"They do the course about French culture."

Translation: Déanann siad an cúrsa faoi chultúr na Fraince.

[CatMcCat]

Could you not say, "faoi chultúr fhrancach"? I tried it, and it wasn't accepted. Only "faoi chultúr na Fraince" seems to work, but why? Do we take this to mean "the culture of France?

A few samples from teanglann.ie and focloir.ie use "francach" where others use "na Fraince".

the French king: rí na Fraince (the King of France - makes sense to me)

French lavender: labhandar francach
French window: fuinneog fhrancach

And these use "Fraincise" because it relates to the language, French (Fraincis):
French teacher: múinteoir Fraincise
French lesson: ceacht Fraincise
French book: leabhar Fraincise

[SatharnPHL]

One of the uses of the tuiseal ginideach is to turn a noun into an adjective, so cultúr na Fraince can be read as "the culture of France* or "French culture".

As far as I know, the TG is preferred if you can reasonably say "x of y". "king of France" and "culture of France" use the na Fraince constructin, but "lavendar of France" and "window of France" don't make sense, so they use the adjectival form francach, and a "teacher of French" is múinteoir Fraincise, but a teacher who works in France is a múinteoir Francach, even though they are both a "French teacher" in English.

[CatMcCat]

Go hiontach! GRMA!

[ine288748]

So what you're saying is use the gen 'of France' rather than the adj 'French'? For me a confusing distinction!

[LenaCapaillUisce]

Probably a stupid question, sorry, but does faoi cause lenition? If not, why lenite chultúr here?

[SatharnPHL]

Yes, faoi is one of the prepositions that cause lenition.

[exeisen]

So "fraincis" doesn't work?

[galaxyrocker]

Fraincis is the language.

[exeisen]

So is there an adjective meaning "French," or do we have to use the construction given here, which seems to mean "of France"?

[galaxyrocker]

You'd have to use this structure if there's a definite article.

And, the adjective form of some nouns is the same as the genitive (madra in an cloigeann madra - the head of a dog (ie the dog's head))

[meistermonkey]

There isn't a definite article in this sentence, at least not relating to the word "culture".

[Neal356674]

But don't forget that in the Irish language (with a few exceptions) the name of a country always has the definite article with it. For example, "I like France" would be "Is maith liom an Fhráinc" even though the English sentence has no definite article. So for this exercise, a definite article shows up not because of culture, but because of France.