'A thoirt leam' vs 'còmhla rium fhin' for 'with me'

Polygot2017 · Unread post by **Polygot2017** » Sun Jul 28, 2019 12:16 pm

For the expression 'with me', I have seen both 'a thoirt leam' and 'còmhla rium fhin' in different contexts, and I was wondering what's the difference between these two, and whether they're interchangeable or if each one can only be used in certain circumstances.

For example:

1) I must take food with me - Feumaidh mi biadh a thoirt leam

2) Won't you (come and) have coffee with me? - Nach tèid sibh a ghabhail cofaidh còmhla rium fhin?

Would it be correct to swap 'a thoirt leam' and 'còmhla rium fhin' around in these two sentences, and if not, why not?

Mòran taing!

Unread post by **akerbeltz** » Sun Jul 28, 2019 12:42 pm

Think of còmhla ri (in its various guises) as "in the company of" rather than simply "with".

Unread post by **Níall Beag** » Sun Jul 28, 2019 8:20 pm

"ri" has a very active meaning in all its uses, whereas "le" is passive.

If you have coffee with me, I'm drinking coffee too, so I'm active.
But if you coffee with two sugars, the sugar isn't drinking coffee, it's just dissolved and drifting, so it's passive.

Also, "a thoirt leam" includes a verbal noun -- it's take with me; toirt=taking.
"còmhla rium" is an adverb + prepositional pronoun. còmhla=together (approximately... ish…). It's like the co/com of coproducers and compadres. You can't have one coproducer and you can't have one compadre, cos each one needs another!

Unread post by **GunChleoc** » Mon Aug 05, 2019 12:10 pm

Also, don't forget the accent on the fhìn - it's a long vowel

Other than that, what the others said. As a rule of thumb, you take people còmhla riut and everything else leat.