Dia duit!

Apologies if this is a daft question - I've very much a beginner with the Irish language (less than 2 months!) but loving it. Recently I've come across a few instances of use of the word 'fós' that have left me a little bit confused. They are:

Cén fáth an bhfuil tú fós sa bhaile? - meaning 'why are you still at home?'
and
Cén fáth nach bhfuil sé sa bhaile fós? - meaning 'why isn't he at home yet?'

I have seen other examples of 'fós' used after the noun, so I was a bit surprised by the sentence construction in the first example, but it seems the meaning is slightly different.

I'm guessing that the difference is that 'fós' used after the noun means 'yet' and before the noun is like the older English use of 'yet' (I've seen it sometimes in Shakespeare) where we would tend to use 'still' in modern usage. This would make sense to me, but I don't want to get this idea in my head as a rule if I'm getting it completely wrong!

I have searched online and I can't find an answer to this question, so if anyone out there can help me I would be hugely grateful .

Many thanks!
Sarah

Have you looked at the Teanglann dictionary website (yet) ? Fós as you can see there, means either yet or still and they give several examples of how it's used.

http://www.teanglann.ie/en/fgb/fós
(unfortunaltely the link isn't working - as the ó isn't recognised - but you can look it up there anyway.)

Thank you very much for the link, it's very useful to see so many examples. I will bookmark the link.

Unfortunately, it does look as though the word can move around a bit within the sentence and there's no absolute rule for it - but then I guess it wouldn't be so much fun if it was that simple .

Go raibh maith agat!

Sarah

You can also look it up in the English-Irish dictionary - as a cross reference

www.teanglann.ie/en/eid/yet
www.teanglann.ie/en/eid/still

- and I also find this other dictionary, which you click onto, very useful as it gives you a precise list of the meanings and uses of the word you're looking at -

www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/yet
www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/still

Thank you so much for those links - I've just added them to my bookmarks, and I will go hunting!

Much appreciated!
Sarah

I can't really explain how to differentiate except that it probably becomes obvious from context.
I think context is more relevant in Irish than in English. Which is no help really

I agree...it's pretty obvious from context. I think the only confusion is with English...the fact that "yet" and "still" can be synonyms.

Redwolf

it's the fact that the sentence is negative or not, that says if it has to be translated as "still" or "yet" in English.
In French as in Irish, we use the same word for both:
Pourquoi es-tu encore à la maison? vs. Pourquoi n'est-il pas encore à la maison?
It's just that English has one adverb for the negative sentence and another one for the positive sentence, while Irish and French have only one but it's meaning becomes clear according to whether the sentence is negative or positive...

_________________
Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne

Thank you very much for all of the help and comments. I've been looking at all of the references, and it does seem that there is no clear rule but it does, as you say, depend on context. I think I can just about deal with that when trying to translate something, but my real difficulty is knowing where to put it if I am trying to put a sentence together!

Still, I expect that comes with practice... and I need a lot more of that !

Sarah

I don't think the place of the word "fós" changes anything, you can put it in several places in the sentence without changing the meaning. What changes the meaning is the rest of the sentence.

_________________
Is fearr Gaeilg na Gaeltaċta ná Gaeilg ar biṫ eile
Agus is í Gaeilg Ġaoṫ Doḃair is binne