I am having the hardest time with Chapter 7 of Learning Irish. I get the general idea of present-past-future and present habitual-past habitual-conditional usage...but keep messing up the forms. Remembering which word is which tense is hard enough, and the combination versions are throwing me off even more.

Is it wrong to use bíonn mé instead of bím? I'm not sure if this is like a contraction or 'usual speech', or if the form 'bím' itself is the only valid one.

Basically, is this something that I can pick up later and focus now on using the correct word (tá vs bíonn vs beidh, etc) or should I really get the combination forms down now?

Well, don't take just my word for it, but I think either is valid depending on whether you want to give an emphasis or be proper. I'm sure it isn't wrong, but as far as I've found while studying Scots Gaelic (I studied it to get used to pronunciation for lack of an Irish book) you can use either...it just depends on what is common where you are or who you're speaking or writing to.
Again, don't take just my word on it...can anyone else help?
Ma 's é do thoil é.
Cait.

cait,
bi'onn me' just sounds wrong. for emphasis I'd say...

bi'm fe'in ("I myself am") ann gach la' (there every day)


Keep it up

Bím is the correct, standard Irish according to an foclóir Beag. I would have said that "Bíonn mé" was. I'll double check.

(Message edited by aonghus on September 21, 2004)

Beidh mé
Bíonn mé (Bím)
Tá mé (Táim)
Bhí mé (Bhíos)
Bheadh mé (Bheinn)
Bhíodh mé (Bhínn)

I don't see anything wrong with any of them!

Forms like bheadh mé or bíonn mé sounds about as correct as I is or you was. In other words, you can hear them from native speakers of some dialects but they are most definitely not accepted in the standard language.

so the shortened versions are more "standard"?

If I can summarize a bit, to make sure I understand -- the correct form would be bím, but bíonn mé is understandable even if it is not correct.

The combined form bím is not just a contraction of bíonn mé, it is understood as a completely different expression. I had thought it was more like saying 'I am' vs 'I'm', and either was fine. It looks like not everyone agrees?

It's making more sense now, after going through all the exercises several times. Go raibh maith agaibh!

so the shortened versions are more "standard"?
Yes, another difference is that they are also correct.

But then who's to say that "Bheadh mé" is incorrect? Say it to an native speaker and see if he give you a funny luck I suppose...

Quite right, quite right. Just as a native English speaker who constantly uses "I is", "You is" and so on would give the same funny luck. My point is that "bheadh mé" is as correct in Irish as "I is" is in English. In my ears they both sound very wrong, in most native speakers ears they sound even more wrong, but there are still those few people who use it. Of couse I would never encourrage anyone learning English to use "I is". Nor anyone learning Irish to use "bheadh mé".

You might get a real funny LOOK.

Excellent, PAD!! ;-) Obviously I looked (or "lucked") too closely on Fear_na_mbróg's original post when I replied. Then again, if we are going to endorse things "bheadh mé" we might as well skip the whole idea of a standardised spelling as well :-)

(Message edited by jonas on September 21, 2004)

Of late I find myself making more and more spelling errors! I think hopping from newsgroup to forum and back again, I keep writing faster and faster and paying less and less attention to what I'm writing! Recently I read a post I'd written on a newsgroup, not one of the verbs was conjugated! I'd left out "ed" and "s" all over the place!