except with the noun bean. (For many nouns [e.g. first declension masculines such as fear] there's no difference between these two forms.) So beirt bhan/fhear, tríúr ban/fear, etc.

You can find a fuller treatment of Irish numerals here: http://www.nualeargais.ie/gnag/gram.htm.

[Multiturquoise]

Thank you!

Cad a cheapann tú faoin scannán? - What do you think about the film?
An féachfaidh tú ar an nuacht? - Will you watch the news?
Tá mé ag féachaint ort. - I'm looking at you.
Féach orm. - Look at me.
Níor mhaith liom féachaint ar do aghaidh. - I don't want to look at your face.
Ní rachaidh mé go dtí an Iaráic. - I won't go to Iraq.
Ní raibh mé go breá inné. - I wasn't fine yesterday.
An raibh tú ag scríobh do leabhar féin? - Were you writing your own book?

[linguoboy]

An raibh tú ag scríobh do leabhair féin? - Were you writing your own book?

Remember, possessed nouns are definite: do leabhar = an leabhar atá agat.