21 Comments
I actually don't understand why she says "eem." I've always heard it pronounced as "ihm," and there's no fada on the i.
Short vowels developed into long vowels in monosyllabic words ending in m,rr,ll,nn.
The spelling of many Irish words reflects their pronunciation in Classical Irish.
Both the Munster and Connacht examples on teanglann.ie use the long "eem" pronunciation.
I also learned to pronounce im "as written (i.e. "ihm"), and I don't plan to change that, but I guess I need to learn to recognize "eem" when I hear other people say it.
1840
It has the same Proto-Indo-European ancestor as does Latin unguen (“fat”, “grease”).
- 165
Duo should teach the word butter before throwing it at us, please. Luckily, I guessed correctly!
Teach us how? We have to have a first encounter somehow. Don't mean to be rude, but genuinely I'm confused by these sort of comments about not having learned a word before we see them in an exercise. Because there aren't any lessons, just exercises.
- 11
By showing the word to us in a set of pictures and having us be introduced to it that way, many are likely to remember better. Pictorial association is stronger than simply reading to learn, for most.
And, new words are in yellow (on my phone) so i see its a new word and click it to see what it means...
I'm starting to THINK as Gaeilge(accidentally replacing English words with their Irish word, thinking "go raibh maith agat" first, instead of "thank you", etc)... so thank you, Duolingo!
Stick with it, I've found out why the program works like it does...
Because that's the way they pronounce "im" in some parts of the country.
I don't think you know how éan is pronounced. é sounds like "ay", not "ee".
- 406
Why only butter ? I have a butter. Is this sentence wrong? Why ? I am Polish and I learn English and Gaeigle
"butter" is usually considered a "mass noun" in English, so it is not used with an indefinite article.
- 2034
As SatharnPHL said, since "butter" is a substance, it is treated as a mass noun rather than a count noun. As such, it only takes the indefinite article when it's divided into units, such as "a stick of butter" or "a pat of butter". Really, the indefinite article refers to the unit rather than the substance.
Oooooo... Tá im agam, I just found imported IRISH BUTTER in my market in south Florida, USA, yesterday!! Yay!!
(I would have said "I have Irish butter" but I'm new and don't want to butcher this BEAUTIFUL language.
