Irish Translation Forum

Teifeach wrote:tá na daoine ar an suíomh seo i bhfad níos cliste ná na daoine ar an suíomh eile

an bhfuil sin ceart?

That looks good to me, assuming you want to say "The people on this site are far more clever than people on the other site". If you want a more general statement, you could say:

Tá na daoine ar an suíomh seo i bhfad níos cliste ná daoine ar suíomhanna eile.
The people on this site are far more clever than people on other sites.

springpaws wrote:Tá sneachta níos sleamhaine ná baisteach (unless it's deep snow).

(I think that's the word you meant?)

mhwombat wrote:

springpaws wrote:Tá sneachta níos sleamhaine ná baisteach (unless it's deep snow).

(I think that's the word you meant?)

Thanks. Edited. I don't know where that came from. GRMA a Wombat.

Is fearr an chopail ná an briathar 'tá'
Is sine an chopail ná an briathar

mhwombat wrote:For each of these adjectives, write a sentence that makes a comparison.

spéisiúil
deas
sásta
te
eolach
réasúnach
mór

I have composed a paragraph that uses all of these words. The added challenge is that the paragraph is mostly written in the past tense, which I know nothing about. I will begin with the first few lines, and get some advice, so that by the end I'l have a better handle on both subjects.

Tá mé ag scriobh faoi na is spéiciúil na fear bhí aithne agam, Ruairi. Bhí sé mo chara fearr. Bhí sé cailliúil mar a féile. Bhí maith leis is sásta tú i tigh sé. Bhí deaise Ruairi na mé.

There is more, of course--I just want to know whether I'm headed in the right direction.

One more question: the last sentence says: An chroí Ruairi bhí mó chroí.
I think that says Roger's was the biggest heart. If it does, does that translate in an emotional sense, or would it be seen as a physical statement. Would it mean lots of love, or CHF?

Bhí maith leish a dinnéar bhí blásta agus bhí teo dinnéar. As I understand, blásta doesn't change,and té becomes teo. Still not sure about the grammar regarding the passt tense.

Aibí or someone, please review this. It's difficult to edit one's own writing.

springpaws, you are developing good language instincts; you had a sense that you might be getting off course and knew to ask for help. You did well with the past tense. There were a few mistakes with comparisons, but the main problem was using verbs where you should have used the copula. But that's the number one problem for almost everyone, I think. The more complicated a sentence structure is, the easier it is to make a "tá sé fear" error.

Normally I prefer to point out a few of the most important mistakes, and quietly correct the rest so I won't make anyone feel overwhelmed. But I think it will help others a lot if I go through your example in some detail, and you've been around long enough that I know you won't get easily discouraged. Some of the things I'm going to tell you are things you already know, but I'll repeat them for the benefit of others because we all face the same obstacles when we're learning. So please don't feel like I'm heaping criticism on you -- you tried some fancy stuff, and you got a lot of it right.

First, time for a cup of tea and a few words of wisdom.

An excerpt from Wombat's Words of Wisdom
WWoW #48: Try to express everything in terms of sentence structures you've seen before, and that you know are okay. You can generally swap nouns for nouns, adjectives for adjectives, and so forth, and you'll still end up with a grammatically correct sentence. But if you try to get much fancier than that, you usually end up leaving a trail of broken and maimed words that even hyenas will refuse to devour for fear of defilement.

An excerpt from Wombat's Words of Wisdom
WWoW #49: Of course, it's frustrating to follow WWoW #48 when you're learning and you want to be able to express any idea that comes into your head. So break the above rule occasionally. The courage to make mistakes is part of learning. Just don't be discouraged when it doesn't work out.

An excerpt from Wombat's Words of Wisdom
WWoW #1572: Yes, wombats do have words of wisdom for every topic under the sun. It took you this long to realise it?

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Mmm, that's good tea. I'm going to discuss the sentences out of order, to get the easy stuff out of the way first.

Bhí deaise Ruairi na mé.

I assume you wanted to say "Ruarí was nicer than me." The comparative form of deas is deise; it's one of the irregular ones. But there's a structural mistake here. While you're getting comfortable with comparatives, I suggest you think of the non-comparative version first, and then modify it. So how would you say "Ruarí was nice"? Yep, that's:

Bhí Ruarí [go] deas.
Ruarí was nice.

Don't worry about the "go" part. (Some adjectives take "go" sometimes, and I'd rather not complicate things by going into the rules here.) Okay, the next step is to say "Ruarí was nicer."

Bhí Ruarí níos deise.
Ruarí was nicer.

Now all you need to add is the "than me" part. You got that right, although there's an accent on the a in ná. (It's a different word than na, which is a form of the article.)

Bhí Ruarí níos deise ná mise.

The reason I used mise instead of mé here is that you're making a comparison, so it sounds funny if you don't use a contrast form here. So notice how we started with a simple sentence structure that we knew, and just tweaked it a bit. It's still past tense verb + subject + description.

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Next sentence.

Bhí sé mo chara fearr.

I assume you wanted to say "He was my best friend." Again, you got it nearly right, but the structure is a problem. This little sentence has some unexpected complexities, so I'll start with something simpler, in the present tense and without any comparisons. How would you say "He is a teacher"? Wait! Before you answer, note that in this sentence you're equating two things/people, he = a teacher Whenever you do that, you need to use the copula, not a verb. In the previous sentence it was okay to use the verb bhí because you were describing Ruarí. In other words:

verb + noun [phrase] + adjective [phrase] is OK
verb + noun [phrase] + noun [phrase] is BAD!

That type of error is often called a "Ta sé fear" error because "Ta sé fear" is a common example of the mistake. (I've often thought of writing a series of tips for learners under the pseudonym "Tasha Farr" because it sounds like "tá sé fear".) So to say "He is a teacher", we need the copula. You may already know the answer from similar sentences you've seen.

Is muinteoir é.
He is a teacher.

Why does "muinteoir" preceed "é"? The short answer is because that's the sentence structure used in Irish. But I'll explain in a little more detail because this issue will arise again in a moment. We're getting into deeper waters, so anyone who is feeling overwhelmed should feel free to stick to simpler things for a while, or just pay attention to the bits they do understand. Personally, I always wait a full hour after eating before using the copula.

Ahem! The copula is a finicky, demanding little creature, and it wants things in a particular order:

Wombat Unified Copula Theory
1.Order of elements:
indefinite nouns
pronouns
proper nouns
definite nouns

2.The copula can never be followed directly by a proper or definite noun, so you need to insert a proleptic pronoun (é, í, iad). (This proleptic pronoun isn't the subject or the predicate, and it isn't translated.)

Note: In Connacht and Munster:
i. A proleptic pronoun is inserted before the first proper noun or definite noun, whether or not it immediately follows the copula.
ii. If the subject is é, í, or iad, it goes both before and after the predicate.

Caveat: This is the way I personally find simplest to understand, and seems to explain every copula sentence I've encountered in a reliable source. However, you may have seen very different explanations. If you find a better explanation, use it (and let me know!). Sometimes books will seem to contradict each other, but that's generally because they're using different terminology. Most grammar books don't try to say much about the order of elements in copula statements, possibly because they don't want to deal with dialect variations.

Okay. The two things we're equating are é (a pronoun) and muinteoir (an indefinite noun), so muinteoir needs to preceed é. How would we say "He is the teacher"? Notice that "the teacher" is a definite noun.

Is é an muinteoir [é].
He is the teacher.

That last [é] is to keep the Connacht and Munster folks happy (see rule ii). Feel free to leave it out if you speak Gaeilge na Wombat (Ulster Irish). Now, how would we say "He is my teacher"? Think before you answer. The phrase "my teacher" is also definite. It's easy to recognise definite nouns when they have "the" in front, but that's not the only way to make a noun definite. Basically, anything you do to a noun that makes it clear which particular person or thing you're talking about, makes that noun definite. (And yes, you might have more than one teacher, but in almost any situation where you would refer to "my teacher", you would have a particular one in mind.) So making sure the definite noun is after the pronoun:

Is é mo mhuinteoir [é].
He is my teacher.

And now we know one way to say "He is my friend."

Is é mo chara [é].
He is my friend.

Returning to indefinite teachers for a minute, how would you say "He is a tall teacher"?

Is muinteoir mór é.
He is a tall teacher.

In Ireland, when people refer to someone as "big" or mór, they generally mean the person is tall. It's not a comment about the person's weight! Note that the order swapped again, because "a tall teacher" is indefinite. Now let's try "He is the tallest teacher" using the superlative. Notice that "the tallest teacher" is definite, so the order changes back. We're getting a real copula workout here.

Is é an muinteoir is mó [é].
He is the tallest teacher.

Looks like all we need to do is swap a few words to say "He is my best friend", doesn't it? Alas, it's not quite that simple. That's because when we talk about "best", we're usually expressing an opinion or preference, so we use a different structure for that. Agghhh! Sentence structure is all-important in Irish. So let's review the ways of discussing preferences:

Is maith liom tae. I like tea.
Is fear liom caifé. I prefer tea.

And here is another structure you might or might not know:

Is é an ceann is fearr liom.
That is the one [that] I prefer/like best; that is my favourite.

So now let's try saying "He is my favourite teacher."

Is é an muinteoir is fearr liom.
He is my favourite teacher; he is the teacher that I like best.

And now we can tackle "He is my best friend".

Is é an cara is fearr liom.
He is my best friend. (Lit. He is the friend that is best with me.)

Note that there's no "my" in the sentence at all! This is one of those situations where Irish has a very different way of saying things. Now all we have to do is put it into the past tense: "He was my best friend." The past tense of the copula is ba, or b' before a vowel. That takes care of the is at the beginning. But in Irish, the comparison has to be put into the past tense too! (I still forget to do this as often as not.) I only mentioned this briefly in the first post; I didn't really explain it. And I think you've had enough explanation to last a while, so I'll just tell you that is fearr gets changed to ab fhearr. So now we have:

B'é an cara ab fhearr liom.
He was my best friend.

Whew! I'm sorry I don't have time to go through the other sentences, but I think you can see why it's safer to stay veeeeerrrry close to structures you know.

Fáilte romhat ar ais mhwombat.
Chuir sé isteach orm nach raibh tú ar líne le fada. Is aoibhinn liom thú a fheiceáil arís.

A Lady Wombat,

I read you post carefully and I am not that advanced. Will bookmark this post for future reference.

Glad to see ya back. Is your computer game completed?

laurie

Is fear liom caifé. I perfer coffee.

Yeah, that post ended up being far more complex that I thought when I started. But sometimes it's good exercise to analyse a sentence in gory detail like that. Even if you didn't understand all of what I wrote, you'll probably remember some of the things to watch out for.

The computer game isn't finished yet, but I hope it's only a few months more.