Irish Grammar rules

Spenguin

Hi,

My Irish mock is in two days and I've been looking over all the rules, and one thing confuses me. When 'an' means 'the', does it take a seimhiu or an uru or nothing? In a sample answer our teacher gave us it says:
An mhaidin
and
An tsamhraidh

I know after a preposition it takes an uru, but what if it's on its own?

Thanks.

newgrange

I'm not an Irish teacher, and it's 25+ years since I did my Junior Cert., but...
I think feminine nouns change after 'an'.
An chistin, an bhean, an chlann, an tsráid, an Ghaeltacht - all fem.
but
an fear, an madra, an buachaill, an cailín (yes, I know..), an teach, an traein - all masc.


Edit: Just found this rule:
With masculine nouns after an put t- before a vowel (small t no hyphen before a capital AN tOIREACHTAS); leave consonants including s as they are.
With feminine nouns put a séimhiú on consonants; put t before s ; and leave vowels as they are.
From: http://homepage.eircom.net/~eofeasa/level04/ceacht404/miniu/404b.htm

Our teacher at school never taught us grammar 'rules' as such - she spoke nothing but Irish in her classes, and after a while, something either sounded right or it didn't, and to be honest, it was a great way of teaching a language.

PurpleFistMixer

They don't expect us to know noun genders for junior cert, though, do they?

newgrange

I don't think so. I don't even remember it being an issue at Leaving Cert. - it was just something we picked up along the way without knowing. Like in English people call a ship 'she'.

I was just explaining why it happens.

Some things just sound right, like 'ar an mbord', 'sa chistin' - you don't need to 'know' the rule why, just what sounds right or doesn't. 'Dún an doras' or 'Dún an dhoras' - the first one just sounds right - if you know it's because 'doras' is masculine, great, but it's not necessary to know it.

Another great recommendation of my old Irish teacher was - if you can't say it in Irish, don't say it. She maintained it was better have an essay or paragraph that when translated sounded like a 4 yr old wrote it, full of short (but correct) little sentences, rather than a series of ungrammatical and badly spelled sentences trying to say something complicated. She spoke a lot of truth.

JCB

Yes you are expected to know the gender and agreements for JC HL Irish for basic words. It usually isn't very hard, but just to write a summary of what newgrange said:
starting with:
mas. consonant = no change
fem. consonant = "h" after first letter
mas. vowel = "t-" in front of word
fem. vowel = no change
mas. "s" = no change
fem. "s" = "t" in front of the word.
For JC you are also expected to know Aimsir Chaite, Aimsir Láthreach, Aimsir Fhaistineach and a bit of An Modh Chonníleach. All irregular verbs also in positive/negative/question terms. 80 per cent of marks on answers goes on this stuff so you should know this off like the back of your hand to get a decent grade. Also your prepositions, advectives, adverbs and a few decorative phrases. It's not that hard really. Go n-éirí an t-ádh libh!

JCB

PS also for God's sake don't write in your exam that Irish is stupid, boring, rubbish, dead, a waste of time or anything like that, even if you think that it is. Just think that it is our own special language that no one else in the world can understand and that it sets us apart from every other country in the world, amazing when you think about it.

JC 2K3

*goes to an all Irish School

Is liomsa sibhse ar fad.

knifey_spoonie

wish i had found this thread before got my results today 38%(tape not back) its better than the 2 NG'S in the class

PurpleFistMixer

Is there any way to tell if a noun is masculine or feminine? (ie as in french)

JCB

Nope, u just gotta learn dem off.

the smiley one

ok I may be wrong (and since I'm doing LC HL, not a good thing...) but aren't there some basic outlines as to masculine and feminine words?

off the top of my head:
-nouns to do with nature generally: feminine
-nouns ending with a slender vowel generally: feminine
-professions: Masculine
-nouns ending in a broad vowel: masculine

there are way more, I know I have them on a sheet somewhere.....

JCB

U could be right dere, sp. about the professions one.

4Xcut

JCB wrote:

Nope, u just gotta learn dem off.

It's kinda a half-way house between learning them off and set rules. There are rules of thumb. They don't expect you to know this for jc. Get you verbs and basics right and you'll be fine. If you want to impress have perfect verbs as very few students do this.