(no subject)

[kittydesade]

Foclóir (vocabulary)
Tar isteach - Come in
Suig síos ansin - Sit down there
Go raibh math agat - Thank you
Tá sé fuar inniu - It is cold today
Tá, cinnte - It certainly is
arís - again
Agus do sheoladh? - And your address?
uimhir a trí - number three
árasán a dó - flat two
Sráid Mhor - Main Street
d'uimhir teileafóin - your telephone number
Tá bileog ansin - There is a leaflet there.
Tá an t-eolas ar fad ann - All the information is in it

1. Greetings
You can greet someone casually by asking Conas tá tú? (How are you?) or by commenting on the weather, e.g. Tá sé go breá. (It is fine.) More formal greetings are of religious origin, e.g. Dia dhuit (God be with you), replied to with Dia is Muire dhuit (God and Mary be with you).

2. Distinctively Irish surnames tend to begin with Ó or Mac (O' and Mac in the English versions). These were originally names which identified you by your father or grandfather, but later came to be used as family names or surnames.

Tomás Mac Cárthaigh (McCarthy), lit. Tomás, son of Cárthac
Seán Ó Conaill (O'Connell), lit. Seán, grandson of Conal

The way these names are used is still influenced by their original meanings. For instance, there are separate female versions (daughter of...) which appear in Unit 2. The English forms of Irish surnames derive from the male versions only. Some common Irish surnames in both languages:

Ó Mathúna (O'Mahony)
Ó Dochartaigh (Doherty)
Ó Cinnéide (Kennedy)
Ó Riagáin (Re[a]gan)

Mac Mathúna (McMahon)
Mac Cárthaigh (McCarthy)
Mac Craith (McGrath)
Mac Gearailt (FitzGerald) [And that has its own interesting history, surname appellation Fitz]

You will notice that Mac in Irish sometimes corresponds to Fitz, from the French fils (son), in Norman names. .... no, I'm not even going to finish that paragraph. Mm.

3. Na huimreacha 0-20 (the numbers 0-20)
0 náid
1 aon (pron én)
2 dó
3 trí
4 ceathair (pron kyahir)
5 cúig
6 sé (pron shé)
7 seacht
8 ocht
9 naoi (pron nuí)
10 deich (pron. deh)
11 aon déag (pron. én déug)
12 dó dhéag (pron. dó yéug)
13 trí déag
14 ceathair déag
15 cúig déag
16 sé déag
17 seacht déag
18 ocht déag
19 naoi déag
20 fiche (pron. fihe)

It is sometimes necessary to place a before these

a) when counting: a haon, a dó, a trí... (note that this puts an h before aon, and also before the other number beginning with a vowel: a hocht)
b) when citing the number of a house, a flat, etc:
uimhir a seacht, Sráid Uí Chonaill (number seven, O'Connell Street)
árasán a ceathair (apartment number four)
seomra a hocht déag (room number eighteen)
c) when calling out a number: a seacht, a náid, a ceathair (seven, zero, four)



Hin and her
Meine Tante wohnt nicht hier, sondern in Hamburg. My aunt doesn't live here, but rather in Hamburg.
Wir fahren einmal im Jahr hin. Once a year we go there.
Und zweimal im Jahr kommt sie her. And twice a year she comes here.

Hin and her are used to show direction. Hin shows motion away from the speaker, and her shows motion toward the speaker. Hin and her occupy last position in the sentence.

Er war letztes Jahr in Europa. Er möchte wieder dorthin. He was in Europe last year. He wants to go there again.
Kommen Sie mal herauf. Come on up here.

Hin and her may be combined with several parts of speech, including adverbs, prepositions, and verbs.

Woher kommen Sie? Wo kommen Sie her? Where are you from?
Wohin fahren Sie? Wo fahren Sie him? Where are you going?`

Rules only, since it looks like the exercise requires the tape.


I really need to download the BBC Irish lessons so I have a pronunciation guide. I can hear German and Russian and Japanese spoken pretty easily; Irish is harder to find.

Finally got wireless back up at work, but I think I'm still going to keep schlepping my netbook back and forth at least until I get this damned Big Bang done. Or until I figure out why it was out all week. So much crap to catch up with this weekend, among other things, sleep. So very much. But I don't think anything's happening this weekend anyway, so that's something. Maybe the boy and I will go up to the guitar store up the street and look for a gig bag and/or some headphones and spare strings.

Ugh. I am going home and taking a nap. There was some discussion about seeing Real Steel, but I think after looking up the opening date of that the boy must have been hallucinating, because it's not out yet. Nap, and then back to working on my writing and something. Maybe more Leverage. I'm almost even caught up! On Leverage. Not on sleep, writing, or anything else.