"Tá óstán i mo cheantar."
Translation:There is a hotel in my area.
24 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
1144
FGB gives ceantar = district. There is no mention of "area" in any of its examples. NEID in turn gives district = ceantar, citing, inter alia, Bord na gCeantar Cúng . Is Duolingo alone in its assertion that ceantar ≠ district? More importantly, is it correct?
My house is in a "postal district". It's also in an "electoral district". But outside of those narrow technical terms, I don't live in a "district", I live in an "area" or "neighbourhood" - we have good public transport in my area, there's a really good sushi place in my neighbourhood, the youth-club in my area runs a popular soccer camp during the school holidays.
While I would use ceantar to translate "district" into Irish in most cases, "district" isn't an approriate English translation for every example of Ceantar - a "nuclear-free zone" is ceantar neamhnúicléach, for example. And the Irish for the District Court is an Chúirt Dúiche (Ireland is divided into 23 districts for judicial purposes - they are not the same as the 39 Dáilcheantar or Dáil constituencies).
A bit frustrating to be marked incorrect for using '...an hotel...' In a previous question I was incorrect for using '...a honest person...'
Do you pronounce the H in “honest”? (I know that the H in “hotel” isn’t universally pronounced.)
West Coast American here. I pronounce the H in hotel, but not in honest. I never thought about it before. Wow, English is weird.
And it would be "an honest person" but "a hotel." General rule of thumb, use A with an aspirated H, and AN with a non-aspirated H.
Personally, no. Admittedly I hadn't realised that the rules surrounding the use of a/an before h/u are based on pronunciation rather than any strict rule. I had previously thought one would write 'a honest' but say 'an honest'. I'm learning as much English here as Irish!
Similar to the difference between 'a uniform', but 'an umbrella'. Depends on whether the letter is pronounced as a vowel or not! Applies to Y as well. Plenty of consonatal Y words, but the only examples of words beginning with a vowel Y that I can think of are 'an Yttrium atom', or 'an ymbryne'.
Is it "an house" or "an hot day" or "an hole"?
While some people do write (and say) "an hotel", the "h" in "hotel" is normally pronounced, so most people say "a hotel".
You have got me there I think that you need to be careful with a hole though !!!
i mo cheantar is quite specifically "in my area/district", and while things that are "in your area" are "near you", i mo ceantar doesn't mean "near me".
in aice le is one way to say "near", but tá ostán in aice liom suggests to me that you are standing right next to the hotel, not 5 minutes walk from it, but I would use Tá óstán in aice láimhe to say "There is a hotel nearby".
I had "area," but changed it because the screen suggested different translation -- then it marked it as wrong!
I was always taught to use 'an' with 'hotel', and I wasn't marked wrong for it here, just told I had a typo. But I'm not here to learn English, which I believe I speak better than Duo!
Do you pronounce "the hotel" with an "h" sound, or do you pronounce it "as "the otel"?
Unless you were taught to pronounce it as "the otel" without an initial "h" sound, then you shouldn't be using "an" as the indefinite article, as "an" is only used as an indefinite article before a "vowel sound" (that's why you don't use "an" before "uniform", but you do before "umbrella" - "uniform" is spelled with a vowel, but it doesn't start with a "vowel sound").
I do indeed pronounce it 'the (thee) otel'. I would also say 'an historical fact'! I grew up in south County Dublin, but spent many years in the UK - I don't know whether I picked it up there.
While it might be technically correct, from a grammatical point of view, it's not something that a native English speaker would be likely to say. It would be considered awkward at best, and usually taken as a sign that you're still learning English.
