{"id":1278,"date":"2011-10-06T16:50:39","date_gmt":"2011-10-06T16:50:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=1278"},"modified":"2011-10-22T19:28:04","modified_gmt":"2011-10-22T19:28:04","slug":"saying-%e2%80%9ci-love-you%e2%80%9d-in-irish-without-the-verb-%e2%80%9cto-love%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/saying-%e2%80%9ci-love-you%e2%80%9d-in-irish-without-the-verb-%e2%80%9cto-love%e2%80%9d\/","title":{"rendered":"Saying \u201cI Love You\u201d in Irish (without the verb \u201cto love\u201d)"},"content":{"rendered":"

le R\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/strong><\/p>\n

How do I love thee?\u00a0 Let me count the ways, but, at least for Irish, not the verbs.<\/p>\n

No verbs, hunh?\u00a0 What\u2019s all that about?<\/p>\n

One of the first steps for learning Latin, at least when I was in school, was learning to conjugate the verb \u201cto love\u201d \u2013 amo, amas<\/em> (I love, you love), and all that.\u00a0 Scouring the Internet for more examples, I see a lot of samples, some derived from the well-known Latin verb, others not, but all of which (that I find) include a verb: Ti amo, je t\u2019aime, te quiero, ich liebe dich<\/em>, etc.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not that the Irish are remiss in discussing love — far from it.\u00a0 Plenty of people are asking, and getting answers to the question, \u201cHow do you say \u2018I love you\u2019 in Irish?\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s just that in most cases, no verbs are involved, or if they are, it\u2019s just the verb \u201cto be,\u201d not the actual verb \u201cto love.\u201d\u00a0 So what are they saying instead?<\/p>\n

Here are some of the most popular phrases:<\/p>\n

Mo ghr\u00e1 th\u00fa<\/strong>, you (are) my love, lit. my love you (no verb)<\/p>\n

Tusa mo ghr\u00e1<\/strong>, you (are) my love, lit. you yourself my love (no verb)<\/p>\n

Is t\u00fa mo ghr\u00e1<\/strong>, you are my love, using the linking verb \u201cis<\/strong>,\u201d not the verb \u201cto love.\u201d \u00a0Don\u2019t be misled by the apparent similarity of the Irish verb \u201cis<\/strong>\u201d [say: iss] and the English verb \u201cis\u201d [say: iz]; in this case, the Irish verb \u201cis<\/strong>\u201d will be translated as \u201care,\u201d due to the idiosyncrasies of the English verb \u201cto be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gr\u00e1 mo chro\u00ed th\u00fa<\/strong>, you (are) (the) love (of) my heart, lit. love (of) my heart you<\/p>\n

In a previous blog, I discussed where you\u2019re most likely to find the verb \u201cto love,\u201d with its various forms, mostly in religious or formal contexts.\u00a0 These forms include:<\/p>\n

gr\u00e1igh,<\/strong> the command form, for whatever application you may find for that!<\/p>\n

ag gr\u00e1,<\/strong> \u201cloving,\u201d but, at least in my experience, not a very typical expression, unless McDonald\u2019s gets a hold of it for their \u201cloving it\u201d ad campaign<\/p>\n

a ghr\u00e1, <\/strong>to love, but again, at least in my experience, it would be more typical to say something like \u201cgr\u00e1 a bheith agat do \u2026<\/strong>\u201d, i.e. to have love for, lit. love to be at you for \u2026 or \u201cgr\u00e1 a thabhairt do<\/strong> \u2026,\u201d to give love to ; key point is that \u201cto love,\u201d as such, isn\u2019t used as much as the more circuitous phrases like \u201cN\u00ed fol\u00e1ir duit gr\u00e1 a thabhairt do do chomharsa mar th\u00fa f\u00e9in<\/strong>\u201d (You should \/ ought to love your neighbor as yourself)<\/p>\n

gr\u00e1ite, <\/strong>used more in the sense of \u201cdevoted to\u201d than regarding romantic love, as in \u201cgr\u00e1ite do d\u2019obair<\/strong>,\u201d devoted to your work).<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll probably visit this topic again next February, but meanwhile, m\u00e1s amhlaidh gur thit t\u00fa i ngr\u00e1 le d\u00e9ana\u00ed<\/strong> (if you fell in love recently), you\u2019ve got a little more vocabulary to work with.\u00a0 SGF, R\u00f3isl\u00edn<\/p>\n

Gluais: amhlaidh<\/strong>, thus; comharsa<\/strong>, neighbor; do<\/strong>, to\/for; do<\/strong>, your; do do<\/strong>, to your\/for your; le d\u00e9ana\u00ed<\/strong>, recently; thit<\/strong>, fell<\/p>\n

For more on this topic, please see my earlier blog \u201cAn Briathar \u2018Gr\u00e1igh!\u2019 (Love!) i nGaeilge\u201d:\u00a0<\/strong>https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?s=gr%C3%A1igh<\/a> (14 Feabhra 2011).\u00a0 The blogs before and after it may also be of interest:<\/p>\n

17 Feabhra 2011: https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/665\/<\/a><\/p>\n

12 Feabhra 2011: https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/doigheanna-le-%E2%80%9Ci-love-you%E2%80%9D-a-ra-i-ngaeilge-let-me-count-the-ways\/<\/a><\/p>\n

9 Feabhra 2011: https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/tearmai-muirneise-terms-of-endearment-do-la-vailintin\/<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

le R\u00f3isl\u00edn How do I love thee?\u00a0 Let me count the ways, but, at least for Irish, not the verbs. No verbs, hunh?\u00a0 What\u2019s all that about? One of the first steps for learning Latin, at least when I was in school, was learning to conjugate the verb \u201cto love\u201d \u2013 amo, amas (I love…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3898,1],"tags":[111210,111209,111212,111207,111195,28834,111211,474,111208,111206,163,27933],"class_list":["post-1278","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-irish-language","category-uncategorized","tag-a-ghra","tag-ag-gra","tag-amo-amas","tag-ghra","tag-gra","tag-graigh","tag-graite","tag-i-love-you","tag-mo-ghra","tag-my-love","tag-valentines-day","tag-you-are-my-love"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1278"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1281,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278\/revisions\/1281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}