Whose beret? Bairéad an fhrancaigh nó bairéad an Fhrancaigh? Nó bairéad an phúdail? (Showing possession in Irish) Posted by róislín on Sep 28, 2017
(le Róislín) Let’s take a short break from the actual vocabulary we’ve been working on for “An Píobaire Breac,” Seán Ó Dúrois’s translation of Robert Browning’s “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” (nasc agus eolas foilseacháin thíos). With rats as the inspiration, as you can see in the graphic above, I thought it would be fun…
How to say ‘rat’ in Irish and a continuation of the glossary for ‘An Píobaire Breac’ (an t-aistriúchán le Seán Ó Dúrois) (Cuid 2) Posted by róislín on Sep 25, 2017
(le Róislín) Today we’ll continue the glossary started in the previous blog (nasc thíos) to help with reading “An Píobaire Breac,” Seán Ó Dúrois’s lively translation of Robert Browning’s “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” (Eolas foilseacháin thíos). First a brief review from last time. There are two main ways to say “rat” in Irish, one…
How to say ‘rat’ in Irish and a preliminary glossary for reading ‘An Píobaire Breac’ (an t-aistriúchán le Seán Ó Dúrois) (Cuid 1 as 4) Posted by róislín on Sep 23, 2017
(le Róislín) In today’s post, we’ll look at one of my favorite translations into Irish, Seán Ó Dúrois’s version of Robert Browning’s “The Pied Piper of Hamelin.” The two words that intrigue me the most are “francach” and “luch mhór,” both of which mean “rat.” But they each have at least one other potential meaning…
Creathanna Talún (Earthquakes): Some Irish Words for Discussing Their Magnitude (Méideanna) and Impact (Iarmhairtí) Posted by róislín on Sep 20, 2017
(le Róislín) I note, with sadness, yet another tubaiste nádúrtha, the calamity in Mexico (an matalang i Meicsiceo). You might remember that we dealt with creathanna talún earlier in this series (nasc thíos), when a “crith talún” struck the island of “Háítí.” That blogpost taught some of the relevant vocabulary for discussing creathanna talún, such…
Imeachtaí Reatha: Matching Irish Language Word Pairs about Current Events and the News Posted by róislín on Sep 16, 2017
(le Róislín) Listening to the news (an nuacht) recently, it struck me how many set phrases there are, where you can almost predict what the next word in the phrase will be, like an associations test in psychology. The difference for our matching game in this blogpost is that these are all fairly predictable, and…
How To Say ‘Mess’ in Irish: 14 Ways (and Counting), Starting with ‘praiseach’ Posted by róislín on Sep 12, 2017
(le Róislín) In the most recent blogpost (nasc thíos), we looked at several Irish words for “mess,” inspired by thinking about the phrase “dog’s dinner,” which can either mean “food for dogs,” literally, or “a mess.” And that was inspired by listening to some radio commentary about Brexit (and btw, do you remember the Irish…
When Is a Dog’s Dinner Not a ‘Dog’s Dinner’?: Some Irish Vocabulary Notes for “Mess” Posted by róislín on Sep 7, 2017
(le Róislín) I recently heard some commentary on the radio equating the plans for Brexit (Breatimeacht) with a dog’s dinner. And that got me thinking about another use of caint fháthchiallach / mheafarach, since we talked about the issue in the latest post (nasc thíos). Although “dog’s dinner,” as such, is not a traditional metaphorical…