Gaeilge - Caoimhín

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Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby kevin » 2013-02-09, 16:04

Right, Ciarán told me to start a thread, so here it is.

Let me start with a corrected version of Llawygath's story, hope I didn't mess up the corrections:
Cá bhfuil an cat? Is sa teach atá an cat. An bhfuil an cat ar an leaba? Níl, tá an cat ar an doras. Tá an cat ina chodladh ar an doras. An bhfuil an doras ina luí ar a thaobh? Tá. An bhfuil an leaba te? Níl.
Cá bhfuil cat an tsiopa? Tá cat an tsoipa sa siopa. Tá an cat seo ar an arán. An bhfuil an t-arán sa siopa? Níl. Ní féidir sin!

Cá bhfuil an madra? Tá an madra faoin gcarr. An bhfuil an carr te? Tá. An bhfuil an madra ina chodladh? Tá.
Tá sé déanach. Ba chóir dom a bheith sa leaba. Tá mo chat ina chodladh ar an doras. Tá cat an tsiopa ina chodladh ar an arán. Tá an madra ina chodladh faoin gcarr.


So the plan was that Ciarán thinks up something slightly harder for me to translate. Now I'm curious what it will be! :D

Ciarán12

Re: Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby Ciarán12 » 2013-02-09, 18:18

Okay, I've got it. I hope it's not too much of a leap (but if you were able to go from zero to Llawgath's story, I think you can manage this). Good luck! :)

The man opened the door. He walked into the room. A child was sitting on a chair in the room. She was watch TV. The man who walked into the room was angry, because the child was watching TV. The man asked her why she was watching TV. She said that she was tired, but that she will do her homework later. Who was the man? The man was the child's father. Why was he angry? He was angry because the child had not got her homework done.

...as Gaeilge le do thoil :)

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Re: Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby linguoboy » 2013-02-09, 18:35

When you're finished with that, here's a moving passage from my Teach Yourself Latvian book which I once described as "like a fifth-grader trying to write an Ibsen play".
A light flame burns on the range. I sit by the fire and wait for tea. Mother cooks fish for tea. At breakfast we drink coffee. My little sister drinks a jug of hot milk. Father drinks a healthy mug of beer. Our mother has many sleepless nights. The younger brother is sick. Mother cries: her eyes are full of tears. She says, "I cry on account of you."

Some useful vocabulary:
ag dó "burning"
ag fanacht le "waiting for"
crúiscín "small pitcher, jug"
deirfiúr bheag (f.) "little sister"
sornóg (f.) "range, kitchen stove"
gan chodladh "sleepless"
le haghaidh an tae "for tea"
mar gheall ort "on account of you"
lán de "full of"
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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Re: Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby kevin » 2013-02-10, 19:49

Ciarán12 wrote:Okay, I've got it. I hope it's not too much of a leap (but if you were able to go from zero to Llawgath's story, I think you can manage this). Good luck! :)

Go raibh maith agat, you seem to have a high opinion of me... :D

This was quite a challenge, and in the end I had to cut down a bit on my perfectionism so I could get it done in finite time. I fully expect some serious mistakes this time. Anyway, here's my attempt:
D'oscail an fear an doras. Chuaigh sé sa seomra. Bhí páiste ina shuí ar chathaoir sa seomra. Bhí sí ag faire ar an teilifís. Bhí fearg ón bhfear a chuaigh sa seomra mar bhí páiste ag faire ar an teilifís. D'iarr an fear í cén fáth a raibh sí ag faire ar an teilifís. Diúirt sí go raibh tuirse uirthi, ach dhéanfadh sí a hobair bhaile níos déanaí. Cérbh an fear? B'athair an pháiste an fear. Cén fáth a raibh fearg air? Bhí fearg air mar ní dhearna an páiste a hobair bhaile.

Ciarán12

Re: Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby Ciarán12 » 2013-02-10, 20:45

kevin wrote:D'oscail an fear an doras. Chuaigh sé sa seomra. Bhí páiste ina shuí ar chathaoir sa seomra. Bhí sí ag faire ar an teilifís. Bhí fearg ón bhfear a chuaigh sa seomra mar bhí páiste ag faire ar an teilifís. D'iarr an fear í cén fáth a raibh sí ag faire ar an teilifís. Diúirt sí go raibh tuirse uirthi, ach dhéanfadh sí a hobair bhaile níos déanaí. Cérbh an fear? B'athair an pháiste an fear. Cén fáth a raibh fearg air? Bhí fearg air mar ní dhearna an páiste a hobair bhaile.


That was a very good attempt, and there are fewer errors here than I think you expect.

Here's what I had:
D'oscail an fear an doras. Shiúil sé isteach sa seomra. Bhí páiste ina suí ar chathaoir sa seomra. Bhí sí ag féachaint ar an teilifís. Bhí fearg ar an fhear a shiúl isteach sa seomra, toisc go raibh an páiste ag féachaint ar an teilifís. D'iarr an fear uirthi cén fáth a raibh sí ag féachaint ar an teilifís. Dúirt sí go raibh tuirse uirthi, ach go ndéanfaidh sí a hobair bhaile níos moille. Cérbh é an fear? Ba é athair an pháiste an fear. Cén fáth a raibh fearg air? Bhí fearg air toisc nach raibh an páiste a hobair bhaile déanta aici.


Here's the breakdown of where I think your errors were:

kevin wrote:Chuaigh sé sa seomra.

"Chuaigh" - "went" is fine, although I chose "Shiúl" - "walked". You need "isteach" - "into, inside" in either case though.

kevin wrote:Bhí páiste ina shuí ar chathaoir sa seomra.

I'm not actually sure which of us is right here regarding lenition of "suí". I chose not to lenite it because the subject is a girl, but "páiste" is a masculine word, so maybe it depends on the grammatical gender of the word "páiste" rather than the real gender of the child. I suspect you're right.

kevin wrote:Bhí sí ag faire ar an teilifís.

"faire" is not the word you're looking for here (I had to look it up myself). "féachaint" is the (verbal noun of the) verb you're looking for. Everything else is fine.

kevin wrote: Bhí fearg ón bhfear a chuaigh sa seomra mar bhí páiste ag faire ar an teilifís.

"ón" means "from the" from "ó" - "from". What you want here is "ar an" - "on the", which you actually got right in the same idiom later on when you said "Cén fáth a raibh fearg air?" ("air" meaning "on him". To be clear, "tá fearg ar (duine éigin)" means literally "there is anger on (someone)" meaning "someone is angry". Obviously, you also got the "faire" and "chuaigh isteach sa seomra" bits wrong too (as mentioned before). "mar" can be used as "because" but if it has a verb after it like that you need the particle "a" between "mar" and the verb, so "mar a bhí...".

kevin wrote:D'iarr an fear í cén fáth a raibh sí ag faire ar an teilifís.

The verb is "iarr ar (duine éigin)" - "to ask (somebody)" (lit. "to request on (someone)", so instead of "D'iarr...í" (with a direct object pronoun, as it is in English) it's "D'iarr ... uirthi" (uirthi is the form taken when it's "ar" + "í").

kevin wrote:Diúirt sí go raibh tuirse uirthi, ach dhéanfadh sí a hobair bhaile níos déanaí.

Slight spelling mistake with "dúirt". You used the conditional "dhéanfadh", I used the future "déanfaidh", but I think both are fine. In fact, I think I prefer your phrasing. "níos déanaí" is what I wrote originally, but I looked up other ways of saying "later" and settled on "níos moille", because I think it means "later" more in the sense of "later on", as opposed to "a later edition of the book" (which is what I think "níos déanaí" means). I could be wrong.

kevin wrote:Cérbh an fear?

As far as I'm aware, "Cérbh" (being a copular construction) needs to have a dummy pronoun between it and a definite noun or noun phrase, which "an fear" is, so it would be "Cérbh é an fear?". TBH though, I messed that up completely originally. I thought it was "Cé ab ea é an fear?", which, when I googled "cérbh", I found out was wrong (so you see why I told you we'd need linguoboy for this!).

kevin wrote:B'athair an pháiste an fear

Same deal here with the copula + definite noun phrase - should be "Ba é athair an pháiste..." (or "b'é athair...").

kevin wrote:Bhí fearg air mar ní dhearna an páiste a hobair bhaile.

I think this is okay, but I don't really use "mar" as "because" as much as "toisc go", so I'm not sure .
You used the simple past, meaning "because she didn't do her homework", but I think the past perfect is more likely here "because she hadn't her homework done" (Irish English) or "because she hadn't got/gotten her homework done" (Standard English). You can do this in Irish by using the construction "bí....ag (duine éigin)" meaning "to have something" (as in "tá cat agam" - "I have a cat") with the verbal adjective in the format "(form of the verb "bí").....(verbal adjective) (inflected form of "ag" or "ag" + subject), as in "tá m'obair bhaile déanta agam" - "I have my homework done" (Irish English) or "I have done my homework" (Standard English).

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Re: Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby linguoboy » 2013-02-10, 21:09

[Ninja'ed by that bastard Ciarán.]

kevin wrote:Bhí sí ag faire ar an teilifís.

Faire is "watch" in the sense of "keep watch over", e.g. fear faire "watchman, lookout". I would say féachaint but in some dialects féach means chiefly "try" and they would prefer amharc hear or even breathnaigh.

kevin wrote:D'iarr an fear

Iarr is ask in the sense of "request" (i.e. bitten). "Ask" in the sense of "pose a question" (i.e. fragen) is fiafraigh . Or you can ceist a chur ar duine, lit. "put a question on somebody".

kevin wrote:Ba é athair an pháiste an fear.

No offense to Ciarán, but it was kind of bastardic to give you a copular sentence this early on. The copula is notoriously tricky in Irish, and one of its tricks is that it can't come directly before a definite NP. A personal pronoun must intervene. For the same reason, it should be Cérbh é an fear rather than simply *Cérbh an fear.

kevin wrote:Bhí fearg air mar nach ndearna an páiste a hobair bhaile.

Mar in the sense of "because" is really a shortening of mar go, and the negative of go is nach.

Minor points:

kevin wrote:Bhí fearg ar an bhfear

kevin wrote:Diúirt sí


Overall, well done indeed! Especially with those complex sentence structures.
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Re: Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby linguoboy » 2013-02-10, 21:42

Ciarán12 wrote:
kevin wrote:Chuaigh sé sa seomra.

"Chuaigh" - "went" is fine, although I chose "Shiúl" - "walked". You need "isteach" - "into, inside" in either case though.

It should be shiúil, with slender /l/, but I wouldn't prefer it here, since I don't recall Irish writers using it without a significant distance involved. If you want a real Gaelic idiom, however, dispense with the verb entirely and say simply "agus isteach sa seomra leis".

Ciarán12 wrote:
kevin wrote:Bhí páiste ina shuí ar chathaoir sa seomra.

I'm not actually sure which of us is right here regarding lenition of "suí". I chose not to lenite it because the subject is a girl, but "páiste" is a masculine word, so maybe it depends on the grammatical gender of the word "páiste" rather than the real gender of the child. I suspect you're right.

Yeah, I'd agree with Kevin here. This is SOP for languages with noun gender.

Ciarán12 wrote:
kevin wrote:D'iarr an fear í cén fáth a raibh sí ag faire ar an teilifís.

The verb is "iarr ar (duine éigin)" - "to ask (somebody)" (lit. "to request on (someone)", so instead of "D'iarr...í" (with a direct object pronoun, as it is in English) it's "D'iarr ... uirthi" (uirthi is the form taken when it's "ar" + "í").

Not the right verb here: He's asking for information, not making a request. So:

D'fhiafraigh an fear di cén fáth a raibh sí ag féachaint ar an teilifís.
D'iarr an fear uirthi a chur as an dteilifís.

Ciarán12 wrote:"níos déanaí" is what I wrote originally, but I looked up other ways of saying "later" and settled on "níos moille", because I think it means "later" more in the sense of "later on", as opposed to "a later edition of the book" (which is what I think "níos déanaí" means). I could be wrong.

Either is acceptable. The root meaning of mall is "slow" so níos moille could also mean "more slowly".
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Re: Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby kevin » 2013-02-10, 21:58

Ciarán12 wrote:
kevin wrote:Bhí páiste ina shuí ar chathaoir sa seomra.

I'm not actually sure which of us is right here regarding lenition of "suí". I chose not to lenite it because the subject is a girl, but "páiste" is a masculine word, so maybe it depends on the grammatical gender of the word "páiste" rather than the real gender of the child. I suspect you're right.

Hm, interesting thought. I didn't even think of the possibility here, but figuring out what to do with different natural and grammatical gender gave me some trouble later. (If I translated the text into German, I think I'd have to change "child" into "girl" if I didn't want to lose this information because I'd be using the grammatical gender, neuter, throughout the whole text...)

Everywhere else the feminine pronouns are used, so it doesn't sound quite unlikely that you're right. Linguoboy? [Hm, okay, he posted first and agrees with my translation, for whatever reason.]

"ón" means "from the" from "ó" - "from". What you want here is "ar an" - "on the", which you actually got right in the same idiom later on when you said "Cén fáth a raibh fearg air?" ("air" meaning "on him". To be clear, "tá fearg ar (duine éigin)" means literally "there is anger on (someone)" meaning "someone is angry".

Brain fart. How this phrase works is one of the few things I do understand. ;)

"mar" can be used as "because" but if it has a verb after it like that you need the particle "a" between "mar" and the verb, so "mar a bhí...".

Are you sure? Despite the disclaimer, the grammar at http://www.braesicke.de/gram.htm?gaeilge.htm seemed to be very reliable until now and it only mentions an optional "go" after "mar". It also gives this example: "Bhí faitíos roimpi mar bhí sí an-ard."

As far as I'm aware, "Cérbh" (being a copular construction) needs to have a dummy pronoun between it and a definite noun or noun phrase, which "an fear" is, so it would be "Cérbh é an fear?".

Yup, this was a stupid mistake.

Same deal here with the copula + definite noun phrase - should be "Ba é athair an pháiste..." (or "b'é athair...").

linguoboy wrote:
kevin wrote:Ba é athair an pháiste an fear.

No offense to Ciarán, but it was kind of bastardic to give you a copular sentence this early on. The copula is notoriously tricky in Irish, and one of its tricks is that it can't come directly before a definite NP. A personal pronoun must intervene.

Nah, this wasn't the most bastardic thing in the text by far. I had a 50:50 chance here, as I wasn't sure if it's the definiteness or the article that is the problem here. Now I know. :)

Ciarán12

Re: Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby Ciarán12 » 2013-02-10, 22:03

linguoboy wrote:
Ciarán12 wrote:
kevin wrote:Chuaigh sé sa seomra.

"Chuaigh" - "went" is fine, although I chose "Shiúl" - "walked". You need "isteach" - "into, inside" in either case though.

It should be shiúil, with slender /l/, but I wouldn't prefer it here, since I don't recall Irish writers using it without a significant distance involved. If you want a real Gaelic idiom, however, dispense with the verb entirely and say simply "agus isteach sa seomra leis".


Sorry, typo. "Agus isteach sa seomra leis." might be a bit advanced, I was going for something simple. It also seems like it wouldn't be a sentence on its own, but a second clause to the first sentence. You could be right about the distance thing with "siúil".

linguoboy wrote:
Ciarán12 wrote:
kevin wrote:Bhí páiste ina shuí ar chathaoir sa seomra.

I'm not actually sure which of us is right here regarding lenition of "suí". I chose not to lenite it because the subject is a girl, but "páiste" is a masculine word, so maybe it depends on the grammatical gender of the word "páiste" rather than the real gender of the child. I suspect you're right.

Yeah, I'd agree with Kevin here. This is SOP for languages with noun gender.

I thought as much.

linguoboy wrote:
Ciarán12 wrote:
kevin wrote:D'iarr an fear í cén fáth a raibh sí ag faire ar an teilifís.

The verb is "iarr ar (duine éigin)" - "to ask (somebody)" (lit. "to request on (someone)", so instead of "D'iarr...í" (with a direct object pronoun, as it is in English) it's "D'iarr ... uirthi" (uirthi is the form taken when it's "ar" + "í").

Not the right verb here: He's asking for information, not making a request. So:

D'fhiafraigh an fear di cén fáth a raibh sí ag féachaint ar an teilifís.
D'iarr an fear uirthi a chur as an dteilifís.


Okay, so "fiafraigh" - "to ask", "iarr ar" - "to ask (sb) to (do sth)", right? What about "to ask for (sth)"?

linguoboy wrote:
Ciarán12 wrote:"níos déanaí" is what I wrote originally, but I looked up other ways of saying "later" and settled on "níos moille", because I think it means "later" more in the sense of "later on", as opposed to "a later edition of the book" (which is what I think "níos déanaí" means). I could be wrong.

Either is acceptable. The root meaning of mall is "slow" so níos moille could also mean "more slowly".


Okay.

Ciarán12

Re: Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby Ciarán12 » 2013-02-10, 22:14

kevin wrote:
"mar" can be used as "because" but if it has a verb after it like that you need the particle "a" between "mar" and the verb, so "mar a bhí...".

Are you sure? Despite the disclaimer, the grammar at http://www.braesicke.de/gram.htm?gaeilge.htm seemed to be very reliable until now and it only mentions an optional "go" after "mar". It also gives this example: "Bhí faitíos roimpi mar bhí sí an-ard."


It could be that it's optional. All I can say is that "mar bhí" feels wrong to me, and google agrees (600,000 or so results for "mar a bhí sé", 161,000 for "mar bhí sé"). Maybe it's an epenthetic vowel?

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Re: Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby linguoboy » 2013-02-10, 22:48

Ciarán12 wrote:"Agus isteach sa seomra leis." might be a bit advanced, I was going for something simple.

Yeah, that was more a note for you than for Kevin.

Ciarán12 wrote:Okay, so "fiafraigh" - "to ask", "iarr ar" - "to ask (sb) to (do sth)", right? What about "to ask for (sth)"?

Also iarr ar, e.g. "D'iarr sí nua-thelefís ar."
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Re: Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby kevin » 2013-02-11, 22:23

A light flame burns on the range. I sit by the fire and wait for tea. Mother cooks fish for tea. At breakfast we drink coffee. My little sister drinks a jug of hot milk. Father drinks a healthy mug of beer. Our mother has many sleepless nights. The younger brother is sick. Mother cries: her eyes are full of tears. She says, "I cry on account of you."

Ciarán, can you do the next one, please? I very much prefer complicated grammar and bastardic copular sentences if the alternative is looking up tons of words and guessing which one may fit best (or what the English sentence even means exactly...) :?

Dónn lasair éadrom ar an tsornóg. Tá mé i mo shuí ag an dtine agus fanaim le tae. Cócarálann máhair iasc le haghaidh an tae. Ólaimid caife ar an mbricfeasta. Ólann mo dheirfiúr bheag crúiscin bainne te. Ólann athair muga beorach shláintiúil. Tá mórán oícheanta gan chodladh ag ár máhair. Tá tinneas ar an deartháir níos óige. Caoineann máthair: tá a súile lán de dheora. Ar sí: "Caoinim mar gheall ort."


Hope I didn't make too stupid mistakes, because there's quite some tiredness on me. ;)

Ciarán12

Re: Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby Ciarán12 » 2013-02-12, 0:12

kevin wrote:
A light flame burns on the range. I sit by the fire and wait for tea. Mother cooks fish for tea. At breakfast we drink coffee. My little sister drinks a jug of hot milk. Father drinks a healthy mug of beer. Our mother has many sleepless nights. The younger brother is sick. Mother cries: her eyes are full of tears. She says, "I cry on account of you."

Ciarán, can you do the next one, please? I very much prefer complicated grammar and bastardic copular sentences if the alternative is looking up tons of words and guessing which one may fit best (or what the English sentence even means exactly...) :?


:lol: We can take it in turns, if you like. Just tell linguoboy not to try to write anymore plays for us translate :).

kevin wrote:
Dónn lasair éadrom ar an tsornóg. Tá mé i mo shuí ag an dtine agus fanaim le tae. Cócarálann máhair iasc le haghaidh an tae. Ólaimid caife ar an mbricfeasta. Ólann mo dheirfiúr bheag crúiscin bainne te. Ólann athair muga beorach shláintiúil. Tá mórán oícheanta gan chodladh ag ár máhair. Tá tinneas ar an deartháir níos óige. Caoineann máthair: tá a súile lán de dheora. Ar sí: "Caoinim mar gheall ort."


Hope I didn't make too stupid mistakes, because there's quite some tiredness on me. ;)


Oh, muise, 'tis awful the tiredness that does be on me all together, so 'tis! If you keep using Irish grammar for English you'll be speaking Hiberno-English in no time.

Here's what I have:
Dónn bladhm éadrom ar an tsornóg. Suím in aice na tine agus fanaim leis an tae. Réitinn an mháthair iasc le haghaidh an tae. Ar bhricfeásta, ólaimid caife. Ólainn mo dheirfiúr bheag crúiscín bhainne te. Ólainn an t-athair muga folláin leanna. Tá a lán oícheanta gan chodladh ag ár máthair. Tá tinneas ar an deartháir níos óige. Caoineann an mháthair: tá a suile lán de dheora. Ar sise, “Caoiním mar gheall ortsa”.


I made a choice to use the simple present in Irish, as that was what it was in English (and it may be said that it sounds odd in Irish, but it does in English too). This one was hard as it was quite an odd passage. I'm sure there are things linguoboy will have to say about my translation, but I'l go through what I think of yours anyway:

kevin wrote:Dónn lasair éadrom ar an tsornóg

You said "lasair", I said "bladhm", I also found "bladhaire", but I have no idea if one of these is better than the other. :noclue:

kevin wrote:Tá mé i mo shuí ag an dtine agus fanaim le tae.

I used "suím", which is much less common than "beith i do shuí" (which you used), but that was my attempt to reflect the fact that "I sit..." in this circumstance is much less common than "I am sitting".
"ag an dtine" isn't incorrect, as far as I can tell, but it's less common than "in aice na tine". "in aice + genetive" means "beside" or "near".
"fanaim le tae" seems wrong. Grammatically, I think it's possible, but I don't think it's idiomatic. Even in Irish English, we'd prefer to say "wait for the tea", and it feels right (to me) in Irish to say "fanaim leis an tae".

kevin wrote:Cócarálann máhair iasc le haghaidh an tae.

I may be wrong, but I don't think "cócaráil" is a very common verb. It seems more normal to say "réitigh" - "to prepare, to ready" (or even "déan" - "to do, to make" - "rinne mé an dinnéar" - I made the dinner"). It also feels more natural to say "an mháthair" - "the mother" than just "máthair" here(I may be getting this from Irish English, which may or may not be a good source of gut instinct here).

kevin wrote:Ólaimid caife ar an mbricfeasta.

Grammatically, fine. Idiomatically, no idea. Linguoboy?

kevin wrote:Ólann athair muga beorach shláintiúil.

You used "beoir" for beer, which it is, I used "leann" which means "beer, ale". I just prefer it, because it sounds less like "beer" :) . Two things about "shláintiúil": for one thing, my understanding of how to work adjectives in Irish is one of my worst areas (I working on it), but I don't think there's lenition on an adjective modifying a singular masculine noun ("muga"). I could be (and very probably am) wrong about that, hopefully linguoboy will enlighten us both. Secondly, I felt "folláin" would be a better translation, based on what I interpreted "healthy" to mean here.

kevin wrote:Tá mórán oícheanta gan chodladh ag ár máhair.

I think this is fine. I just like the phrase "a lán". Perhaps too much....

kevin wrote:Ar sí: "Caoinim mar gheall ort."

Whenever I see "ar + pronoun" used as "...said whoever" I always see it used with the emphatic pronouns, so I put "Ar sise" instead of "ar sí". I also added an emphatic "~sa" to "ort", just because it seemed to fit better.

EDIT: I Googled "ar sé" and there are loads of results. Seems I was wrong, you can use it. (You can also use "ar seisean" though).

Excellent job! Seriously, How are you this good at this? :shock:

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Re: Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby linguoboy » 2013-02-12, 2:10

kevin wrote:Hope I didn't make too stupid mistakes, because there's quite some tiredness on me. ;)

The only "stupid" mistake I saw was *máhair for máthair. Other than that, as Ciarán says, very good indeed.

Ciarán wrote:I made a choice to use the simple present in Irish, as that was what it was in English (and it may be said that it sounds odd in Irish, but it does in English too).

Consider the source: As I said, this is an extract from Teach Yourself Latvian. Latvian lacks a progressive construction, so one of the reasons for the simple present throughout was to remind English-speakers how to translate correctly. For Irish, you'd do exactly the opposite, since if anything the progressive is more used there than in Standard English.

Now that you've done all the heavy lifting of looking up the vocabulary, Kevin, I recommend as an exercise going through the paragraph again and rewriting it with the progressive throughout.

Ciarán wrote:I used "suím", which is much less common than "beith i do shuí"

So much less so that I don't recall ever seeing it in writing from native speakers. Same goes for cócarálann. (Though that could be a dialectal preference; I hear a lot of complaints about the abuse of -áil verbs from Connemara speakers.) The verbal noun cócaireacht, however, is perfectly common.

Ciarán wrote:
kevin wrote:Ólaimid caife ar an mbricfeasta.
Grammatically, fine. Idiomatically, no idea. Linguoboy?

I'm not the best person to ask, as I would say um bricfeast. I think ar replaces um in non-Munster dialects. How would you say "in the evening"?

Ciarán wrote:Two things about "shláintiúil": for one thing, my understanding of how to work adjectives in Irish is one of my worst areas (I working on it), but I don't think there's lenition on an adjective modifying a singular masculine noun ("muga"). I could be (and very probably am) wrong about that, hopefully linguoboy will enlighten us both. Secondly, I felt "folláin" would be a better translation, based on what I interpreted "healthy" to mean here.

I agree on folláin being superior to sláintiúil when talking about food. I can't see a reason for the lenition in kevin's version either unless he literally interpreted this as "a mug of healthy beer" and thought for some reason the adjective needed to be lenited after beoir (which it would if it weren't in the genitive).

Speaking of adjective agreement, well done on súile lán, a Chaoimhín; whether by accident or design, you managed to inflect this correctly for the dual.

On word choice, I think lasair is better than bladhm, since the latter can also mean "flare (up)". The derviation of éadrom is "not heavy (trom)". You don't use it with colours and I don't think it can be used here, either; I would say lag "weak". (This adjective can also be prefixed--cf. lagsholas "dim light"--but that sounds very literary.)

For "cry", I would prefer goil to caoin, but that may be simply my interpretation of the scene. Caoin means, among other things, a wail of lament for the dead (cf. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/keen#Etymology_2) and it seems too strong here; goil is a softer sort of weeping.

Táim aon intinn leat, a Chiaráin, on the use of articles before tae and máthair. In general, Irish is more fond of them than Standard English. Also on the use of in aice and ar sise, though ortsa sounds unnecessarily emphatic. That is, if I were going to use it, I'd probably also front it, i.e. "Is mar gheall ortsa a bhím ag gol."

I hope I haven't missed anything. Tá tuirse ormsa leis.
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Re: Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby linguoboy » 2013-02-12, 2:31

kevin wrote:Ciarán, can you do the next one, please? I very much prefer complicated grammar and bastardic copular sentences if the alternative is looking up tons of words and guessing which one may fit best (or what the English sentence even means exactly...)

I'll try to continue Ciarán's story, using mostly vocabulary you've already learned.

"Where is the child's other father? He is in the kitchen (cistin) preparing [the] dinner. He is cooking [the] fish. He comes home (abhaile) from [the] work earlier so that he has enough time (dóthain ama[*]) to prepare [the] dinner. His husband asks him why the child has not done[**] her homework. He says, "Isn't there enough for me to do as it is? Now where is the milk that I asked you to buy (ceannaigh)?""

[*] Lit. "sufficiency [of] time"
[**] Use gan.
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Re: Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby kevin » 2013-02-12, 10:18

Ciarán12 wrote:Oh, muise, 'tis awful the tiredness that does be on me all together, so 'tis! If you keep using Irish grammar for English you'll be speaking Hiberno-English in no time.

Is this a warning? :D

Excellent job! Seriously, How are you this good at this? :shock:

Not sure what your expectations are? I mean, I'm not doing anything special here, it's mostly mechanical and anyone should be able to do it. I'm still treating Irish more like a logic puzzle than a language. I have what I consider for now the full set of rules, and any grammatical mistake I make just means that I didn't check the rules carefully enough. Look up words (if there's more than one, check other translations of the candidates, and if that doesn't help, pick one more or less randomly), look up grammar, write a sentence. I may be quicker or slower than others, but I can't see why the result should be much different if you're about as careful as me.

linguoboy wrote:The only "stupid" mistake I saw was *máhair for máthair.

Whoops, typoing the same word twice is suspicious indeed. :oops: At least I've got the third instance right, or I would feel really stupid now indeed.

Now that you've done all the heavy lifting of looking up the vocabulary, Kevin, I recommend as an exercise going through the paragraph again and rewriting it with the progressive throughout.

Will do that later.

Speaking of adjective agreement, well done on súile lán, a Chaoimhín; whether by accident or design, you managed to inflect this correctly for the dual.

By accident, of course. :?

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Re: Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby linguoboy » 2013-02-12, 13:45

kevin wrote:
linguoboy wrote:The only "stupid" mistake I saw was *máhair for máthair.

Whoops, typoing the same word twice is suspicious indeed. :oops: At least I've got the third instance right, or I would feel really stupid now indeed.

At least the typo is phonetically equivalent, which is a good sign. Is é sin le rá, to whatever extant you're pronouncing the word in your head as you write it, you seem to be getting it right.
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Re: Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby kevin » 2013-02-12, 14:25

Well, I have to pronounce something in my head so I can remember the word between reading and typing it. I think in this case it was more or less the right thing, but when I can't figure out immediately how it's pronounced, which happens a lot in Irish, the word tends to end up in my head pronounced as if it was a German word - which is, obviously, horribly wrong. I guess I should get that stopped asap, before too much damage is done.

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Re: Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby linguoboy » 2013-02-12, 15:35

kevin wrote:Well, I have to pronounce something in my head so I can remember the word between reading and typing it. I think in this case it was more or less the right thing, but when I can't figure out immediately how it's pronounced, which happens a lot in Irish, the word tends to end up in my head pronounced as if it was a German word - which is, obviously, horribly wrong. I guess I should get that stopped asap, before too much damage is done.

If you like, I can provide some transcriptions. Of course, they'll be for Munster dialect (though I can leave out some of the odder local developments, such as [d̪ɾʲɪˈfuːɾˠ] for deirfiúr).
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Re: Gaeilge - Caoimhín

Postby Ciarán12 » 2013-02-12, 15:36

kevin wrote:Is this a warning? :D


Depends how you feel about sounding like you're from rural Ireland when you speak English :).

kevin wrote:Not sure what your expectations are? I mean, I'm not doing anything special here, it's mostly mechanical and anyone should be able to do it. I'm still treating Irish more like a logic puzzle than a language. I have what I consider for now the full set of rules, and any grammatical mistake I make just means that I didn't check the rules carefully enough. Look up words (if there's more than one, check other translations of the candidates, and if that doesn't help, pick one more or less randomly), look up grammar, write a sentence. I may be quicker or slower than others, but I can't see why the result should be much different if you're about as careful as me.


Now you make me feel bad. I have access to many more (and probably much better) resources and I've been at this longer, but I still make frequent errors. I try to work stuff out logically, but often I just can't find the answers I'm looking for. Doesn't seem like you have that problem. It took me ages to know enough about it even to know what sections of the grammar books to consult about a given problem, and even now I get confused by it frequently.

kevin wrote:Well, I have to pronounce something in my head so I can remember the word between reading and typing it. I think in this case it was more or less the right thing, but when I can't figure out immediately how it's pronounced, which happens a lot in Irish, the word tends to end up in my head pronounced as if it was a German word - which is, obviously, horribly wrong. I guess I should get that stopped asap, before too much damage is done.


On the up side, Irish people would find it hilarious. Oddly, even though most Irish people don't speak Irish, we find foreigners' mispronunciation of Irish amazingly funny. Basically because the idea if a foreigner learning Irish is in itself funny.


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