"Bidh daoine a' seasamh anns an eaglais."
Translation:People will be standing in the church.
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For the listening exercise I was wondering if someone could help with how to listen out for the difference between 'duine' and 'daoine' here?
Based on the exercises about future/habitual tenses (football, shinty etc), could this also be translated 'People stand in the church'? If so, how would you know which one was meant?
Yes, I think it could. Generally it would be obvious from the context whether future or general habitual statement was meant. Or if it weren’t, you could always add something like a-màireach ‘tomorrow’ or a h-uile latha ‘every day’ to disambiguate.
No, because there is the article in Gaelic, anns an eaglais means in the church. But generally I believe that People stand… should be accepted here.
Also, the same phrase, anns an eaglais, even though definite in Gaelic, can be used the same way as in church, at church in English, not really referring to the church as a particular building but rather as the idea of church – the same way as anns an sgoil translates often to at school, attending school – so perhaps in church without any article could also be accepted here?
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Ah now I'm confused... we've kept learning (I thought!) not be fooled by 'ann an' NOT meaning 'in the' but merely 'in' (with the noun also covering the indefinite article)!
And now the course throws a tricky one that IS 'in the' at us?
The answer is simply that 'annS an' = in the?
I'm not sure this is very well introduced or explained?!
Also, how would you say "...in church" (which is what I answered!)?
Would that also be 'ann an eaglais' since eaglais = church (no article) or a church?
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As a learner myself I thought that
"ann an" means "in a", while
"anns an" means "in the"
Also a learner. I finally have decided that "ann an" just means "in". So "ann an eaglais" = "in a church" ("eaglais" meaning "a church").
If you want to say "in the church", you use only "anns" for "in", and "an eaglais" for "the church". So "anns an eaglais" = "in the church".
This is sort of discussed in the lesson tips for "About Me" and "Countries". Has anyone seen it anywhere else?
I hope this helps you.
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i'm also a learner, but i read in the comments somewhere that ann an is indeed only in and anns signals the definite article.
Anns is seemingly paired with the correct gaelic article. So there is not only anns an but also anns am and anns a'. If the substantive is lenited after the definite article it's also lenited in this case. So it's only ann an = in (a) and anns an/am/a'... + (lenited) substantive = in the.
If i got something wrong please correct me.
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We haven't got to it yet, but when any definite noun is in the prepositional case, it's essentially treated as if it were feminine, regardless of its gender, so there's no "anns am" (you'd have "anns a' (+ lenition)" for b-, m- & p- words or "anns an (+ lenition)" for f- words instead).
Preceding a definite article also means that the preposition itself changes form (except for "air" and "aig"), which is why "ann an/m" becomes "anns".
I suspect prepositional case stuff won't come up for a while yet, though, and for the moment Duolingo seem to be being careful to make sure we only have exercises with a "definite 'in'" when the following noun is a feminine one, so the form doesn't change.
For the indefinite "ann an/m", I like to imagine an invisible hyphen to remind me that I need both parts to just mean "in".
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There’s another question which is literally the same and has been answered by Silmeth (one of the forums mods).
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because this sentence refers to "the church". If you made it an indefinite church, then you could translate it as you suggest.
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So you did. Sorry, didn't read that properly! In which case, I don't think there's any reason this couldn't be translated as such.
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That's ok, thanks for your response. I wasn't sure which to go for in this instance, put "people stand in the church" and was marked wrong. Ho hum, at least I know now, thanks again.