The list, even though colored, is in no way complete and gives a taste of just how complex real spoken language is. All those people who say that Irish should be dumbed down don't realise that any two good speakers need access to a whole range of expressions, regardless of whatever language they are using. One could also say that people who want to revive weak languages are not really aware of the depth of linguistic resources required for even just a simple exchange, let alone the re-animation of a lost culture.

As regards the coding being like the Collins COBUILD, I would say that since I take an interest in the use of corpora, that there would be a degree of convergence, though my aims are more systematic and wide ranging (learning, computer character interaction, the modelling of language, conversation analysis)

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__̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.___

Bíonn comhra maith againn (Somhairle agus mise) gach seachtain, agus bhi comhra Skype againn inniu. D'éirigh cúpla ceist
i rith an comhra anocht.

Conas a dearfa:

1) "of what" ie.. Bhí abairt againn ón leabhar anocht "As cré agus clocha, adhmad agus luachra a rinne siad an teach". Ba mhaith linn a fhios a bheith againn conas "an cheist" a dhéanamh. " What did they make the house out of?" or "of what did they make the house?".

2) "ceann" Bhí abairt ann "Ní fhaca Muireann a maicín álainn aris go ceann ocht mbliana déag ina dhiaidh sin." Cén fath usaidtear "ceann"
in ait "Ní fhaca a maicín álainn aris go ocht mbliana......" "She didn't see her lovely little boy again for 18 years."

3) Bhí abairt againn "Níorbh fhada go raibh sé in ann rith chomh tapa leis an ngiorria." Conas déantar an cheist? "How long was it before he could run as fast as a hare?"

4) We don't understand the usage of "ar eolas" in this sentence. "Le bheith i do Thaoiseach, caithfidh tu seanscéalta agus seandánta na hÉireann a bheith ar eolas agat." Is this saying, "You need to know all about poetry and story telling" ?

5) Conas a dearfa "Where would you like to ........" We figured something like "Cá gur mhaith leat......" but we don't know for sure and "Where do you like to....." Cá bhfuil gur maith leat?

6) An tiocadh libh cuidiu a thabhairt duinn leis an usáid den fras "theastaigh uaidh, etc.. " Can you say "I am needing XXXXXXX" by saying "Teastaionn comhra uaim"? (I am needing conversation) "I need food every day" "We needed conversation every day" "We will need conversation each day" We just can't quite get our head around this.

Go raibh mile maith agaibh as an eolas a thabhairt duinn i gconaí isteach an suiomh seo,
Féabar agus Somhairle

Céard/cad as a rinne siad an teach?


go on its own feels weak like "to". go ceann is the idiom for "for".


I think it's cá fhad a raibh sé ...


I think of it as "amongst/as part of your knowledge".


Cár mhaith leat ...? not sure about the second one.


Teastaíonn bia uaim gach lá.
Theastaíodh comhrá uainn gach lá.
Teastóidh comhrá uainn gach lá.


Await correction or confirmation ...

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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).

Yup. Ceann in this case means ‘end of’, just like in the phrase ceann scríbe (‘end of the course/path’ = ‘goal/destination’). Using just go on its own would mean ‘until’: “She didn’t see her lovely little boy again until 18 years”. Doesn’t make that much sense.

You could also say ar feadh ‘for/during’, but it would mean something slightly different. Go ceann means that she didn’t see him again until at the end of the 18 years that had passed (i.e., it stresses the point in time where she sees him, after 18 years), whereas ar feadh refers to the 18 years where she wasn’t seeing him (i.e., it stresses the stretch of time leading up to the point where she sees him).


In this case, I think that’d be a bit cumbersome, since there’s another case of bí right after it. Cá fhad a raibh sé go raibh sé in ann… is a bit clumsy.

You could just say cá fhad go raibh sé in ann…. Or you could at least avoid having two identical-sounding instances of bí right after each other by saying cé chomh fada a bhí sé go raibh sé in ann….


Not necessarily ‘all about’; just ‘you need to know (about) poetry and storytelling’. The ar eolas construction is just a variation of the fios construction—the difference is mainly that if you’re wanting to stress the thing that’s known, this is an easier construction to use, because the thing known is the subject in the sentence here, whereas in the other construction, fios is the subject, and the thing known comes way down at the end, after a preposition (or at a subordinate clause), as marked in blue here:

Tá a fhios agam faoi sin = tá sin ar eolas agam


Technically, I suppose cár maith leat… is correct, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard or seen anyone use it.

Cá háit is maith leat… would probably be more natural-sounding, but I think generally the concept isn’t used in Irish much. In Irish, ‘where do you like to XYZ’ usually just refers to habits, rather than actual desires: “Where do you like to go shopping?” would, in the most common context, be a question more of where one usually does one’s shopping, rather than where it gives you pleasure to do your shopping. In these cases, Irish would do away with the ‘like’ bit completely:

Cá háit a ndéanas tú do chuid siopadóireachta?

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Not a native speaker.

Always wait for at least three people to agree on a translation, especially if it’s for something permanent.

My translations are usually GU (Ulster Irish), unless CO (Standard Orthography) is requested.

Cár would be more of a written form, if such exists in Irish.

In Connemara it's Cén áit ...?, i.e., Cén áit a ndéananns tú ....

Cén áit ar mhaith leat ithe? "Where would you like to eat?"
Cén áit ar maith leat ithe? "Where do you like to eat?"

What do they use in Munster, I wonder?

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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).

I just noticed now that my previous reply here was a bit ambiguous.

I meant that cár mhaith leat… sounds fine to me, though perhaps somewhat formal. In Ulster, cá (a) ba mhaith leat… would be more common, I think.

It was only the present-tense form, cár maith leat… that I think is strange to the point of being possible in theory only. Googling it brings up an old Daltaí thread that has a lot of going back and forth and ends up basically concluding that cá + present tense of copula is so rare that nobody even knows for sure whether the resulting form is cá or cár!

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Not a native speaker.

Always wait for at least three people to agree on a translation, especially if it’s for something permanent.

My translations are usually GU (Ulster Irish), unless CO (Standard Orthography) is requested.

I think "C'áit ar (or ba?) mhaith leat...?" would be even more common.

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

Absolutely. Apart from simple forms of bí, I can’t think of any context where cá on its own is anywhere near as common as cá háit/c’áit.

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Not a native speaker.

Always wait for at least three people to agree on a translation, especially if it’s for something permanent.

My translations are usually GU (Ulster Irish), unless CO (Standard Orthography) is requested.

Léigh Tá an suíomh a lán eolais go dtí mé.