"Táim."
Translation:I am.
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This may be a silly question, but I'm wondering what the difference is between 'Táim' meaning I am, and 'Is ... mé' also meaning I am. :)
I see you're studying Spanish. The difference is akin to ser vs. estar. Generally, "ta" is used to describe something that's changeable ("I am happy"), and "is" is used as a copula to tell what something IS ("I am a teacher").
Thank you, we also have the ser and estar thing in Portuguese (my native language) so this helps.
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It's kind of a contraction but not really. It is like most Indo-European languages there are personal forms of verbs. There were also for the other persons but in modern Irish only the 1st person singular and 1st person plural retain the personal forms, in which case no pronoun is needed. These were replaced by the forms endin in -ann -eann -ionn etc for the other personson on verbs other than ta/is (bheith) This is not possible in English because, even if we maintained the 'thou' form, all the plural forms are the same: am, art, is, are are are. If we say the first three without pronoun we know clearly what person (at least number-wise) the verb refers to. another example is to have (Old-English infinitive = habban): have, hast, hath/has, have, have, have) German conjugation of 'haben': habe, hast, hatt, haben, hat, haben. Here we see that the English lost endings in the plural: ic hæbbe þū hafas/hafast/hæfst, he/heo/hit hafaþ/hæfþ, we habbaþm. ge habbaþ, hio habbaþ (þ = th which corresponds to the t at the end of the other Germanic and Romance languages). And we see even then the plurals are the same in the Old English period. if there ever were different forms for the plurals it had to be during the archaic period
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Because it's present tense and you're talking about yourself.
Instead of saying 'Tá mé' we just shorten it to 'Táim'
:D
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I am Irish, the rest are correct, it is a contraction, however, you should not have to use it, in Donegal we always say 'Tá mé'
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JasonMurra12, you will find that many Donegal forms are not accepted by Duolingo. Just keep reporting them.
Thank you. I used to understand the Donegal dialect and wonder if this Irish is really just school Irish and not the Irish that people really speak. What dialect ARE we learning then?
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In present tense, the first person singular and plural of verbs take a different form
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I wish there were a way to get the slowed down recordings, like the other language courses offer. This recording is too fast for me to process and think of as a new learner. :-/ I like the fast option, slow option in other courses.
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That might be for the best. At the moment the recordings are fairly inaccurate compared to the other courses, so take them with a large pinch of salt.
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Err... this is an odd question... but what exactly does that idiom mean? Many other people use it, and I still don't know what it means.
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It means to not trust it completely. For example, "George is a used car salesman. He's a good guy but take whatever he says with a pinch of salt."
This is way better than google translate. Goolgle translate makes it sound like the word, like i typed in hi for irsh, and it said hoi. Google translate is a rip off
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Search up "hello through google translate" or any other song you like. Haha, they are so funny.
Anyone else find this to be pronounced badly or am I missing something? Google searches pull up that it's supposed to be pronounced with a "T" sound at the start, and this sounds distinctly like a C sound to me. I'd like to figure out which is the right way so if anyone with experience in this language knows, please let me know.
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It sounds like a very clear, even aspirated /t/ sound, to me.
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I agree, jabramsohn, but I think something that makes this hard is that it is Irish. Similar to French in the sense that it doesn't always seem to be spelled the way it sounds.
It confused me terribly. When I heard it I thought it was a new word and thought it sounded like Cohen. Frustrating. And I'll never use it since I only want to speak in Donegal. They also never ever say Dia duit. Does anyone really say that? Native speakers?
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People everywhere say that, but it's not as common in the north. If you are interested in an excellent, professionally made course in Ulster (Donegal) Irish, use Now You're Talking instead of Duolingo. Since it was produced over 20 years ago, there is no phone app, just videos, sound files, and 'workbook' pages you can print out. The hairdos and clothes in the videos are very 90's, but there are NO errors (a problem with Duolingo) and there is lots of audio, all recorded by native speakers. It's all at www.ultach.com, and it's free.
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Really there shouldn't be any "th" sound, just "t". Say it like "taw", the word aw or awe but with a t sound preceding it.
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According to Wiktionary, [t̪ˠɑːmʲ]. So, that's a velarised dental t, a long "a" towards the back of the mouth and then a palatalised m.
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Umm, sorry for asking, but what exactly does that mean? I'm in sixth grade, so my vocabulary isn't as large
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it's ok, it's unknown business to most people :P
The velum is the soft part at the far back of the roof of your mouth, so a velar /t/ is a /t/ sound (as in 'masTer') pronounced with the middle or back of your tongue touching that part of your mouth, with the air flowing between it and your tongue. Now, the /t/ here is also dental, so you need to also put the tip of your tongue between your teeth, but not quite as much as the sound in 'THink'. It probably sounds very tricky to you :P but believe me, it's far from being the most important part of irish pronunciation.
The /ɑː/ is pronounced like 'awe'.
A palatalised /m/ is pronounced like there was a /j/ sound (as in 'YoYo') after it and fading with it. This sound isn't found in English at all, but I guess you can go with the sounds in the beginning of 'MEow' pronounced fast.
I hope this was helpful :P
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yes it was very helpful! I get HOW to pronounce it, but my tongue is refusing to cooperate.
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AFAIK tá mé is the most common, táim is used in the Munster dialect while tá mé is used in all the others.
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does anyone have adivice? i am confuseed by the way things are ordered in irish. also, anyone heard aislings song from the secret of kells or amhran na fairrage from song of the sea? these have sparked my interest.
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So from what I've gathered so far, being also a beginner at this language (some of this is also in the Tips & Notes section for this skill).
Irish uses the word order of [verb] [subject] [object]. In case you don't know what those are, the verb is the action, the subject is the one doing the action, and the object is what the action is being done to.
There is distinct conjugation in Irish, meaning a different form of a verb based on who is doing it. It's much like the forms we have for "to be" (I AM, he IS, they ARE, you ARE, it IS). Some of the forms have weird exceptions (especially with the form for 'we' and 'I', from what I can tell), like 'táim', which means in and of itself "I am", but it's really in the order "Am I".
So think of sentences like this. "I eat an apple" = "Eat I an apple"
Hope this helps a little! I'm still getting used to it, too.
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As a native USA english speaker busily engaged in trying to learn a number of languages using these practice sessions without access to lessons other than the comments of other students, i find, so far, that Irish and Greek are equally most difficult. Recognizing spoken Irish is particularly confusing to me and a slowed version on DL audios would be most helpful. Good luck to all in your studies...
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You should look up the spelling rules of Irish, it's actually pretty regular.
It says to pay attention to accents but my phone doesn't have accented letters. How do I type accented letters with my phone? I have a Samsung 8.
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Have you tried holding down the 'regular' form of the letter you wish to accent? That works on most mobile devices, I am of current using a Samsung Galaxy j5. Hope that helps :)
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There are so many ways to say I, you, they and then more when you add am or go or has
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No, being a woman isn't a state, it's a characteristic. The difference is more or less the same as that between "ser" and "estar" in Spanish.
I've listen to the pronunication several times but want to make sure I'm understanding it, as none of these lessons have a slow option. It sounds to me like Táim is pronounced toe-em. Is that correct?
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Kinda. HansDazs wrote this on my comment. this might help.
it's ok, it's unknown business to most people :P
The velum is the soft part at the far back of the roof of your mouth, so a velar /t/ is a /t/ sound (as in 'masTer') pronounced with the middle of back of your tongue touching that part of you mouth, with the air flowing between it and your tongue. Now, the /t/ here is also dental, so you need to also put the tip of your tongue between your teeth, but not quite as much as the sound in 'THink'. It probably sounds very tricky to you :P but believe me, it's far from being the most important part of irish pronunciation.
The /ɑː/ is pronounced like 'awe'.
A palatalised /m/ is pronounced like there was a /j/ sound (as in 'YoYo') after it and fading with it. This sound isn't found in English at all, but I guess you can go with the sounds in the beginning of 'MEow' pronounced fast.
I hope this was helpful :P
This was his/her exact words, none of them are mine!
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I would like to have more pronunciation help.. with most of other words there is no one saying the words out loud..
This might seem really strange, but i cant find the answer on the internet. There is this lady compulsively lying to my family about who she is and where she is from. She "produced" an irish birth certificate, but i dont know if it is forged. Can someone from ireland tell me if it should be typed or handwritten? Also if it is a typical block font or more cursive? Thank you if anyone can help me
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If we were from ireland, i don't think we would be doing this course. Try putting this somewhere else. Just a suggestion
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False, I like doing this course, I can help people who are knew to the language I have learnt since being child
Please dont be rude. You might not know that mean/rude people are just making thereselfs bad so please stop. This is not a place for people to be rude. You can do that on a piece of paper.
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Please do not insult others. None of us will take it seriously, and how do you have any proof? This sticks around forever, you know.