"He drinks the cup of coffee."

[mpbell]

Still struggling with genitive case; why is this wrong: "Ólann sé cupán an chaife"?

[scilling]

That would mean “He drinks the cup of the coffee”.

[RozieToez]

Not "he drinks a cup of the coffee"?

[scilling]

No — the structure X an/na Y, where X is a noun and Y is a genitive noun, also makes X definite.

[RozieToez]

So is there no way to say "an X of the Y" in Irish? "A bird in the hand"? "An ace in the hole"? "A man of the people"?

[scilling]

The dative needs to be used rather than the genitive for that structure — éan sa láimh (although the Irish version of the proverb uses éan i do dhorn [“a bird in your fist”]), ás sa pholl, fear den choitiantacht.

[RozieToez]

I would also like to know this

[medieval-monk]

Where is the "of" in this sentence?

[scilling]

Caife in this sentence is genitive, so its translation is “of coffee”.

[medieval-monk]

But isn't the regular form of coffee also "caife"...?

[scilling]

Yes, it is. Some nouns have identical forms for the nominative singular and the genitive singular.

[galaxyrocker]

Namely, those nouns whose plural form is a considered a 'strong' plural.

[coreyhus]

And is there a visual way to identify a "strong plural"?