I think we are getting hung up on semantics to a negative degree here. Strictly the sentences in question are not normal questions but are written examples of an expression of surprise using a rising intonation which is a social queue that the speaker is expecting an answer from the person being spoken to. The use of the question mark symbol at the end of the transcript of the spoken phrase is to give the reader an indication of the intonation used by the speaker on the tape/CD/MP3.

No one is suggesting that "Níl tú fliuch?" is in any way normal or average usage and that all you have to do is raise you intonation and the end of a sentence to make a question in Irish. If you look through any number of works where native speakers were having conversations or stories transcribed, you will see things like "..., an dtuigeann tú." and "..., an bhfuil a fios agat." where these sentences in question form grammatically are not terminated with a question mark because the speaker is using a statement intonation (falling intonation on the final syllable) and no real reply is expected from the person being spoken to. This is the normal way of transcribing these types of spoken sentences in written form because it gives the reader a clue about how the speaker is expressing him/herself. This is not grammar, this is punctuation. I'm not going to put words in Breandan's mouth but I am quite sure that he was using "question" in a very loose and informal way as was I. Neither he nor I are attempting to suggest that one constructs interrogative sentences in Irish in the way shown in the dialog in question, we are trying to explain is only why it was written the way it was.

I will site sources for this when I get home and have access to them.

Personally I think it is "wrong" to think there is something "wrong" with the thread - it is after all meant to be a discussion - but then others might disagree. .

The "problem" with language is that it isn't always logical. By necessity, all languages take shortcuts. So the stance that everything must be "grammatically correct" doesn't always work.

In this case, it may be that a little bit of Béarlachas has crept into the text - or on the other hand, it may not. On the whole, the course is quite sound, but of course, yes, there might be room for improvement. It is certainly better than a lot of anglicised Béarlachas that is out there on the net.

Sometimes when I am typing or writing in English, I look at a word and think "surely it can't be spelt that way" but when I check it in the dictionary, the word wasn't wrong at all, it just seemed to stick out for some odd reason.

Similarly, it is hard to gauge what is "natural" in a language unless you see it or hear it in the right context.

I think Níl sé an-tinn, an bhfuil? without intonation would be better, but I didn't find the original Níl sé an-tinn? that strange. It wasn't the same intonation as we'd use in English, though.

Irish is a lot flatter that English but it isn't that there is absolutely no intonation, but rather that the native intonation is very different from English. Traditionally Irish has a rising tone on the end of statements as well, especially when a story is being told. The tone only drops at the end of a larger unit such as a paragraph. Listen to some of the older recordings on Doegen, etc., and you may hear it.


By-the-by, one thing to watch out for is the normal stress on intensifying prefixes like an-, fíor-, etc.

In Irish prefixes like this have a double stress, that is, the prefix is stressed equally with the adjective or noun it is modifying.

So, an-tinn is /'a:N´'t´i:N´/ UN-TEEN with equal stress in both parts, not UN-teen or un-TEEN.

(Crossed with Robert)

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[hr]Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher[/hr]
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Like I said before, I wouldn't teach a learner (and certainly not a beginner) that a sentence like "Níl tú fliuch" is a question.

Well, put me in the"Others Who Disagree" catagory. Just because something is in Buntús Cainte, doesn't mean that it is automatically "right" – or even the best way to say something.

Wow, it's nice to see somebody on this thread acknowledge this. I was starting to think that god wrote Buntús Cainte.

The responses to my post and the discussions following have been very interesting, and I am much better informed than I was when I asked my question - thank you all.

I've moved along a little since then and I now almost can't remember what the fuss was about.

I had read some grammar (I'm a grammar person) before starting the course and constructions like those I questioned flew in the face of rules I had learned. Thinking they were incorrect I lost faith in the course and stopped for a while. But Buntús Cainte is, after all, purely a conversation course (the Memrise course follows it faithfully), and on reading through this thread I've come to the conclusion that those statements/questions are probably okay, even though I may not use them myself.

My only small criticism of BC would be that these could have been introduced much later on in the learning process. As an almost total beginner they 'threw' me completely and left me feeling frustrated.

I do agree with WeeFalorieMan in that if I were teaching English to somebody I would teach grammatically correctly, and I would expect that the nuances of the spoken language would come along much later, in practical conversation. That's how I would prefer to learn.

But, hey ho, I'm over it now, thanks to you all. Every post on this thread has been fascinating.

That's not what we are disagreeing on. As I mentioned before, I think that opinion is fine. In fact, I'd say it's a dang good point.






Those two posts express very different opinions regarding the material in BC. That's my point. My previous message from today was an attempt to clarify my position on what the sentences represent linguistically; which I feel may have not been understood correctly. I was not arguing that they are "good" pedagogically. The only point of view that I am defending here in any earnest is that the Irish language learning community has a tendency to jump to the droch-Ghaeilge conclusion as the default and I don't think that is constructive.

Debating the pedagogical merit of 3 phrases is different than the categorical dismissal of the 195 lesson series entirely. And so is whether the sentences are "correct Irish" vs. their pedagogical merit. The initial discussion had nothing to do with whether the examples given by maidofkent were confusing to beginners or were constructive to teach. The opinion was expressed that the sentences were bad Irish and therefore the material they were taken from was bad or at the least amateurish. Breandan and I simply expressed that assessment was incorrect and based on a lack of understanding of the context in which they were used and the course they were taken from.

No, they don't. At the time that I posted my first post, I didn't know that Memrise (whatever that is) had anything to do with Buntús Cainte. All I saw were the "questions" that were posted from Memrise by maidofkent without no other context. These so-called questions were apparently being used to teach learners, so it gave the impression that the person who posted them didn't know Irish very well – that's all.

OK, that's completely understandable, sorry if I'm coming off like a J.A. That's not my intention at all.

Tá súil agam go míneofá dóibh nach ndeirtear "Ná fuileann" ach i nGaeilge na Mumhan

I don't think that at all. But truth to tell, I'm known for sometimes flying off the handle and coming across like an eejit, myself.

hmm … An míneofá-sa dóibh nach ndeirtear "Nach bhfuil" i nGaolainn na Mumhan?

Think of a situation that is more 'knee-jerk' where a state is contrary to expectations/desires and another where one is interested more in informational correctness -

Compare:

A: Ó, tá a' ghrian a'taitneamh
B: Ha? Níl sé fliuch?
A: Níl
B: Buíochas le Dia! Tá féar 'á bhaint'm

to

A: A Chait, cá bhfaca muid Peadair an tseachtain seo chaite?
B: Sa phoitigéir?
A: Mmm -nach raibh sé sa bhlathadóir?
B: Bhí; tá a'ceart agat

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