Ceist faoi gramadach

MaryKirwan

OK, mar siad tá na abairtí i gceist:

C1) "Bhuail mé bhóthar". Is léir go "I hit the road". Ach cén fáth nach bhfuil sé "bhuail mé AN bhóthair"?

C2) "Bheartaigh mé an sos machnaimh". o_o I decided the pause reflection. Is léir go "I decided to pause for reflection" ach cá bhfuil an "to" agus "for"?

If I was trying to say these things in Irish it never would have occurred to me to say it in such few words. (Tá na abairti de Árdleibhéal léamhthuiscint)

Gumbi

MaryKirwan wrote: »

OK, mar siad tá na abairtí i gceist:

C1) "Bhuail mé bhóthar". Is léir go "I hit the road". Ach cén fáth nach bhfuil sé "bhuail mé AN bhóthair"?

C2) "Bheartaigh mé an sos machnaimh". o_o I decided the pause reflection. Is léir go "I decided to pause for reflection" ach cá bhfuil an "to" agus "for"?

If I was trying to say these things in Irish it never would have occurred to me to say it in such few words. (Tá na abairti de Árdleibhéal léamhthuiscint)

Bhuail mé bhóthar doesn't make sense in and of itself in the first place.

Bhuail mé = I hit

Bóthar means road. I don't know why it's lenited (has a h). It shouldn't be.

The next line makes no sense either, it's completely incorrect. Where are you getting these sentences from?

An Coilean

MaryKirwan wrote: »

OK, mar siad tá na abairtí i gceist:

C1) "Bhuail mé bhóthar". Is léir go "I hit the road". Ach cén fáth nach bhfuil sé "bhuail mé AN bhóthair"?

As I would understand it, what matters is the meaning you are trying to convay.

Bhuail mé an bhóthair - I hit the road, you are actually talking about a specific road (The road for home perhaps) whereas 'bhuail mé bhóthar' - 'I hit a road' dose'nt specify any given road, it just means you left.

Gumbi

An Coilean wrote: »

MaryKirwan wrote: »

OK, mar siad tá na abairtí i gceist:

C1) "Bhuail mé bhóthar". Is léir go "I hit the road". Ach cén fáth nach bhfuil sé "bhuail mé AN bhóthair"?

As I would understand it, what matters is the meaning you are trying to convay.

Bhuail mé an bhóthair - I hit the road, you are actually talking about a specific road (The road for home perhaps) whereas 'bhuail mé bhóthar' - 'I hit a road' dose'nt specify any given road, it just means you left.

Their is no reason for lenition. I don't understand if these sentences are being written by the OP to be corrected (if they are she should explain what the intended meaning is) or if they are being taken from a book or something.

An Coilean

Gumbi wrote: »

Their is no reason for lenition. I don't understand if these sentences are being written by the OP to be corrected (if they are she should explain what the intended meaning is) or if they are being taken from a book or something.

Sorry, just copying the OP's spelling,

(Tá na abairti de Árdleibhéal léamhthuiscint)

Gumbi

An Coilean wrote: »

Gumbi wrote: »

Their is no reason for lenition. I don't understand if these sentences are being written by the OP to be corrected (if they are she should explain what the intended meaning is) or if they are being taken from a book or something.

Sorry, just copying the OP's spelling,

(Tá na abairti de Árdleibhéal léamhthuiscint)

Npnp

Huh. They are still incorrect sentences, both of them.

OP, cá háit a bhfuil na habairtí seo á léamh agat?

OP, where are you reading these sentences?

mr chips

Just for clarity, OP - in this instance, the correct spelling is "bóthar" - no h and no i. "Bhuail mé bóthar" would mean "I hit a road", which of course isn't the usual way of expressing this. "Bhuail mé an bóthar" is "I hit the road".

If I was going to say "I decided to pause for reflection", I'd probably say something like "Bheartaigh mé sos machnaimh a ghlacadh", or more likely "Shocraigh mé sos machnaimh a ghlacadh" (however, this is more closely translated by "I decided to take a break for reflection"). The "a" of "a ghlacadh" would be the nearest equivalent of the "to" in English.

It's important though to remember that prepositions and sentence structures often don't directly translate from one language to another, and Irish-English translations are no exception to this. So if you go through a sentence in English word-for-word, trying to substitute Irish words as you go along, you'll almost certainly end up with something that looks/sounds odd. Ditto if going from Irish to English.

The phrase "déan machnamh air" means "reflect upon it", or possibly "review it".

I thoroughly recommend that you get a copy of Wingléacht, the DVD version of the Ó Dónaill dictionary. It has a very useful feature that allows you to check different versions of words, such as the genitive singular and plural for any noun or the various conjugations of verbs, simply by right-clicking on the word. Just to let you see how it looks, I've attached screenshots of the entries for "machnamh" and "beartaigh".