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- "The boy and Paul eat bread."
"The boy and Paul eat bread."
Translation:Itheann an buachaill agus Pól arán.
62 Comments
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The word order is always VSO (verb-subject-object) Verb- Itheann - To eat Subject(s)- An buachaill agus Pol (the boy and Paul) Aran - a bread
Itheann an Buachaill agus Pol aran.
This is throwing me straight into verb construction with no clue about how it works!
You can check out the tips section before going into the lesson which should tell you that the order is verb-subject-object
How come in this sentence the verb begins the sentence, but in "Tá an biachlár agat" (You have the menu) the verb is last?
Because "agat" is not the verb. It is a prepositional pronoun and means "at you". "Tá" is the verb. The sentence reads: Is the menu at you. Mind that it is not a question. So actually it is not "you" that has something, it is the menu being somewhere.
Why don't they teach sentence construction before we learn words, then forget therm because we have to learn how to do sentences?!
You can check out the tips section before going into the lesson which should tell you that the order is verb-subject-object
I have seen many questions about word order, but I believe they do explain on the pc version of this application. The explanation of the grammar of each lesson isn't present on the mobile application, though by looking carefully you may be able to decipher a lesson's content.
I do have one question for the awesome pal who can answer it. When do we use capitalised letters in Irish, and when do we not?
I think basically the same as English Names, places, start of sentences, days, etc. If i can think of exceptions ill let you know
I consider my buachaill spelling correct if I've gotten 3/4ths of the letters correct. That freaking word has more spellings that mess me up than any other Irish word. So far.
saying "I eat bread and drink" every day really makes me wish I wasn't wheat intolerant
Try European wheat, it doesn't have glysophate changes in the protein molecules. American and Canadian wheat makes me sick (within minutes of eating it). European wheat products don't.
Remember that you can hover over words you don't know so that you can learn them ;)
Hi, someone may say me why i can't say "An buachaill agus Paul itheann arán", why corrects me to the sentence "Itheann an buachaill agus Pól arán"?
The word order in Irish is different from word order in English. In Irish we use the verb (Itheann) at the beginning of the sentence, followed by the subject (an buachaill agus Pól) and then the object (arán). In English we first use the subject, and after that the verb. I don't know if the order of a questioning sentence is different in Irish.
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Hate to burst your bubble but I'm using the PC version and I haven't seen one word about sentence structure other than in this forum. If it is there, someone please tell me where. Thanks you. Andy by the way, many thanks to SatharnPHL for answering my question about I am a boy. It really helped. I don't know how to get back to that thread to thank you more appropriately.
Duolingo is designed to "teach by example". Nobody taught you that the subject came before the verb when you were learning English, you figured it out for yourself. The Duolingo exercises expose you to simple sentences and you quickly figure out that the word order is different.
There are Tips and Notes available in the Web version of Duolingo. The Tips & Notes for the very first skill, Basics 1, do explain the word order. The Tips and Notes aren't considered a prerequisite for the course, and they don't provide an in-depth explanation of language feature, but they can obviously provide a short-cut for some of the learning process.
The other thread is here
Eat The(An?) Boy and Paul bread! Check!! This will be a fun way to challenge myself and the 1 language I know!
Most languages dont have sentence structure like English. I just expect it and write down difficult sentences and try to make sense of it so i remember for next time.
That is "Paul and the boy eat bread" not "The boy and Paul eat bread". Translations (being specific) is important for learning a language. It will get more complicated as you build larger, more detailed sentences.
After I read the intro I finally started getting things right after weeks of getting nearly everything wrong. I wrote this sentence horribly misspelled, the verb tense was wrong and instead of arán I wrote pan but I'm so proud that I actually got this close! Pronunciation is still really hard though.
So I said the boy and Paul eat bread, and I was wrong I should of said Paul and the boy eat bread, is there a sense to that or were the duolingo devs just lazy?
It's actually to help you learn. You didn't translate the sentence into Irish, you paraphrased it(same meaning but changed the words around). Its not laziness on duolingo's part anyway.
And now it's the opposite, still wrong, though it's tjhe good words I checked each letter
I believe it was said somewhere else in this thread: An is singular (an buachaill) and Na is plural (na buachailli), hope you're still on the Duolingo grind! Learning a language is hard!
An is singular and na is plural. Basically at this stage that's the easiest thing to remember. An buachaill (the boy), na buachailli (the boys)
What does the extra n mean? (eg) ithean, Itheann. Which one is correct, when?
How do I know when to aspirate "buachaill"? When is it buachaill and when is it bhuachaill?
You're asking the wrong question. The question should be "Do I lenite the noun that follows the singular definite article (in the nominative case)?"
And the answer is "Only if it's a feminine noun."
It would be better if then taught us why we put the words in the specific places (word order) unless there is and i just dont know. But i got this one right first try, so that is good. I think in starting to get the way they spell things. Good luck the rest of you.
I have a question. Why "The boy and Paul" are not considered as "they"? Is "itheann" for both he/she and they? Thank you.
Itheann is the present tense form of the verb "eat". Just like English, you need a subject to tell who is doing the action, whether that subject is "he", "she", "you", "the man", "the boy and Paul". In the special case of "I" and "we", the subject is combined with the verb, so "I eat" is ithim and "we eat" is ithimid, but for all of the other subjects, they just come after the verb:
"Paul eats" - itheann Pól
"you eat" - itheann tú
"he eats" - itheann sé
"she eats" - itheann sí
"you (more than one person) eat" - itheann sibh
"they eats" - itheann siad
"the man eats" - itheann an fear
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I'm doing this on the app on my phone and I keep getting scolded for not using the accents. Anyone know how to do that on an android phone?
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Yay! That works, thanks so much. It just took me this long to find this thread again to thank you.
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I need practice with prepositions. Is there any of the topics with a section on prepositions.
There are 3 whole skills devoted to Prepositions, Prepositions 1 (Tips and Notes here), Prepositions 2 (Tips and Notes here) and Prepositions 3 (Tips and Notes here)
