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In Irish, should we say “an enchilada fada” or “an t-enchilada fada” or “an enchilada fhada”?   Posted by on Jul 10, 2017

(le Róislín) Since I had so much fun in the last blogpost (nasc thíos) saying “enchilada fada” to myself, I thought you might enjoy playing around with the phrase also. Actually, there’s a very serious question to be addressed first.  If we say “enchilada” in an Irish language sentence, should we consider the word to…

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Chocolate Redux (well, not really re: ducks, but re: eggs and such): Chocolate Terms in Irish Posted by on Jan 18, 2015

(le Róislín) I see that the chocolate blog in this series just popped up again on our Facebook site (https://www.facebook.com/learn.irish; bun-nasc thíos).  So I thought it would fun to try some more phrases involving many people’s favorite “bia compoird” — seacláid…

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From ‘Multilingual Madness’ to the ‘Siege Perilous’ via a Discussion of ‘Ord na bhFocal’ in Irish Posted by on Apr 14, 2014

 (le Róislín) Lately we’ve looked at the possibilities for saying “multilingual” and “madness” in Irish (ilteangach, buile, among other choices).  The next question is how do we put the two words together.   We’ll follow the typical word order in Irish, first noun, then adjective.   This is the reverse of the normal word order in English…

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Beirt Naomh Mhí na Feabhra: Naomh Bríd agus San Vailintín Posted by on Feb 3, 2014

(le Róislín) Irish has two words for “saint.”  I wonder if any other language is similar in this regard, but for now, we’ll just look at the two Irish words, “naomh” and “san.”  For most purposes, they are not interchangeable.  February celebrates both “Naomh Bríd” and “San Vailintín,” so let’s look at why they have…

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Oh, Man! ‘Fear,’ ‘Fir,’ ‘Fhir,’ and ‘bhFear,’ (How to say ‘man’ and ‘men’ in Irish) Posted by on Jan 9, 2014

(le Róislín) Since Nollaig na mBan on January 6th gave us the opportunity to discuss the Irish word for ‘woman,’ we might as well follow up with the word for ‘man.’ First, let me clarify that this blog will discuss ‘man’ (fear) as opposed to woman (bean), not “man” as opposed to the following: plants…

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Happiness Is … Lots of Ways to Say “Happy” in Irish (including “Happy Christmas”) Posted by on Dec 3, 2011

(le Róislín) Recently we talked about some of the more whimsical (i.e. jingle-ish) ways to describe Christmas (“Holly Jolly” and “Berry Merry”) in English and pondered their translatability into Irish.  Today let’s get back to the more traditional Irish phrase, and look at its various forms (singular and plural, greeting and response): Nollaig Shona duit…

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Laethanta na Seachtaine i bhFrásaí le “Dé” (Days of the Week, with Pronunciation, in “Dé” Phrases) Posted by on Sep 27, 2011

(le Róislín) As alluded to in the previous blog, there are two main ways to refer to the days of the week in Irish.  One is when the day is the subject of the sentence, as in “Inniu an Luan” (Today is Monday).  The other form is preceded by the word “Dé” instead of the…

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