MeredithBreen wrote:
I have a translation that reads "Tada gan iarracht" but this came from a website so I just wanted to make sure this was correct before getting it tattooed on my body. Thank you so much for your help!
What you have there is Irish, not Scottish Gaelic, and I noticed that you posted the same request in the Irish part of the forum. People in the US and some other countries often use Gaelic for both languages (some Irish people do as well, or at least used to), but Irish and Scottish Gaelic are two different (though closely related) languages.
I'm not familiar with any established equivalent for that phrase in Gaelic, or a word in Gaelic which has quite the same flexibility of use as the Irish word
tada. The closest existing phrase in Gaelic of which I'm aware is this proverb:
Is fheàrr fheuchainn na bhith san dùil.It’s better to try than to hope.
Translating the Irish phrase directly into Gaelic, you would have the following, using a word for effort (oidhirp) which is actually related to the Irish word
iarracht etymologically (way back):
Neoni gun oidhirpNothing without effort.
A Gaelic speaker would definitely understand that expression, but I'm unsure about how natural it would sound.