"The men read the newspaper and the women eat an apple."
Translation:Léann na fir an nuachtán agus itheann na mná úll.
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The evolution of the plural form of ‘bean’ is actually regular. Over time, many pronunciation rules have changed the word and we end up with ‘mná’. We just have accept the plural as it is.
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I'm guessing this is an apple each? Or are the women collectively eating a single apple. (In other words, is úll referring to each of the women in mná?)
Your first guess is correct. In Irish (and in many other languages) if I have plural people (dogs, etc.) but a singular apple (bone, etc.), the default understanding is that it's one apiece.
Is there a way to differentiate between eating one apiece and eating one collectively?
Na is the definite article for plurals; an is the definite article for singular nouns.
So is there some site with a pronunciation guide for every sound in Gaeilge? I'd rather not be going to forvo everytime I hear a new word.
If you can read the International Phonetic Alphabet, you can find the sounds in the Wikipedia article on Irish orthography.
When I've heard it it's always been mraw but I've only really heard Northern speakers. scilling's link is good and there is also a site called Forvo for native-speaker pronunciations in various languages.
The vast majority of Irish speakers on Forvo aren't natives, however. So always take it with a grain of salt. The only native I know on there is Bríd Éilís
I'm a native speaker but I've never heard mraw, probably because I learned the standard Irish, in which it's pronounced mnaw, as opposed to any dialect.
Yeah I've never heard that ever and would be super confused! But maybe it's an Ulster Irish thing?
I think it's more that mnaw is a Munster thing -- maybe a school Irish thing, too. Most native speakers say mraw.
I'm missing something on the articles. Why is it "an nuachtán" and not "an úll"?
an is the singular definite article - "the"
nuachtán - "(a) newspaper", an nuachtán - "the newspaper"
úll - "(an) apple", an t-úll - "the apple"
Why dont they introduce the plural form of apple instead of making a silly sentence like this?
I don't think it's silly at all. While both sentences are ambiguous, I'd normally take "The women ate an apple" to mean that they ate an apple each, while "The women ate apples" would suggest that they each ate more than one apple.
"Úlla", the plural form of "apple", was already introduced in the "Plurals" section.
Im getting this sentence right (3 times now) but it keeps saying its incorrect and will not let me move on.
Nobody that is reading your comment here has any idea what you submitted, or what Duolingo's response was. The only people who will see your comment are other learners just like you.
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Sentence Discussions are a user-to-user forum. Nobody reading your comment has any way of knowing what you submitted, or what you are seeing on your screen. If you think that Duolingo is malfunctioning, take a screenshot that demonstrates the problem and submit a bug report.
Can 'agus' not be interchanged with 'is'? I have seen it shortened as such before (certainly in Scottish Gaelic at least - maybe it doesn't work the same with Irish).
In school in Ireland it's learned as "agus" initially, then they slowly sneakily just start using is or 's because it's more fluent, easier to say / write, etc.
I've had this question three times in this lesson and each time I haven't been able to complete the sentence because there have been words missing from the selection at the bottom. It's been a different word each time but it prevents me from getting this question right. WTH, Duo?
This is a long-standing bug in Duolingo. You should take a screenshot that demonstrates the problem, and submit a bug report with the screenshot and a detailed description of the version of Duolingo that you are using (iphone app, android app, website, the web browser you use, etc).
You may be able to work around the issue by using the "zoom" feature in your browser to zoom out to 80% or 65%, or you can click on "Use the keyboard" and type the answer in instead of selecting from tiles.
How can I know when to select "na" or "an"? They both mean "the",right? So what's the difference?
I just want to be sure, is 'an' for singular nouns and 'na' for plural?
Yes, in the nominative/accusative case. as you learn more Irish, you will be introduced to another case (genitive) where feminine singular nouns also use 'na.'
So 'an' means 'the', so why does 'an nuachtán' mean 'the newspaper' yet 'an úll' doesn't mean 'the apple'?
The exercise asks you to translate "an apple", not "the apple".
It is also the case that masculine nouns that start with a vowel get a t-prefix after the singular definite article an (in the nominative case), so you get an t-úll (masculine) but an ubh (feminine).
This is a very long sentence. It should be broken up in pieces and then put together
I don't see how i could have typos as i had to put the words in the right order which you supplied
Sorry, Stephanie, no one on this forum can see which words you selected. Sometimes there are two similar words (like úll and húll or úlla) given. Could it be something like that?
definitely time to sleep -_-; i just typed "ólann na fir an nuachtán" lol
Well, I chose two tranlations for.
The men read the newspaper and the women eat an apple
Léann na fir an nuachtán is itheann na mná úll and Léann na fir an nuachtán agus itheann na mná úll
The system counted it wrong because it only wanted the second but last I knew "is" is a short version of "agus". So why is it wrong that I chose both?
Probably because Duolingo doesn't know that you know that! 'Is' is a short version of 'agus,' but tbh it looks a little weird to write it in the middle of a normal (non-poetic) sentence. Kind of like answering the question 'Who's there?' with 'It is I, and I shall not stir from here until I shall speak with thy master. ) There's nothing grammatically wrong with my answer, but I wouldn't teach someone to talk like that. (Okay, maybe 'thy' is obsolete!)
In this sentence, you have two mini-sentences joined by 'and.' [The men read the newspaper] and [the women eat an apple]. You do each mini-sentence as though it were a sentence on its own.
Irish is called a VSO language because the normal word order in a sentence is Verb (shows doing or being) Subject (shows who/what is doing the verb) Object (shows who/what the action is being done to -- should really be called Rest of the Sentence).
So let's put the English words into the Irish word order:
(read-the men-the newspaper) and (eat-the women- an apple)
Now change the words to Irish:
(léann-na fir-an nuachtán) agus (itheann-na mná-úll)
or
Léann na fir an nuachtán agus itheann na mná úll.
I hope that answers your question.
"the newspaper" - an nuachtán
"an apple" - úll
Irish doesn't have an indefinite article ("a" or "an" in English).