Hàlo, is mise Coempa

[coempa]

And it's so hard though, because my everyday speech, in Dutch, is a 60/40 mix of Dutch and English. This sounds odd but I manage to combine them well, some phrases I always say in English and other phrases in Dutch. But this morning, when I picked my bike up from the mechanic, I had to swallow the 'madainn mhath' coming out of my mouth when I greeted the man. Chan eil aon chànan gu leòr.

Co às a tha sibh, a Mhàiri?

[Màiri na Coille]

Chan eil aon chànan gu leòr.

Co às a tha sibh, a Mhàiri?

Chan eil idir.

Tha mi às na Stàitean Aonaichte. Tha mi a' fuirich ann an Illinois, faisg air Chicago.

I'm from the U.S. I live in Illinois, near Chicago.

An robh thu riamh anns na Stàitean? Cha robh mise riamh san Òlaind.

Have you ever been to the States? I've never been to Holland myself.

[coempa]

I used to live in Michigan, actually. I've visited a lot of places outside of Michigan as well, I know my way around.
Holland is okay, if you like traditional cities based on canals Holland would be great. It's not that special to me though, you get used to it very quickly because of the size.

[Mairead]

Welcome to the forum!! Coming here has really helped me practice my Gaelic, so I think you will enjoy it!

"Tha" may seem like it means "yes", but it's actually the present tense of the verb "to be." In Gaelic there is no word for "yes"; you answer questions with the appropriate form of the verb. So if someone in Gaelic said to you, "A bheil Gàidhlig agad?" (Do you speak Gaelic, but literally Is Gaelic at you with "a bheil" being the question form of "to be") you answer "Tha" (it is) or "Chan eil" (it is not). I often have to resist the temptation to answer questions with "Tha" when there is a different verb involved because when you first start learning, most of the phrases you know involve "tha" and it's easy to see it as meaning "yes." Hope that helps!

Bha sibh a' fuireach ann an Michigan-- Tha mi à Wisconsin! De Pere, faisg air Green Bay. Tha mi a' fuireach ann an Alba a nis.
You lived in Michigan? I am from Wisconsin! De Pere, near Green Bay. I live in Scotland now.

Heheh, as an American it is funny to hear you say "Holland is okay, if you like traditional cities based on canals." That sounds AWESOME!

[coempa]

Bha mi a' fuireach ann an Michigan.
Is that the right way to say 'I lived in Michigan.'?

Also, what's the difference between 'fuirich' and 'fuireach'?

Holland is not as large as the US, so I guess you take it for granted much easier.

[poor_mouse]

Also, what's the difference between 'fuirich' and 'fuireach'?

'Fuirich' is a verb, and 'fuireach' is a verbal noun. They are used in different constructions:
Am faod mi fuireach an-seo? (May I wait here?)
Fuirich thusa ort! (wait a moment!)

[Mairead]

That sounds like the right way to say "I lived in Michigan." The one bit that might change is "in Michigan", although since it's a foreign word I'm not 100% sure. "ann an" is the usual way to say "in a", but if the noun begins with B, F, M or P, you say "ann am." So it might be "ann am Michigan." Or, if Michigan is treated as a noun with a definite article, you would say "anns a' Mhichigan." Someone else might be able to shed better light on this! I don't know what protocol is for foreign nouns in Gaelic.

"Bha mi a' fuireach ann am Michigan" literally translates to "I was staying in Michigan" so you could also say "Fhuirich mi ann am Michigan" to say "I stayed in Michigan." I don't know which is more common in Gaelic. (In Scotland people seem to use "stay" more commonly than "live" to describe your place of residence.) To describe where you are now, you can only use the "Tha mi a' fuireach" construction. (In other words, you will always say "I am staying in Michigan" and never "I stay in Michigan.")

[Seonaidh]

Tha...

In some ways, Gaelic verbs are simpler than English ones in that they often have just the one form for all combination of person. For instance, while in English you have "I am, thou art (very occasionally), he/she/it is, we/you/they are", in Gaelic you get "tha mi/thu/e/i/sinn/sibh/iad". However, as Gaelic tends to put the verb first, you can't use the English trick of inverting the order to ask a question (e.g. "I am - am I?"). It tends to be done by "particles" in Gaelic, but these also often change the actual verb. So, while "tha e" means "he is", if you want to ask "is he?" you use the question particle "a" and a rather different verb form - in this case "a bheil e?" (this can get abbreviated to "eil e?" in speech or informal writing). And it's also different in the negative - not just a case of adding the equivalent of "not", as in English (I am not, am I not?), but actually slightly changing the verb too (in this case, "chan eil e" and "nach eil e?").

Obviously (well, it probably is), the verb "to be" is the most off-beat of the verbs in Gaelic, as it is in English. Thus in the past, where as "bha e a' fuireach" is indeed "he lived" (he was staying), the other forms (questions and negative) are "an robh e a' fuireach?", "cha robh e a' fuireach" and "nach robh e a' fuireach?". You'll notice how similar the "other" forms are: these are the "dependent" forms, in that they are somewhat controlled by "particles".

As for "yes" and "no", Mags has covered that: the nearest you get to "yes" and "no" in Gaelic is probably in a question like "An e dotair a th' annad?" (Are you a doctor?), to which the usual answer would be "'S e" or "Chan e". But the main point is, as Mairead said, that the "yes" or "no" is the verb repeated (prefixed by "cha(n)" and changed as appropriate if the answer is negative). Thus, a question like "An robh thu a' fuireach ann am Michigan?" (did you used to live [stay] in Michigan) would be answered, in full, something like "Bha, bha mi a' fuireach ann am Michigan" (Yes, I used to live in Michigan) or "Cha robh, bha mi a' fuireach ann an New York" (No, I used to live in New York).

There is no simple present tense in Gaelic, e.g. the equivalent of "I see" in English. However, when (as is often the case in English, to be fair) the meaning is "I habitually see" (rather than "I am seeing at this particular moment") Gaelic uses the "future" tense - "chì mi". For something like "I see it now", though, you would say "Tha mi ga fhaicinn an-dràsta" (lit "Am I at-it seeing now", or not so lit "I am seeing it now").

[coempa]

Tha...

In some ways, Gaelic verbs are simpler than English ones in that they often have just the one form for all combination of person. For instance, while in English you have "I am, thou art (very occasionally), he/she/it is, we/you/they are", in Gaelic you get "tha mi/thu/e/i/sinn/sibh/iad". However, as Gaelic tends to put the verb first, you can't use the English trick of inverting the order to ask a question (e.g. "I am - am I?"). It tends to be done by "particles" in Gaelic, but these also often change the actual verb. So, while "tha e" means "he is", if you want to ask "is he?" you use the question particle "a" and a rather different verb form - in this case "a bheil e?" (this can get abbreviated to "eil e?" in speech or informal writing). And it's also different in the negative - not just a case of adding the equivalent of "not", as in English (I am not, am I not?), but actually slightly changing the verb too (in this case, "chan eil e" and "nach eil e?").

So this would be likewise in the case of 'càit a bheìl sibh a' fuireach?'.

The grammar is not all that confusing, I've studied Latin at high school for 7 years, it can't possibly be that horrid. The thing that beats me though is the vocabulary and the 'use of Gaìdhlig'. I can't just t-late all the separate words to Gaìdhlig and put them in the grammatically correct order. I guess this is something I learn by just reading things and trying to say something every once in a while.

[Seonaidh]

Aidh, guess you do. But isn't that the same with any language? For if it was just word replacement all you'd need was a dictionary. If I mind right, Latin usually sticks verbs at the end of sentences. Even German uses a different word order to English. And the syntactically closer Norwegian doesn't have the periphrastic present ("I am running" etc.)

Now, what was so horrid about Latin? Was it all the different verb forms, two for each person (singular and plural) - because you don't get that in Gaelic: like Norwegian, it usually just has the one verb form for all persons (makes it slightly easier than English). Or was it all the different cases you get - usually up to 6 of them, though the actual number of distinct forms is generally less than that - because you do get something similar in Gaelic, though not as diverse. In all but the most archaic Gaelic there's no nominative-accusative difference - but there is a vocative quite often, usually a genitive and sometimes a dative that are distinct. But not so much in the plural (occasionally you'll come across a dative plural - which is pretty much the same as a vocative plural - but it's archaic) - the only time plural differences crop up is with the genitive - and they're really just variants of the ordinary plural and the ordinary singular (but NOT the genitive singular!).

Word order can be strange, for instance "I can't read the book" (as in "am not allowed to" etc.) comes out something like "Chan fhaod mi an leabhar a leughadh" (lit. "Not can I the book to read") - or, as an English speaker might say, "I don't get to read the book". Or "I eat it frequently" is usually something like "Ithidh mi gu tric e", lit "eat I often ["towards frequent"] it".

Just mind not to try tronsloting something like "I will go" as "Yo voluntad ir" (that's Spanish - and an actual example! A Gaelic version might be "Mi toil dol" - uabhasach!). The actual Gaelic for that would be something like "Bidh mi a' dol" or "thèid mi".

"Càit' a bheil sibh a' fuireach?": this is an awful point in Gaelic. Most question words (what, who, how, when, why and the like) are followed by {a} tha, e.g.
What are you doing? - Dè tha sibh a' dèanamh?
Who are you seeing? - Cò tha sibh a' faicinn?
How are you? - Ciamar a tha sibh?
When is the programme? - Cuin a bhios a' phrògram? [note: "bhios" is a FUTURE form - which is what is usually meant in English when you say "when IS..."]
Why is the world flat? - Carson a tha an saoghal còmhnard?

But with "càite" (where), the "question" form of the verb is used, as in "Càit' a BHEIL sibh..."
But, even worse, you often get the same form back in an answer, e.g.:-

"Where is your grandfather?" - "Where the angels are."
"Càit' a bheil ur seanair?" - "Far a BHEIL na h-ainglean."

[coempa]

In Latin there is no set word order. That's why the poetry is so hard to lanstrate, they don't use rhymes, they just change the word order to get a nice looking meter. There's a figure of speech called hyperbaton, where two words associated with each other are separated, very confusing if you don't understand the thought behind it. When Ovid writes about how Perseus literally cleaves the air with his winged shoes (he's flying), he actually 'cleaves' the sentence in two, using that particular figure of speech.
The Latin cases are closely similar to the German cases, with a few exceptions specific to poetry or other types of writing.
The way Gaelic uses verbs is extremely confusing, and it's not like any language I've seen before. It'd definitely be interesting to get to know that a bit better. Do verbs in Gaelic have a specific core by which one can tell what word we're speaking of? Latin, for instance, has a very specific system for that:
ferre - to bring
(act. present simple/praesens activum)

fero
fers
fert

ferimus
fertis
ferunt

(act. past simple/imperfectum activum)
ferebam
ferebas
ferebat

ferebamus
ferebatis
ferebant


Notice how they all use the same word stem 'fer'?
Does Gaelic have a similar system?

[Seonaidh]

Apart from the exceptions.

Also, you don't get stuff like "fero-feris-ferit-ferimus-feritis-ferunt": it's just one form, to which you'd almost always add the relevant personal pronoun (or noun for third person). There's a verb meaning to give, take or bring in Gaelic (depends on context and what prepositions you use) - thoir. But "I give" would be either "tha mi a' toirt" (periphrastic) or "bheir mi" (future/habitual). And "I [habitually] don't give" would be "cha toir mi". But that's one of the irregular verbs - most are much better behaved.

I seem to recall that in Latin the "standard" way to remember what a verb did was to memorise 4 things - the first present singular, the infinitive, the first present past and the past participle. The important thing in Gaelic is the ROOT: this is almost always identical to an unlenited version of the past tense and also the second singular imperative. For example, open and close - fosgail and dùin. However, when you come across such verbs, you'll often see slightly different forms, e.g. fosgladh and dùnadh: these are actually NOUNS and can loosely be tronsloted as "{an} opening", "[a] closing". "She's opening/closing the shop" would be "tha i a' fosgladh/dùnadh na bùtha". But "The shop opens in the morning and closes in the afternoon" would be more like "fosglaidh a' bhùth sa mhadainn agus dùinidh i san fheasgar". "It opened in 1974 and closed in 2003" would be "Dh'fhosgail i ann am 1974 agus dhùin i ann an 2003" or similar. However, that's most verb forms done - no change person-to-person and singular-to-plural.

In general, the independent present (habitual)/future is got by adding -idh to the root - with an intervening A if the root ends broad, e.g.:-
fosgail - should be "fosgailidh", but the end disintegrates giving a shortened root of "fosgl", so it's "fosglaidh"
dùin - regular - "dùinidh"
bruidhinn - again, root contracts to "bruidhn", so "bruidhnidh" (will speak)

The dependent forms (e.g. after "chan", "nach", "gu" (that) and so on just lose the ending:-
fosgail, dùin, bruidhinn
Note that "chan" causes lenition (not with D or T:-
chan fhosgail, cha dùin, cha bhruidhinn

The only other future/habitual form is after "a" or "na" (who, which):-
a dh'fhosglas, a dhùineas, a bhruidhneas (which opens/closes/speaks)

The past is easier - usually just the lenited root:-
dh'fhosgail, cha do dh'fhosgail, an do dh'fhosgail, nach do dh'fhosgail (opened, didn't open, opened? didn't open?)
dhùin, cha do dhùin, an do dhùin, nach do dhùin
- morceau de gateau.

For present and imperfect, usually periphrastic (tha mi a' ..., bha mi a' ...)

Conditional depends on...look it up.

[coempa]

I guess the Gaelic grammar is quite easy then, once you get the hang of it?

Thanks for the explanations by the way, guys! I appreciate it.

[akerbeltz]

It's nowhere near as bad as Latin!

Apart from the irregular verbs, most Gaelic verbs are very predictable in their formation. The fosgail fosglaidh type of sound change applies to a fairly small body of verbs ending in liquids (fuller explanation here).

[coempa]

Fòghlaimidh mi!