"An bhfuil braillíní nua uaithi?"
Translation:Does she need new sheets?
22 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
yup, I asked the same question 2 months ago... maybe someone clever will answer now that you brought it up again :)
I seen your lonely unanswered post there alright. I probably should have put it under yours. Ah well. No harm.
1721
I'm afraid I can't give an authoritative answer to your question but I am reminded that the overlap in meaning between "want" and "need" is beautifully demonstrated in the Selkirk Grace (https://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selkirk_Grace) by Robert Burns that comes out for inspection every Burns Night.
Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be Thankit!
Which, as I imagine you would know (should you ever have pondered it), might be translated from Lallans Scots to a more familiar English dialect as
Some have meat and cannot eat
And some would eat ...
(in the sense of "want to eat" rather than this being a conditional statement)
... that want it
(in the sense of "lacking it", or "needing it")
But we have meat and we can eat
So let the Lord be thanked.
(presumably, third person singular imperative there!)
Interestingly, "want" appears in this poem in a setting in which it means "need", and the concept of "wanting" (in the sense of "desiring") appears in the form of the word "would", which is also making a guest appearance under a guise which is different to its more common usage.
Language---don't you just love it!
Thinking about it, I would love to see that poem translated into Gailge. I am afraid that is well beyond me.
...I continue to hear 'uathu' here, rather than 'uaithi'. If it is, in fact, 'uaithi', how do I distinguish it from 'uathu' and where is it pronounced this way?
Could this not mean "The new sheets are from her" or is that a different construction?
It's a question. An in this case is using the question particle, followed by the dependent form of the verb fuil (which is eclipsed here because of an). Now, it could mean "Are the new sheets from her?".
this seems like a perennial questio, but is it not true that 'teastaigh' is used more for 'need' and that to express a want one uses 'bíonn': 'teastaíonn sé uait' (need) vs tá sé uait (want)?
No, it is not true (if for no other reason than the fact that "need" and "want" aren't mutually exclusive words in English).
It may be the case in a particular dialect, but not in general.
But there is no "na" in the sentence, making it less likely. Are new sheets from her?
I need so much more practice on the sounds of these words. "waha" "uaithi". My brain just won't make that much of a stretch. I was happy that I got "nua" from hearing "noo"
- 96
The dialect here is different to what I learned as a child. We learned uaithi as 'ooh-hee' and nua as 'new-ah'.
I understood that uaim, uait, uaidh, etc also denote want as well as need. Am I wrong?
- 214
My understand of the "want - need" relation is from the way Irish people speak. It is common to hear an Irish person say "You'd want to...." as a way of saying "You need to....". For example, saying "You'd want to sort out your passport soon" means "You need to sort out your passport soon." This speech mannerism isn't present in other forms of English and I'm guessing came about as some form of translation error if you will.