麻豆社

Giota Chun Cinn: Irish Additional Lessons

Articles04/12/2008

Antain Mac Lochlainn shares tips on how to make the best use of your dictionaries, gives a brief overview of dictionary abbreviations, and introduces you to An Caighde谩n Oifigi煤l, or 鈥楽tandard Irish.鈥�

Charlie Dillon explains where and why a 鈥榟鈥� has to be inserted when two vowel sounds come together in Irish, and takes us through examples such as 贸 谩it go h谩it, na hoile谩in, ceithre huaire, and n谩 h贸l sin.

Antain Mac Lochlainn explains how we use emphasis in Irish. He introduces the suffixes -sa, -se, -ne etc., and the emphatic forms of the personal pronouns, mise, tusa, eisean, ise etc.

In this lesson, Antain Mac Lochlainn shares some of his pronunciation tips for learners. He points out that people from different parts of the country will have their own peculiar difficulties with pronunciation, and offers some useful hints and comparisons.

Antain Mac Lochlainn gives a concise explanation of the relative in Irish, with helpful comparisons to its use in English. He gives simple examples of phrases, such as is bean 铆 and d茅anann s铆 obair mhaith, and explains what happens when we join them together. Similar examples illustrate the difference between the direct and indirect relative, and there are even some opportunities for you to try creating simple relative clauses yourself.

Antain Mac Lochlainn steers us through counting in Irish. He introduces the personal numerals - duine, beirt, tri煤r etc, along with some regional variations in their use. He goes on to explain the various ways in which we count objects.

Learners of Irish often have great difficulty with the infinitive. Here, Antain Mac Lochlainn defines it for us, and stresses that in Irish, there are two distinct types. Which form we use, he explains, depends on whether or not our phrase contains an object. He shows us the correct usage of the 鈥榟,鈥� or 蝉茅颈尘丑颈煤, in this context, but admits it鈥檚 a custom regularly honoured in the breach by native Gaeltacht speakers.

Irish differs from English in having tenses which describe repeated actions. In this lesson Antain Mac Lochlainn explains the past habitual tense and how to use it. He also gives some further pronunciation tips, and points out in particular some peculiarities of Ulster pronunciation. Finally, he reveals how we can use ba ghn谩ch liom plus the infinitive to avoid some of the pronunciation difficulties the past habitual tense can throw up.

Antain Mac Lochlainn tells us that the concept of strong and weak plurals was one with which he struggled as a learner: Why was the shoe shop called Siopa Br贸g when there was presumably more than one shoe for sale there? Why was the men鈥檚 toilet Leithreas na bhFear when the plural of fear is fir? In this lesson, Antain shares with us the understanding he gained, and gives several examples of weak and strong plurals in action.

In this lesson, Antain Mac Lochlainn talks us through some of the differences between Irish dialects. He also gives us a concise explanation and history of the Caighde谩n Oifigi煤il we first met in lesson 1 of this series, along with some useful hints on when and to what extent we ought to employ it.

Here, Antain Mac Lochlainn introduces some common phrases for toasts, blessings, congratulations, thanks, condolences. He gives us the literal meaning of many of the phrases as well as some hints on how they should be used.

Antaine 脫 Donnaile introduces us to the genitive case which is invoked when we wish to show ownership of a noun, as in dath an fh茅ir (鈥渢he colour of the grass鈥�), or following a verbal noun, as in ag baint an fh茅ir (鈥渃utting the grass鈥�). But what happens when we have to put several genitives in a row, as in 鈥渢he colour of the dog鈥檚 house (the colour of the house of the dog)?鈥� That鈥檚 when the suspended genitive comes to our rescue, and Antaine talks us through its application.

In this lesson, Antaine 脫 Donnaile explains where we should use the copula, is, instead of 迟谩, for the verb 鈥榯o be.鈥� You will already be familiar with 迟谩, the present tense of the substantive verb, from your Giota Beag, and Giota Beag Eile lessons. We use 迟谩, for example, to describe how or where we are: 迟谩 尘茅 tinn (鈥淚 am ill鈥�), or 迟谩 尘茅 sa chistin (鈥淚 am in the kitchen鈥�).

However, where we wish to identify or classify a noun, we must use the copula, is, and not 迟谩: is mise Ciar谩n (鈥淚 am Ciar谩n鈥�), or is buachaill 茅 Se谩n (鈥淪e谩n is a boy鈥�). As there is no such distinction in English, the copula can be difficult for learners to grasp, and this can lead to the infamous error, 迟谩 尘茅 fear! Here, Antaine teaches us all we need to know to avoid that classic trap.

Ciar谩n Dawson tells us that how we say 鈥榠n鈥� or 鈥榯o鈥� someplace in Irish depends very much on context. It will depend firstly, he says, on whether the place name is preceded by the definite article, an, or na. Secondly, it will depend on whether the place is a country, or a town or townland. In this lesson Ciar谩n gives us several examples of each instance, pointing out in which cases we should use go, i, chun, sa, sna, and even ar. Along the way, he explains where our place name will take the genitive case, where it will be eclipsed, and how we should deal with place names beginning with a vowel.

Charlie Dillon gives us some rules of thumb to help us work out the gender of a noun. People or animals, he tells us, will have the same gender in Irish as they do biologically: fear (鈥渕an鈥�) and tarbh (鈥渂ull鈥�) are masculine; bean (鈥渨oman鈥�) and 产贸 (鈥渃ow鈥�) are feminine. Note an important exception here: in Irish, as in German, girls are not considered feminine until they grow into women! Therefore, while bean is feminine, 肠补颈濒铆苍 (鈥済irl鈥�) is masculine.

Word endings are also a useful indicator of gender and Charlie lays out some common examples such as the masculine 鈥揺oir 鈥撁砳r which denote occupations or pastimes, and the feminine -lann which indicates a venue for particular activities, as in bialann (鈥渞别蝉迟补耻谤补苍迟鈥�).

There are many ways in Irish to say that one must do something, and in this lesson Malachy Duffin takes us through several of them. Firstly, he explains, we can use the verb 迟谩 with either of the prepostitions ar, ag, or le: 迟谩 orm dul abhaile (鈥淚 must go home鈥�), 迟谩 agam le dul abhaile (鈥淚 have to go home鈥�), 迟谩 cruinni煤 l茅 socr煤 (鈥渢here is a meeting to be organised鈥�). He goes on to cover n铆 m贸r dom, th谩inig orm, caithfidh 尘茅, and b鈥櫭﹊gean dom.聽 You鈥檒l never again be short of a phrase to say, 鈥淚 have to鈥�.鈥�

In this final lesson of the series, Antaine 脫 Donnaile shares with us his enthusiasm for the preposition. He explains that in Irish, prepositions and pronouns come together to from prepositional pronouns, e.g. le (鈥榳ith鈥�) + 尘茅 (鈥榤e鈥�) = liom. He states his belief that Irish derives much of its sophistication, complexity and richness from prepositions, and supports his case by listing the surprising range of phrases that can be generated by the simple construction, 迟谩 + noun + preposition.