Irish Translation Forum

Bhí sé sásta nuair bhí tú sásta? I hope I got the simpler sentence right. You're right, it does carry better. The set of comparitives set off something in my head. I said "that's Roger". So I set about trying to learn while trying to say something from my heart (and wiping more than 1 codhóit tear). Do you think I should abandon this paragraph and make up simpler sentences that are about general subjects? I must admit, I'm enjoying the learning, but even (saintly) wombats have their limits. You tell me--I'm not discouraged by your gentle dissection of my sentences and I'm learning plenty that I can learn when I get that far. You make the call, St. Wombat.

Is Wombaití is eolaí ná Codhóití as Geailge. Tá "practice thread" is spéiciúilí uirlis foghlaim. Not too sure about as Gaeilge there,but my mind has trouble crossing back and forth sometimes. I'll try simpler sentences to get the concept right. I hope I can now post the disclaimer "no wombats were hurt in the making of this translation".

springpaws wrote:Bhí sé sásta nuair a bhí tú sásta?

Well done! Just one tiny mistake there.

springpaws wrote:Do you think I should abandon this paragraph and make up simpler sentences that are about general subjects?

I don't think you should abandon it, but maybe put it aside for a few months. I don't mind the work, but I'm worried about introducing too many new concepts at once.

Also, as I mentioned before, sometimes the simple sentences work surprisingly well. The reason I had you translate "He was happy when you were happy" was to illustrate that. It's a nice poignant sentence; you wrote it yourself, and you understand the structure of it.

When I'm writing something in Irish, I only allow myself to think in short baby sentences. After I have the correct grammar for my simple sentences, then I might link some of them together to form more complex sentences. I might end up with some complex sentences, but they were assembled in Irish. I hardly ever translate complex sentences from English. I often find that where in English I might want to join sentence A to sentence B, in Irish it will flow better if I leave sentence A alone and join sentence B to sentence C.

springpaws wrote:Is Wombaití is eolaí ná Codhóití as Geailge.

I assume you wanted to say "Wombats are more knowledgeable than Coyotes about Irish". You got it very close, but there are two problems.

1. For more knowledgeable than, use níos eolaí ná. (is eolaí means most knowledgeable, and wouldn't be followed by ná)

2. This shouldn't be a copula statement, so change the first Is to Tá. Yes, I know it really, really looks like a copula statement because it has two nouns in it (wombats and coyotes). But a comparison is more like an adjectival phrase or something.

These statements need the copula. They're like equations:

A wombat is a marsupial -- copula (wombat = marsupial)
Wombats are small burrowing animals -- copula (wombats = animals)
A wombat is not a bird -- copula (wombat != bird)

These statements would NOT take the copula, even though they contain two nouns:

Wombats love cookies. (We're not saying "wombats = cookies" or "wombats != cookies")
A wombat is bigger than a breadbox. (Again, it's not an equation like wombat = breadbox)

Another way to think of it is that if you're saying that one thing IS THE SAME AS another thing (identification), or that one thing IS AN EXAMPLE OF another thing (classification), you use the copula. So here are some examples to illustrate that way of looking at it:

A wombat is a marsupial -- copula (a classification statement)
Wombats are small burrowing animals -- copula (classification)
A wombat is not a bird -- copula (classification)
Wombat is the teacher on this thread -- copula (identification)
MHWombat is the forum member who has alpacas -- copula (identification)

But for comparison statements, you don't use the copula. Don't be discouraged if the above is confusing. It will become clearer with time, and perhaps someone else will have a better way of explaining it that "clicks".

I have to go to sleep now, but I'll help with the second sentence tomorrow.

springpaws wrote:Tá "practice thread" is spéiciúilí uirlis foghlaim.

Did you intend to say "A practice thread is a useful learning tool", "A practice thread is the most useful learning tool", or something else?

A practice thread is the most useful learning tool. BTW, the copula thing was something I didn't know, but the níos part came from starting a sentence saying that wombats are the most knowledgeable, and changing due to the possibility that some might object. Like yourself for instance. A lesson in going back and proofreading. Again, if you compare wombats to coyotes, you don't use the copula because. . . you are comparing knolwledge levels, not species?

Because you are comparing, you would use tá. If you really need a mnemonic,
I guess you could go with "tá is used with the adjective".

Comparisons wouldn't ever use the copula because you're comparing degrees of something that two objects possess.

The copula is used when thing=thing as mhwombat described above.

In this sentence, which I see was wrong before, I would use ba where I used bhí originally,but would I use Ba or Bhí? Ba an chroí Ruarí ab mó croí. I chose ba because his heart is his heart. Heart=Heart. Also, does this translate (the sentiment)?

springpaws wrote:In this sentence, which I see was wrong before, I would use ba where I used bhí originally,but would I use Ba or Bhí? Ba an chroí Ruarí ba mó croí. I chose ba because his heart is his heart. Heart=Heart. Also, does this translate (the sentiment)?

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. What you have is (roughly) "The Rory's heart was was my heart"...you've got an extra "ba" in there.

I'm no expert on the past tense of the copula (or, for that matter, the present tense!), but perhaps "ba é croí Ruarí mo chroí." That's just a stab, however.

Redwolf

Sorry, dislexic moment. I edited it to say ab mó croí. I hope it says Ruarí's heart was the biggest heart.