"Is maith liom mairteoil."

Translation: I like beef.

[gumamela_eater]

So...the way Irish expresses a like for something, is along the lines of "is good with me"?

[galaxyrocker]

In the present and conditional tense, haha. To do future tense you'd say "It shines with me"

[Dim-ond-dysgwr]

In the future tense? How often is anyone going to say "I will like beef?"

[mizinamo]

Cornish does the same :)

Da yw genev kig bewin. "Good is with-me meat beef."

[deactivated user]

That looks so cool. Where did you learn Cornish?

[mizinamo]

Kernewek Dre Lyther (Cornish By Letter) ("Cornish by email" nowadays, of course).

I later got a couple of textbooks (Bora Brav, Skeul an Tavas, Desky Kernowek) to supplement that but KDL was my main tool.

Extremely handy if you can't attend a face-to-face class; much better to have a real teacher at the other end of an email who can answer questions and correct errors before they sink in, compared to just working by yourself from a book with no feedback beyond the answers at the back.

[deactivated user]

You are the second person to tell me about that. I probably ought to look into it. Thanks

[MacMurchaidh]

When a feminine noun is preceded by the definite article 'an' then the noun is lenited. So the feminie noun 'mairteoil' means 'beef' but 'an mhairteoil' means 'the beef'. I don't know if there are exceptions to this rule but I believe this is what is happening here.

[cwells02]

Is there a difference between mairteoil and mhairteoil? Feel like I've seen it both ways here...

[scilling]

The only difference between them (mhairteoil is just a lenited version of mairteoil ) is how their initial consonants are pronounced. The m in mairteoil is pronounced like an English M, and the mh in mhairteoil is pronounced like an English W or V (depending upon dialect).

[SubjectVerb1]

Why is it mairteoil instead of mhairteoil?

[scilling]

Mairteoil is its fundamental form, without any lenition applied. Mhairteoil is its form when lenited.

[cwells02]

I wish I could tell you exactly why - but I asked the same question early on - I think we see this example before we get to the lesson on lenition. :)

[GaegisLand]

How do you know the difference between "I like beef" and "You like beef." ????
It is showing "Is maith liom mairteoil" for both of these. I am really befuddled here...

[SettleDownPotato]

Well in general it's based on the pronoun "liom" which means "with me" and so the sentence is literally saying "is good with me beef" and you can change that to mean "I like beef" since in Irish when you say something is good with you that means you like it. So, "you like beef" would be "is maith leat mairteoil" since "leat" means "with you". Hope that helps!

[IngeborgHa14]

Well, mairteoil is literary "the meat (feoil) of a slaughtered cow (mart)".