A fluemt Irsh speaker as a child but getting rusty. What is the difference beween Is brath liom.....and Gra. Graim thu... Is brath liom caca milis... ?? Any help?

Is breá liom é (note the spelling): I like it, literally "it seems nice to me".

Tugaim grá do: I love (literally I give love to).

Tá grá agam duit: I love you (literally I have love for you).

Gráim: I love, but a very dated way of putting it. 18th century??

Go raimh maith agut. Graim thu. 18th centrury. Nope more like 1960s.Its how I spelt it at school in Dublin., Think I got it. I will try some if you can bear it!!!

So I can say Is brea liom Rugbai. Or Ta gra agam do Rugbai??? Or is gra reserved for more intimate "love".

Gráim isn't very often used nowadays. You can look up the forms on corpas.ria.ie. After a quick glance, all of the forms used are prior the 20th century. If you were taught gráim in school, in consistent contexts (i.e. outside of specific texts written by authors who were known to be native or fluent speakers), chances are it was just Béarlachas (i.e., they taught it as it resembled more closely the English verb structure of 'I love', rather than the more idiomatic one).

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I'm an intermediate speaker of the Corca Dhuibhne dialect of Irish and also have knowledge on the old spelling
Soir gaċ síar, fé ḋeireaḋ thíar

So Funny. Béarlachas was seriously frowned on. In fact is was said with sort of venom. More probably it was schoolboys making it up. By the way I went to school in Colaiste Mhuire in Dublin. An Irish speaking school till my leaving cert when i did all subjects As Gaeilge. Try translating Irish into Latin....LOL Thanks for this. SO....how do you say I love Rugby...which I do. Avid Irish fan.

I don't mean to insult you or your school, if thats what you took from my previous message. Perhaps you could provide more context to where gráim was used, i.e. was it taught frequently alongside other forms or was it reserved for more specific contexts or more traditional works/authors. Regardless, I still don't think that gráim was used very frequently among native speakers at this time consistently, at least not within the dialect that I'm familiar with, but maybe your teachers stuck to a more conservative form of the language. The best translation for 'I love rugby' would be is breá liom rugbaí. Grá and its various forms are restricted to more personal meanings. If your familiar with any Romance languages it somewhat resembles the difference of encantar(le) vs amar in Spanish.

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I'm an intermediate speaker of the Corca Dhuibhne dialect of Irish and also have knowledge on the old spelling
Soir gaċ síar, fé ḋeireaḋ thíar

If you're asserting your authority as a near-native speaker of Irish, why don't you tell us how you say "I love rugby" as Gaodhluinn?

Gosh! Asserting my authority??? If that was the case I wouldn't be asking the Question. Just wanted others opinion. Maybe I should just shut up and stop this thread. Thank you all for your input. Im goona stick to Is gra liom. Is brea liom is too stuffy. By the way as schoolboys we had a lot of fun with Bearlachas. Can ayon one tell me me what this means in English: Bainne thar do suile. ??

I have more for those with sense of humour (note spelling of HUMOUR)

..................anyway I take exception to being referrred as a near native Irish speaker. Is that near Irish or near speaker. . SpoleA little clarity please. Born and raised in Ireland...........I never was taught Irish. Immersed in it since years old at school ( spoke English at home). Spoke Irish daily until I went to University. So guess I'm a quasi Irishman with poor Irish. Shame on me.