I was reviewing some material and came across the following:

The sentence

Máire also has a nice coat and a wonderful dress.

is translated as

Tá cóta deas ag Máire freisin agus gúna iontach.

Would it make more sense to translate it as

Tá cóta deas agus gúna iontach ag Máire freisin. ?

Or am I wrong, or is it simply a matter of interpretation?

Thanks for your input,

Searlas

That depends on whether "also" refers only to the coat, or to the coat and dress.

Your version refers to both.

Go raibh maith agat, a Aonghuis. Yes, what you said makes sense, and it seems to me that either way could make sense depending on how you read it.

Just so. The english is imprecise compared to the irish.

as ever!

The correct phrase might depend on context, no? If the previous sentence was "Cait has a nice coat and a wonderful dress" then you'll want the 'also' to refer to both.

But if the previous sentence was "Cait has a nice coat" then the first Irish translation might be better, i.e., "Máire also has a nice coat and a wonderful dress". Or, more accurately, "Máire also has a nice coat--and a wonderful dress!" Not sure how--or if--Irish would punctuate that sentence.

"Cáit has a nice coat and a wonderful dress".


There's no mention of "also" in the above. If you were to translate it introducing the concept of "also", while it would be intelligible, it would be a loose, ill-formed translation.


In the original English sentence, the "also" could refer to anything. It could refer to:

A) Máire

B) cóta deas

C) cóta deas agus gúnna iontach


A) Tá cóta deas agus gúnna iontach ag Máire freisin.

B) Tá gúnna iontach agus cóta deas freisin ag Máire.

C) Tá cóta deas chomh maith le gúnna iontach freisin ag Máire.

> There's no mention of "also" in the above.

Ah, I think you misunderstood my intent. "Cáit has..." was meant to be an example of a *previous* sentence (that is, previous to the sentence that Searlas wanted to translate--in my imaginary conversation).

The previous sentence could also (pun intended) have been "Máire has brown shoes" in which case the *next* sentence (i.e., the one Searlas wanted to translate) could've been "Also, Máire has a nice coat and a wonderful dress."

I was just trying to show that English can be very expressive, but understanding a sentence means you often need to see it in context to understand exactly what it means. You can put the 'also' in several different places in the original sentence, and it changes the meaning subtlely. I think we're saying much the same thing.

(Message edited by dearg on October 13, 2004)

Dia dhuit a Dhírg, (? - Sorry, not sure how "Dearg" should look in this context!)

Anyway, I agree that context can mean everything. Unfortunately in this particular case it was one of those "translate the following sentence" exercises so there's no context to put it in!

Ah, one of those sentences. :-)

Oh, and "dearg" is just my favorite color. Although I guess it becomes my nickname. And I guess nicknames would be modified in the same way as given names. Never thought of that before!

Well, when you make a noun out of an adjective...

For example: "bocht" = "poor" (adjective)

But then you have:

Teach na mBocht

which translates loosely as "The Poor House". Here, an adjective is blatently used as a noun. We do this both in Irish and in English. Consider the rich and the poor. (both adjectives used as nouns).

So anyway, making a noun out of "dearg" would look something like so:

Dearg (Nominative)
a Dheirg (Vocative)
Teach Dheirg (Posessive)

A Dhírg, a chara,
That does look like a really odd vocative... I'm no expert so I couldn't say if it's right, you could, however, if you want a name with "red" in it go for Ruairí nó Ruaidhrí, or the Old Irish form Ruaidrí... but then, of course, there's the question of is this "great or true king" or "red king"... níl a fhois agam!
Beir bua agus beannacht!
Chris

But the word "rua" is used to indicate red-haired as opposed to "dearg" which is just the color red as an apple, a rose, etc.

Pad, a chara,
Tá an céart agat.
Another possiblity might be "Flann", which I believe is from Old Irish for "Blood Red".
Slán beo!
Chris