"Do the men need shirts?"
Translation:An dteastaíonn léinte ó na fir?
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I'm the same! I can't keep this stuff in my head straight at all,but I also don't practice it as much as I could or should,work gets in the way. It's very frustrating, but at the same time, I do love it, so I just keep plugging away at it at a snail pace, but man it is difficult!!
de dhíth should also be acceptable for ' need ' An bhfuil léinte de dhíth ar na fir . This is a perfectly good translation of the above and should be accepted along with a few other variations.
Why isn't "An bhfuil léinte ó na fir" correct? It seems that "ta...ó" and "teataionn...ó" are interchangeable for "need" and "want" in most contexts, at least on Duolingo.
The course creators hold the view that tá … ó only means “want” rather than either “want” or “need”.
That seems fair enough. However, I have seen both "want" and "need" marked correct in this context in different sections of the Irish course. I'll stick with your answer above in future but it doesn't seem to be applied consistently throughout the course.
My answer above summarizes the view of the course creators rather than my own view (which is that tá … ó can mean “need”, but in that case it’s an elided form of tá … ag teastáil ó).
For clarification, questions about needing something start with An and then eclipsis? Or is that wrong?
Help! I thought that ó was used for an indefinite like "men" but ón was used for the definite "the men". Why isn't it ón fir? (or bhfir or fhir)
"men" is plural, so it uses the plural definite article na.
ó + an -> ón
ó + na -> ó na
Only the singular masculine noun is eclipsed after ó and not the plural?
Simple preposition + an -> eclipsis
Simple preposition + na -> no eclipsis
(Some simple preposition lenite rather than eclipse, but again, only after the singular definite article).
ó without a definite article lenites - it doesn't matter whether the noun is singular or plural.
Just so I'm clear, could someone confirm that I have this straight? Singular: ón (ó + an) Plural: ó na (no contraction) Grma
ó fhear - "from a man"
ón bhfear - "from the man"
ó fhir - "from men"
ó na fir - "from the men"
óna fhear - "from his man"
óna fear - "from her man"
óna bhfear - "from their man"
Most of the prepositions that end in a vowel merge with the vowel at the start of an, so you get:
de -> den
do -> don
faoi -> faoin
ó -> ón.
i becomes sa or san (sna for na), le becomes leis (before both an and na), and trí becomes tríd.