Fòram na Gàidhlig

23500 They are written with a grave accent. Ok. The thing is, the letter 'e' with a grave accent is pronounced like 'ay' in the word 'say', whereas with a grave accent it's pronounced more like 'ai' in the word 'fair'. Similarly, the letter 'o' with an acute accent is pronounced like 'owe', whereas...

I've been learning the pronunciation of the Gaelic letters/sounds, and I've seen that the acute accent used to be used on the letters 'e' and 'o' (and sometimes on 'a' or presumably other vowels to differentiate between unclear and clear vowels). I've also noted that the acute accent is now no longe...

23481 Yes, bha mi airson is ok to use Check this section on what's going on with the a . Gimme a shout if it's still not clear. Thanks for the link - I've read it and it seems to make sense. So basically after a modal verb, the second verb that follows it is an 'infinitive like' verb, and hence use...

Thanks for your help, akerbeltz. So basically with modal verbs, the verbal noun that follows always lenites (well, if it starts with one of the letters in Gaelic that can be lenited)? 2) I wanted to clean the house - Bha mi ag iarraidgh a' glanadh an taigh. Is it possible to say 'Bha mi airson...' a...

23476 This is more a matter of syntax than of the meaning being modal verbs in English - I guess most of the stuff you would express with a modal verb in English does fall into this category though. Feumaidh mi seo a dhèanamh Bu toigh leam seo a dhèanamh Tha mi ag iarraidh seo a dhèanamh ... Ok, in...

I'm starting to get my head round the different verb tenses in Gàidhlig, but I have some questions about modal verbs. My first question is, after any modal verb in Gàidhlig, is it always followed by the verbal noun, or is not that simple? As far as I can tell, it looks like the verbal noun is always...

I've seen throughout 'Speaking Our Language' different words for 'if', i.e 'ma', 'nam'/'nan' and 'mura'. 'Nam' and 'nam' seem to be used a lot in the dialogues involving the conditional mood, but I was wondering what's the difference between these forms. Are they basically interchangeable, or can yo...

Thanks, I think I get the idea, and no doubt I'll get used to this in time.

Ok thanks for the replies. I think I get the idea. So is this 'neutral' vs 'emphatic' concept only for the conditional tense, or can it apply to other tenses too? Also, from reading that link, are you saying that in Gaelic any verb can have both a 'neutral' and 'stressed/emphathic' form, and if so i...

I've been going through Series 4 of 'Speaking Our Language' and the conditional tense is taught in some of the episodes. I noticed that they teach the question form, 'would be?' as 'am bitheadh?', whereas on the Taic website it's taught as 'am bithinn'/'am biodh?'/'am biomaid?'. So what's the differ...

faoileag wrote: O mo chreach - you'll probably be on here with a thousand new questions!

Most likely. But somebody's got to keep this forum alive

That's correct, but you mixed up mhath ("good" lenited) with bha ("was"). Beware of random websites - there are a bunch out there that have "Slàinte bha" as a phrase on them which is completely wrong, and they all copied the mistake from each other. Some of those sites...

Ok, well I've ordered the Colin Mark book anyway, so hopefully it'll help me improve my understanding of the tenses. Looking forward to reading it when it arrives!

akerbeltz wrote: deagh naidheachd air latha gruamach!

Fhuair mi an geansaidh. Tha e gle bha. Mòran taing!

(I got/received the jumper. It is very good. Many thanks!)....not sure if this is correct, but I think 'fhuair mi' means 'I got/received' as it's an irregular verb.

I'm thinking about buying Colin Mark's book 'Gaelic Verbs: Systemised and Simplified', as I'm working on learning the structures of the verb tenses in Gaelic. However, I'm also using the Taic website too, and I'm wondering whether Mark's book really teaches anything that Taic doesn't? Also, Taic has...