Fòram na Gàidhlig

Apologies in advance for the simplicity of this question. Could somebody explain the difference between these two phrases when trying to describe as yours, for instance "my wife".

I am led to believe the correct/common form is: "a' bhean agam" [Literally: a wife is at me ?]

Would: "mo bhean" also be correct, or 'mo' used in a different case, perhaps when describing what 'my wife' is doing?

Tapadh leibh,
Sam

There is a good article on that on Akerbeltz: http://akerbeltz.org/index.php?title=Po ... n%C3%A8amh

Curiously, people say "mo bhean", but "an duine agam"

That is an interesting read, thank you for the link.

Even more curiously, in the faithful old "Speaking Our Language" series, they seem to encourage "a' bhean agam": https://youtu.be/_cL6EGzVWIA?t=1009

Idiomatically speaking, SOL does a number of weird things, like its insistence on using mas e do thoil e, which make me wonder if this was a course written in English first and then translated. Though it's possible that some people just use a' bhean agam.

Apologies for diverging here... What's the difference between mas e ur toil e and mas e do thoil e ?

(Though I thought SOL used the former https://youtu.be/SIuvJON0cqQ?t=1143 )

Thank you for your help as always, akerbeltz .

Samidamaru wrote: Apologies for diverging here... What's the difference between mas e ur toil e and mas e do thoil e ?

They're essentially the same thing, except the first ('ur') is equivalent to using 'sibh' (polite or plural 2nd person) and the second ('do' + lenition) is equivalent to 'thu'.

Akerbeltz is probably referring to the fact they use that structure at all, as opposed to 'do' v 'ur'. He's written about that too…

http://www.akerbeltz.org/index.php?titl ... _please%3F

Ahh I see! Is there anything he hasn't written about ? Always a very usual and interesting read though so thank you for the link (and of course Akerbeltz for writing it).