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- "Tá luch agat, an ea? Ní hea."
35 Comments
There are subtly different implications though. "You have a mouse, do you?" feels like it's questioning our challenging an assertion from the mouse owner. "You have a mouse, don't you?" comes off as an assertion asking for confirmation; or even a reminder to the mouse owner that yes, they have a mouse.
1419
(This is an actual question about how literal our translations are supposed to be, not just an error report.) Since Irish doesn't have "no", I expected the English answer not to have "no." I wrote "I don't" instead, which was marked wrong. Should it have been an acceptable answer? Should an acceptable English version go even further and use an even more literal translation of "Ní hea"?
Most English people would probably say 'no', so that is the more natural sounding translation. However I often use the form that repeats the verb, e.g. 'I don't' in this case. This may be a bit of Irish influence on the English language of course. Also, 'No, I don't' is quite normal in English, especially when confirming or emphasising something. So I would say you could use any of them and be correct.
159
I wrote
'you have a mouse . Is that so ? Not so'.
DL really needs to address this one .
Im failing to see how this can be so wrong ?!!
199
I wrote: "You have a mouse, don't you? I don't." I got it "wrong" and was corrected to: You have a mouse, don't you? Isn't it. I know that English tag questions are a minefield - their difficulty goes a long way to explain the use of tag responses like London "innit?"(corruption of isn't it?), in imitation of n'est-ce pas and nicht wahr. In the UK, the Welsh have used it for a long time. "We'll beat the English next time, isn't it?" But to be hoist by my own petard in this fashion is galling!
1008
You certainly have me confused. Not only do I have absolutely no idea what "is it so?" could possibly mean in this context, I also have absolutely no idea how you got "is it so?" from an ea?.