peterdewolf wrote:
OH forgot to say in my introductory post ( which should have gone into the 'come and introduce yourself here ) section :-(
I'm from Belfast so I'm struggling with the Ulster dialect and a complete beginner. Well 3 weeks so far. As for introducing yourself and exchanging phone numbers. Have a peek at the following.
cad é d'uimhir guthan ( what's your phone number )
cad é d'uimhir fóin
cad é d'uimhir fon
cad é an uimhir guthan.
Can anyone comment on these for me. Is Fóin or fon correct, what's the difference between guthan or fon?
I know these are simple phrases but I'm doing an audio learning course and one of the first anomalies I've bumped into is the following.
Cad é an uimhir is translated by the instructor as 'what's your phone number' but in my very little Irish I believe this should be 'what is the phone number' ??
I just try to pay attention to the detail from the outset in whatever I do.
Peter
I'll do my best explaining; another will come along soon to confirm/correct. There are a couple of different grammatical factors in play here.
uimhir = number
guthán = phone
These are the nominative singular forms of the words (hopefully that terminology is correct
).
Combining the two, we make phone number, and in doing so we introduce the genitive case.
uimhir ghutháin (my spelling is not a mistake - at least I hope haha).
uimhir ghutháin number of a phone ie phone number guthá
in is the genitive case of
guthán. Can be translated as "of a phone" hence number of a phone ie phone number
Now, onto the "h".
gutháin is lenited (given the h) because of the slender ending of
uimhir.
ANd so we have
cad é d'uimhir ghutháin? as
what is your phone number?Hopefully I broke that down concisely for you. Be sure to wait for someone else to confirm it, though.
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