Archive for 'Irish Language'
“Sweet Nothings” as Gaeilge Posted by róislín on Oct 12, 2011
(le Róislín) “Baothbhriathra mealltacha” – a curious phrase, especially since, as mentioned last time, it contains neither the word “sweet” nor the word “nothing.” First let’s discus the two words that aren’t in the Irish phrase (nothing like the roundabout route!). “Sweet” is most typically the adjective “milis” [MIL-ish], although there are other possiblities (cumhra, for…
Saying “I love you” in Irish and Minding Your Velar Fricatives Posted by róislín on Oct 9, 2011
(le Róislín) We’ve recently been looking at different ways to say “I love you” in Irish. Some of you might have been wondering how to pronounce them, especially the phrases where the straightforward “grá” [graw] changes to “ghrá” [γraw, to be explained below, note the IPA gamma symbol for the “gh”] and the straightforward “croí” changes…
Saying “I Love You” in Irish (without the verb “to love”) Posted by róislín on Oct 6, 2011
le Róislín How do I love thee? Let me count the ways, but, at least for Irish, not the verbs. No verbs, hunh? What’s all that about? One of the first steps for learning Latin, at least when I was in school, was learning to conjugate the verb “to love” – amo, amas (I love…
Falling Leaves, Falling in Love: The Verb “to fall” in Irish Posted by róislín on Oct 3, 2011
(le Róislín) Thit a lán duilleoga sa ghairdín (sa chlós) agus anois tá orm iad a rácáil. Thit Seán i ngrá le Sinéad. Notice anything interesting about those sentences? For an English-speaker, I think it seems fairly normal to expect that in Irish one could say “many leaves fell” or “Seán fell in love” using…
Deireadh Fómhair agus Frásaí Eile le “Deireadh” Posted by róislín on Sep 30, 2011
(le Róislín) October, according to its Irish meaning, is the “month of the end of the harvest.” But the word “deireadh” has several other meanings and many other applications. Here’s a little sampler, and also a little mix and match, where you’ll need to determine whether to use “deireadh,” (the basic form), dheireadh, ndeireadh, or…
Laethanta na Seachtaine i bhFrásaí le “Dé” (Days of the Week, with Pronunciation, in “Dé” Phrases) Posted by róislín 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…
Laethanta na Seachtaine (Days of the Week, in Irish, with pronunciation) Posted by róislín on Sep 24, 2011
(le Róislín) And one more féilire-related topic: laethanta na seachtaine. Which could also be called “laethe na seachtaine.” Both plural forms of “lá” are widely used, “laethanta” and “laethe.” You’ve already noticed the use of “an tuiseal ginideach” in this phrase, right? That accounts for the “-e” ending to the word “seachtain.” Since we’re saying…