"An oibríonn an meaisín?"

Translation: Does the machine work?

[exeisen]

Is this idiomatic? Does "oibríonn" mean "work" in the sense of "be functional" as well as "work" in the sense of "do one's job"?

[scilling]

It includes both of those meanings of “work” (as well as others).

[deactivated user]

If "Does the machine work?" means "Is it in working order?" then the Irish could be "An bhfuil an meaisín ar fheidhm fhónta".

[Eoghan_M]

Why was my answer of "Is the machine working?" rejected?

[bryji]

I got bitten there too. I expect that's "an bhfuil an meaisín ag obair"

[Eoghan_M]

That makes sense, thanks.

[SilverPill]

Can someone confirm the beginning of this sentence is accurate? Don't want to learn inaccurately. As an experiment I tried Google translate for the English of this sentence, which translated to: a oibríonn an meaisín.
Why does Google's version of Irish just use an 'a' while Duolingo uses the definite article?

[SatharnPHL]

YOU CAN NOT RELY ON GOOGLE TRANSLATE!!!!!

Those capital letters are not a mistake - it cannot be stressed enough that Google Translate is notoriously bad. At best it can be used to get a rough idea of what verbs and nouns are being used, (though even that falls flat when a word has multiple meanings) but it doesn't get grammar.

When you want to ask a question, you put "an" before the verb ("ar" in the past tense).

"oibríonn an meaisín" - "the machine works"
"an oibríonn an meaisín?" - "does the machine work

[SilverPill]

Great, thanks! For some reason I hadn't been exposed to that sentence structure in all this time. Congrats on your year-long streak!

[deactivated user]

Just to add that the negative form of an is nach.

• Both an and nach eclipse the initial consonant of the verb.
• If the verb starts with a vowel nach prefixes n- to the vowel.
• The 'dependent' form of the verb follows an and nach.

Examples

• An oibríonn sé = Does it work?
• Nach n-oibríonn sé = Does it not work?
• An dtugann sé = Does he give?
• Nach dtugann sé = Does he not give?
• Tá sé go maith = He is well, but An bhfuil sé go maith = Is he well? An dtá sé go maith is incorrect. (The dependent form of tá is fuil ).