A Chairde:
1) Texts ask to translate 'Tá teach ansin', answer given is 'The house is there', yet there is no definite article. In same lesson, translation of 'There is a house there' is given as 'Tá teach ansin' ???
2) Translate: 'Are you(pl.) satisfied? Answer given is 'An bhfuil tú sásta?' If this is plural, wouldn't 'An bhfuil sibh sásta?' be correct?
3)Ansiúd is explained as'emphasizing distance (i.e. not present or not previously mentioned)'. No examples are given, and there is no further mention of 'ansiúd (except in Lesson 10 where 'anseo, ansin, ansiúd' are transformed into 'seo, sin, siúd'(which amazingly makes perfect sense to me!)
Could someone please give some examples of the use of ansiúd, particularly in contrast with ann/ansin?
4)'Go raibh maith `ad ' is used here, instead of 'agat'. Is this merely a difference in dialect? What is '`ad' derived from?
Go raibh maith `ad!
Dóirín

1) I'd call this a mistake in the answer key. "There is a house there" would be the more correct translation for "Tá teach ansin". "The house is there" would be "tá an teach ansin", as you'd expect.

2) Presuming that you're talking about the exercises at the end of lesson 2, my copy doesn't have a (pl.) in #10. So the answer is correctly given as "An bhfuil tú sásta?".

3) "Ansiúd" and its relatives will come up again in various contexts that will make the meaning clearer. An example of usage would be "Tá mo theach féin anseo, tá teach Mháirtin ansin, agus tá teach Bhríd ansiud" -- "My own house is here, Máirtin's house is there, and Bríd's house is over there" -- presumably pointing across the street and down the block or something. (Personally, I think it's interesting that Irish incorporates the idea of "them other guys" directly into the language:-)

4) As you suspect, "'ad" is a contraction for "agat". See lesson 16.

Al Evans

Al: Thank you for clarifications, and my apologies for the vagueness of my question. I was indeed referring to Lesson 2. I have the 1995 edition of Learning Irish with accompanying tapes, published by Yale University Press. I am just beginning to learn enough to recognize what is truly an error in the book. (I suppose I don't expect books to have errors, nevertheless, there they are!)
Go raibh maith `ad
Dóirín

Doreen,

Just in case you haven't found it...

Professor Nancy Stenson has a set of exercises for the Ó Siadhail textbook available on the web at http://nexus.brocku.ca/rogawa/gaelic/stensn00.html

Although these worksheets contain a few errors, too (mostly typographical), I've found them absolutely invaluable.

Al Evans