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- "I listen to the story."
"I listen to the story."
Translation:Éistim leis an scéal.
28 Comments
Is there a direct translation that would make more sense in my American brain? I just translated leis and it said with but I can't figure out how that makes sense.
''I listen with the story'. Leis can mean 'with him/it', but in this case it's just leis because of an following it.
I believe I read somewhere else that le+an becomes leis... so should the answer then really be "leis AN sce(fada)al"?
It's not. When le is followed by an it becomes leis, and it has nothing to do with another an being added.
I am with sclare92. Doesn't leis mean "with". I couldn't find anything in the options given that meant "to" the story.
918
So just to make sure I understand... I get Eistim, because I'm the one listening... is it "leis" because it's referring to "an sceal"? Meaning why leis instead of liom? I have in my notes that "eist (le)" means "listen (to)", but I didn't realize the "le" part needed to be conjugated as well, and I'm not sure what it's based on for this sentence.
It's leis because le needs to become leis when it appears before an or na. It has nothing to do with the speaker of the sentence.
would it ever be éistim léi (or libh, leat, etc)? is it leis in this case because the object is masculine? or is it just Always 'leis' specifically when éist le is followed by an or na?
In this sentence, "leis" does not mean "to him;" rather, here, "leis" means "to" (and yes, "le" or "leis" can mean "with," but in English, of course we say "listen to" rather than "listen with," so I'm going to use "to" rather than "with" throughout this answer). The point is, yes, "le" + "sé" = "with him" / "to him" but here "le" simply becomes "leis" before "an:" "leis" is simply the form that "le" takes when followed by "an," as you observed. (As in English, "an" is the form "a" takes when followed by a vowel: it's just a different form of the same word).
This "leis" has nothing to do with the gender of the object:
Éistim leis an scéal. = I listen to the story ("scéal" is masculine).
Éistim leis an nuacht. = I listen to the news. ("nuacht" is feminine).
And yes, you can say "éistim léi" but that would mean "I listen to her:"
Éistim leis an bhean. = I listen to the woman.
Éistim léi. = I listen to her.
Éistim leis an bhfear. = I listen to the man. (here, "leis" is "to" / "with"). Éistim leis. = I listen to him. (here, "leis" is "to him" / "with him").
So, gender does matter if you are using "le + pronoun:"
Éistim leis an scéal; éistim leis. = I listen to the story; I listen to it. Éistim leis an nuacht; éistim léi. = I listen to the news; I listen to it.
Edit: Changed "Éistim leis an fear" to "Éistim leis an bhfear."
So when it's feminine you add a fada? Éistim léi (I listen to HER), is it right?
No, you don't add a fada when it's feminine. The 3rd person singular feminine prepositional pronoun for le is léi (liom, leat, leis, léi, linn, libh, leo).
For ag, the 3rd person singular feminine prepositional pronoun is aici. For ar, it's uirthi, for roimh, it's roimpi. They all use the letter i, without a fada.
GRMA! I took notes on this and read this too: http://nualeargais.ie/gnag/ag.htm So the prepositional pronoun changes with each preposition? I hadn't thought about that.
No, a prepositional pronoun is a compound of a preposition and a pronoun.
The preposition changes depending on particular meaning you need to convey. If the object of the preposition is a pronoun, they are combined, so the preposition ag has 7 prepositional pronouns associated with it, but if the object isn't a pronoun, you just use ag.
It's misleading to say that "the prepositional pronoun changes", because that suggests that there is one modifiable prepositional pronoun, but there are lots of different prepositional pronouns, 7 for each preposition (though in the case of idir, some of them are more theoretical than practical).
Yes, I understand what you mean, I think I didn't express myself correctly. I meant there are different prepositional pronouns depending on the preposition and the pronoun it combines with. This has been very enlightening :) Go raibh maith agat!
Couldn't the sentence also be Cloisim leis an scéal, or would that not make sense?
Is eisteacht a 2nd conjugation verb? Why is that last i in eistim not accented?
Why wouldn't - éistim don scéal - be a valid answer. Doesn't don roughly translate into for the/to the? I get - éistim leis an raidió - as in Irish you listen with rather than to, but here it's a story, presumably not over a raido. Am I overthinking this?
It wouldn't be a valid translation because that's not how Irish speakers say "I listen to the story".
Why do you "look at" but "listen to"? The preposition used is simply a convention, it doesn't actually mean anything, and Irish doesn't use the same conventions that English does.
That explains a lot, like why I can't define any of the English prepositions, I just know how to use them because it's my first language, then I get stumped by questions like this.
No. Just as you can't leave out the preposition "to" in "I listen to the story", you can't leave out the preposition le in Éistim leis an scéal.
