"They said that they swam."
Translation:Dúirt siad gur shnámh siad.
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We recently expanded the notes on the "Verbs: Past 1" skill to give more information on this.
why not gur snámha siad? can someone please explain the difference between gur shnámh agus gur snámha?
You're thinking of the genitive case there, as in "linn snámha" (swimming pool).
Because go and gur correspond to "that" (present and past tense, respectively) while raibh is a verb (corresponding to snámh). If it were "they said that they were swimming," it would be dúirt siad gur raibh ag snámh. I think. :)
Blast, I thought I was getting the hang of this. -__-
The siad drop was a miss on my part, but I did some more rummaging: is it only go here because the verb is irregular? Or is there something else going on?
The FGB says that gur "Replaces go before past tense of regular verbs", so yes, it's go raibh siad, but gur shnámh siad or gur chan siad (that they sang) or gur ól siad (note - d'ól siad for "they drank" but gur ól siad for "that they drank").
