how do you say...

waiting for that special someone

in Gaelic?

Here's an attempt at a direct translation -

"Ag fanacht ar an duine speisialta sin"

Doesn't have the same ring in Irish though. Perhaps someone else will come up with something better.

I wouldn't use "fan" there.

fan = stay/wait

So, out of context, the following sentence could easily mean either:

Ag fanacht leis an duine speisialta sin

a) Waiting for that special some-one
b) Staying with that special some-one


What you want is:

Ag feitheamh leis an duine speisialta sin

Here, "feitheamh" is along the lines of "waiting/anticipating".

"Ag feitheamh leis" could also be used.

"Ag fanacht ar" someone

means

"waiting for someone"

It's not ambiguous because you'd hardly be "staying on someone"

Aonghus, Jonas, an bhfuil an ceart agam?

Bhuel, its "fanacht le". That isn't the main problem, though. As Antóin so rightly out, it doesn't have the same ring in Irish - I'd go one step further and say that it doesn't sound like Irish. Most languages have a large set of standard phrases. "Waiting for that special someone" sounds great in English. If we would translate it literally into Swedish, (just to take an example) it would be "Väntade för den speciella någon" - which sounds perfectly hillarious. The right answer would be "Vänta på den rätta" - which in turn cannot be translated literally into English.

In other words, trying to translate these standard phrases is almost always equal to getting it wrong, since there are different expressions in different languages. The translation Fear na mbróg gave is absolutely correct, though. It just doesn't sound very good :-)

" Bhuel, its "fanacht le". "

That is the standard form however the alternative "ag fanacht ar" is in widespread use. There are dozens of examples on Google, most of them from reliable sources

I don't mean to change the translation at hand but I was wondering if anyone could quickly tell me how to say:

It has been awhile since...

Thank you in advance because I have no idea where to start!

"That is the standard form however the alternative 'ag fanacht ar' is in widespread use."

True, it is - but in some cases it might be rather ambigious. In this specific case that ambiguite is of course not an easy, but m.sh. "fanacht ar an mbád" can be both "waiting for the boat" or "waiting on the boat".

It's been a while since I've killed.

Is fada ó mharaigh mé.

Is fada nár mharaigh mé.


I'd prefer the first as, if the second were taken out of context, the "fada" could refer to the time spent killing, as opposed to the time elapsed since killing.

It's been a while

Tá tamall ann ó (verb required!)

If you mean that it's been a while since you saw somebody, you could say "ní fhaca mé le tamall thú" or "Is fada ó chonaic mé thú"

A FnaB, cad chuige an fonn foréigin seo ort?

Ok...how about...

It's been awhile since I wrote to you.

It's been awhile since I've had the time to write.

It's been awhile since I could write.

Is fada ó scríobh mé chugat (or Tá tamall ann ...)

Ní raibh an t-am agam scríobh le tamall (le fada)

Ní raibh deis agam scríobh le fada (le tamall)

fada and tamall are fairly interchangeable here.

ó adds lenition to a word doesn't it...verbs included...

And while I'm on it...I've seen it done in my book lots of times telling me not to, but could someone please explain to me why the verb "scríobh" doesn't lenite? Are there any other examples of verbs that don't either...?

Off the top of my head; I don't think "sc" can lenite.

The seimhiú "softens" the sound. I just couldn't pronounce "shcrí".

The only exceptions I can thing of are:

ar gach madra ( "gach" can't be séimhithe )
gan fear ( "gan" doesn't séimhiú an "f" )

All the other times, there's very clear-cut universal rules involved. For example:

Scríobh mé.

You can't séimhiú an "sc", eg.:

Scrúdaigh mé an leabhar.
Smaoinigh mé ar an lá.
Ba spraoi é.
Staon sé.
Las sé.
Nigh sé.
Rith sé.
Snámh sé.

(Actually, right now I've just realized how complicated it looks! I myself have never had to think about it. I've had an Irish teacher, and so when I heard him say "Smaoinigh sé", I just said "Smaoinigh sé". I didn't put any thought into it! Monkey see, monkey do!)

Also, where you have: an-suimiúil, it takes a little longer to "cop" and learn (I myself didn't cop it at all, I had to read it in a book and then I suddenly realized that that's what was going on). The rule involved here is that when you have:

D T S

directly after:

D T S N L

then you have the choice not to séimhiú. Keep in mind though that this doesn't apply when you've got one word describing another, whether the second be a noun or an adjective:

bean dheas (adjective)
bean dhorais (noun)

Then urú's are pretty clear-cut too, but then you have:

ag an doras

What's going on here is just that when you have "preposition + an + noun", you have a choice to urú or not, but only with the letters "D T" and vowels. Like so, all the following are valid:

ag an ndoras
ar an traein
ar an dtraein
ar an iasc
ar an n-iasc

(And let's no forget Ulaidh: [ar an] + séimhiú, I'm not sure if they séimhiú "d t s" here.)


Then there's ones that are just plain weird, a séimhiú follows them around everywhere:

chuile
chéile
chomh

Even when they shouldn't be lenited!:

le chéile


Then you have the rule that just transcends all rules:

an tsubh
ar an tsubh

All I can say is that it does become second nature, just like how you don't even think when you say "an apple", but at the same time, you definitely notice when some-one says "a apple".

(Message edited by Fear_na_mBróg on October 20, 2004)

Very well explained! As you said yourself, this is very easy once you speak the language but I guess that it must be hard for beginners. Just one small thing in your explanation

"And let's no forget Connachta: [ar an] + séimhiú"

I guess you meant to write Ulster instead of Connacht? It's in Ulster this phenomenon is to be found.

As regards "ó" séimhú'ing:

Well, "ó" is a preposition, so it should always be followed by a noun.

If I were to be pedantic, I'd say that:

ó chuala

should really be:

ónar chuala

[ó + gur+ chuala] = [ó + ar + chuala] = ónar chuala

But still there's nothing wrong with "ó chuala". By the way, it would most likely be followed by the past tense, so it'll be séimhiú'd already! ;-)

If I were to follow it by the future tense, I'd say:

It will be a while after we get the money, that we'll get the chance to spend it.

Is fada óna bhfaighidh muid an t-airgead, go bhfaighidh muid deis é a chaitheamh.

***

Thanks for that one Jonas, you're right I should've written "Ulaidh". What I was getting at in any way is that you have:

ar an mhadra

But then when it comes to "d t s", I'm not sure... because the "d t s" after "d t s l n" rule comes into play. (It's commonly referred to as the "DoTS after DeNTaLS" rule.) So I'm not sure if they'd say:

ag an doras

or:

ag an dhoras

If I were to guess, I'd say "ag an dhoras", it has a real Ulaidh feel to it somehow!

(Message edited by Fear_na_mBróg on October 20, 2004)

Actually, I think a little analogy is in order:

Think about how everyone can ride a bike. I cycle for atleast an hour a day (to and from work), I just hop on and daydream all the way. It's no big deal, I do it nonchalantly. And I bet everyone else here just hops on a bike nonchalantly too.

But now, think back, wwaayy back. We all had stabilizers on our bike at one stage. I remember the day my dad took them off. I most certainly didn't hop on nonchalantly, I was nervous as fcuk and was frightened to just cycle the bike, it was definitely a big deal for me! But now that I'm at the proficieny I'm at, even though I haven't forgotten those times, I suppose you could say I just can't really relate to the memories, because what seemed so difficult at the time, I just do now second nature.

Well... talking about "urú"'s and "séimhiú"'s. While the rules, when lain out on paper, may look very complex and tedious, once you've assimilated them and they've become second nature, well you just hop on that bike and cycle away!

'Ag súil le searc mo chroí.'
Hoping for the love of my heart (/life)

Does this sound any better in terms of the spirit of waiting for that special someone?

I'm glad you people are all here to catch me when I fall off the bike, lol!

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation. I started this thing a long time ago where I copy and paste everything you all have said when you answer my questions and its growing very well! I think I understand what you mean though about the second nature thing...at first I had certain questions about certain things in Irish and now I look back and say, stupid Natalie, you should've known that! Anyway, thank you Fear na mBróg, Jonas and Aonghus, once again!

Fáilte romhat