Speaking of Water-Lilies, whether you know them as bual-lilí, bior-rósanna, duilleoga báite, or póicíní locha Posted by róislín on Jun 30, 2019
(le Róislín) Our most recent post showed some amazingly large water-lilies and looked at the terminology for them. Researching that, I also found the amazing illustration above. Who could resist turning this into a teachable moment – how to say “girl,” “standing,” and “on a water-lily” in Irish? For the second part of today’s blog, we’ll…
How to say ‘water-lily’ in Irish, without using the word ‘uisce’ (water) Posted by róislín on Jun 17, 2019
(le Róislín) Intriguingly, Irish has quite a few words for water-lily. For water-lilies in general, we have bual-lile, bior-rós, duilleog bháite, and póicín locha. More specifically, for distinct types, we have bacán bán or duilleog bháite bhán, for the white, and cabhán abhann, duilleog bháite bhuí, and liach-loghar, for the yellow. With compound words like…
There’s No Place Like Home: Irish Vocabulary for Describing a Hamster’s Cage Posted by róislín on May 31, 2019
(le Róislín) Lately we’ve been writing about hamstair (hamsters) and specifically the Irish words for different foods that they eat. Now we’ll check out their digs — a “cás hamstair” and its typical “troscán.” This will also be some practice with matching up Irish nouns and adjectives and using numbers to say how many of…
The Taste of the Food (from a hamster’s viewpoint): Blas an Bhia (ó radharc hamstair) agus Cleachtadh leis an Tuiseal Ginideach Posted by róislín on May 18, 2019
(le Róislín) Last time we looked at different foods (bianna éagsúla) that hamsters can and can’t eat and practiced the Irish vocabulary for 35 different edible items (nasc thíos/link below). This time we’ll look at those same foods and determine if they are “Neam-neam!” or “Uch!” Of course, there could be a third category, foods…
What food can hamsters eat? (plé i nGaeilge – a discussion in Irish) Posted by róislín on Apr 30, 2019
(le Róislín) Cúpla bliain ó shin scríobh mé blagmhír faoi sheirbil agus hamstar, iad ag cur síos ar a gcásanna agus ag rá an raibh ámóg nó caochóg nó tigín nó rudaí eile mar sin acu. Ar ndóigh, beagán antrapamorfachais a bhí ann. (Nasc thíos) A few years ago, I wrote an Irish blogpost about…
A ‘Seanfhocail’ (Irish Proverbs) Fill-in-the Blank Challenge Posted by róislín on Apr 20, 2019
(le Róislín) A few years ago, we did a few blog posts on Irish proverbs (seanfhocail, lit. “old words”; naisc thíos / links below), which are always a popular language learning tool. The seanfhocail not only teach vocabulary and sentence structure, but they’re often also fun (Ní hé lá na gaoithe lá na scolb), pithy…
How to say ‘port’ and ‘starboard’ in Irish and a few other nautical terms Posted by róislín on Mar 31, 2019
(le Róislín) Nautical terms have always intrigued me, including such colorful ones as “scuttlebutt” and “three sheets to the wind.” So today I thought I’d cover a few of the most basic terms pertaining to parts of a boat or ship. If there’s interest, perhaps we can cover more such terms in the future…