Annabeth, that is the single most important sentence to know when learning Irish!

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Haha!!! Very true I'll get that tattooed to my forehead After 3 confirmations, of course

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not only



it means you could say
"Chuaigh mé [...] "The Hunger Games" a fheiceáil"

but you can't. If you drop the middle of the sentence (so that it's clearer in this example),

you can say either:

Chuaigh mé [...] a (dh') fheiceáil "The Hunger Games"

or

Chuaigh mé [...] le "The Hunger Games" a fheiceáil (le= in order to)

but not what you wrote: either "le" is missing or you have to change the word order.

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

Cén Fáth?

Not really, (though Lughaidh adding dialect twists on top certainly doesn't help).

What Lughaidh is trying to say is that once the intervening sentence structure becomes complex (or even just longish) you have to add le (Connacht and Ulster) or chun (Munster) to indicate the purpose.

Another way of putting it is that you can get by without le or chun in a shorter sentence but not a longer one.

It's a bit like English requiring "to" if you change the word order in the following sentence:

I sent Brian a letter.

but

I sent a letter to Brian.

I am not sure that Redwolf's sentence is actually wrong so much that it might be clearer with le.

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
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).

Okay...So is there a rough "translation" of the two sentences, with and without le? Just so I could compare.

Redwolf's sentence
Chuaigh mé go dtí an phictiúrlann le Tommy aréir The Hunger Games a fheiceáil.
"Went I to the cinema with Tommy last night The Hunger Games to see."

Lugaidh's correction
Chuaigh mé go dtí an phictiúrlann le Tommy aréir le The Hunger Games a fheiceáil
"Went I to the cinema with Tommy last night with The Hunger Games to see"
"Went I to the cinema with Tommy last night for the purpose of The Hunger Games to see"

In this context, the second le/with means "in order to" or "for the purpose of."

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Táim ag foghlaim fós. Fáilte roimh gach aon cheartúchán.

Yeah but you have dropped a part of my message:




You can't say *"Chuaigh mé rud éigin a dhéanamh", in this case you have to use the following order:
Chuaigh mé a dhéanamh rud éigin (of in Connachta and Munster: Chuaigh mé ag déanamh rud éigin).
But not the word order Redwolf used (except if you use le/chun but then the pattern is different ).

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

I think it's coming slowly. Go raibh maith agaibh