A chairde!
I need help with forming the differnt conjigations of the verbs, like past, present, future. The irregular verbs I know I'm just going to have to memorize, but the regular ones I just haven't seemed to understand yet. That seems to be my #1 gramatical error.
If anyone can explain it to me (Fear na mbrog or Aonghus probably), it would help so much.
Go raibh maith agaibh.
Cáit.

I don't do grammar explanations, because I'm not conciously aware of them! Sorry.

FnaB, fútsa atá sé!

www.daltai.com

Then "Grammar"... it's in there somewhere.

Here's a very very very simple example, with some nice regular verbs:

Past:

Chas sé
Cheannaigh sé

Present:

Casann sé
Ceannaíonn sé


Future:

Casfaidh sé
Ceannóidh sé

Oh yeah, forgot the irregulars:

Past:

Chuaigh sé
Chonaic
Chuala
Tháinig
Thug
Dúirt
D'ith
Fuair
Rug
Rinne
Bhí

Present:

Téann
Feiceann
Cloiseann
Tagann
Tugann
Deir
Faigheann
Beireann
Déanann
Tá / Bíonn

Future:

Rachaidh
Feicfidh
Cloisfidh
Tiocfaidh
Tabharfaidh
Déarfaidh
Íosfaidh
Gheobhaidh
Béarfaidh
Déanfaidh
Beidh

Conditional:

Rachadh
D'fheicfeadh
Chloisfeadh
Thiocfadh
Thabharfadh
Déarfadh
D'íosfadh
Gheobhadh
Bhéarfadh
Dhéanfadh
Bheadh

Past habitual:

Théadh
D'fheiceadh
Chloiseadh
Thagadh
Thugadh
Deireadh
D'itheadh
D'fhaigheadh
Bheireadh
Dhéanadh
Bhíodh

(Checked for typos)

A chairde, Aonghus agus Fear na mBrog.
That's alright. If I wasn't taking English grammar I wouldn't be consciously aware of it either. But basically all I wanted help with was like how you change the verb when you make it past present or future, and what the Autonomous verb was?
Go raibh maith agat, Fear na mBrog.
And do you think anyone could check this sentence for me to see if I am using the correct verb and everything.
Cloisim do bhualadh croí. It is supposed to say "I hear your heart beat." Just a sentence I was practicing with.
Go raibh maith agaibh!
Cáit.

(Message edited by cait on October 21, 2004)

quote:

Cloisim do bhualadh croí.

Ain't nothing wrong with that!

(Although I myself would've said:

Cloisim bualadh do chroí.

I hear the beating of your heart. )

I would suggest FnaB's version too.
The other doesn't feel right, even if it is grammatical.

A Cháit, just to give you some perspective here: When Aonghus says that it "doesn't feel right, even if it is grammatical", the idea is as follows:

Consider the English sentence:

I hear your beating of heart.

Although there is nothing grammatically wrong with that sentence whatsoever... still it just doesn't feel right. The following:

I hear you heart beat.
I hear your hear beating.
I hear the beating of your heart.

sound right, if you know what I mean.

In Irish - from my experience in anyway - one gets fond of trying to make a noun definite wherever possible. For instance, given the sentence:

Cloisim do bhualadh croí.

You'll notice that we know to which heart "croí" refers - it's obviously referring to "your heart". As the tendency is to make things definite wherever possible, the following is more natural in Irish:

Cloisim bualadh do chroí.

Okay, here I'm switching from answerer to questioner:

I notice in the above, a Aonghuis, that you wrote "fútsa atá sé".

Looking at the following sentences:

Nach ormsa a bhí an t-ádh?!
Fútsa atá sé!

The first thing that I wonder is why they aren't:

Nach ormsa a raibh an t-ádh?!
Fútsa a bhfuil sé!

If it were any other verb, then it would be "urú + dependant form". Is it just that "bí" gets special treatment here?

Hi Cait
I don't know where you live and so, if this book would be available to you, but when we were at primary school (in Ireland) we used "Buntús Gramadaí and it had sections for past, present, future, irregular verbs as well as the prepositional pronouns(i.e. agam, agat, aige, aici...). I found it really easy to follow and to see the patterns for how to change to different tenses-a lot easier to follow than the squishy bit you might be lucky to get in the back of your dictionary!!!
Go n-éirí an t-ádh
x

Fútsa atá sé freagra a aimsiú, a FnaB. Níl fhios agam!

Is minic a bhíonn "bí" eisceachtúil

LÁITH.
COIBHNEASTA
atáim
atá tú
atá sé
atá sí
atáimid
atá sibh
atá siad
Sb.
atáthar

Níl fhios agam cad é "LÁITH. COIBHNEASTA"; ach níl sé ag gach briathar!

...contd.
I found it for sale in www.litriocht.com -just type "Buntús Gramadaí" into a search on the home page

A chara, a Fear na mBróg.
Go raibh maith agat, for the tip. I didn't realize that it sounded like that or (though technically not wrong) it was a little confusing.
A chara, a Philosophe.
Go raibh maith agat, (for) an leabhar. I will definitely look into it! :)

Go raibh maith agat as an leabhar |nó| Go raibh maith agat as ucht an leabhair

Go raibh maith agat, Fear na mbróg. :)
A chara, a Philosophe.
Go raibh maith agat as an leabhar. :)

For past tense, how do verbs usually change (unless they are irregular)?
Slán go fóill.
Cáit.

Past tense.

First pick a person:

me = mé
you = tú
he = sé
she = sí
we = muid
yous = sibh
they = siad

Then pick a verb, eg. "dún".

Now stick a "h" on the verb and put the person beside it:

Dhún sé
Dhún Cáit
Dhún gach duine!

As for pronunciation, well... when you put a "h" on a consonant it's called a "séimhiú". A "séimhiú" turns a consonant into a different one. I pronounce:

Dhún sé

as:

Goon shay

If you haven't got tapes or the like to listen to, you'll have to read some sort of book that will tell you how they change. I'm make an attempt at it in anyway:

bhord : vord | word (either are acceptable)
chuir : It's hard to explain this one. Better to listen to some-one else say it.
dhún : goon
fhírinne : írinne ("f" sound disappears)
gharda : See "chuir"
mhúinteoir : exactly like "bhord"
pheann : feann
shuigh : Hig
thuig : Hig

They're the only consonants you can "séimhiú".

Then you have urú:

iasc, óir, úll (all vowels) : n-iasc, n-óir, n-úll
bord : mbord
cabáiste : gcabáiste
dalta : ndalta
fírinne : bhfírinne
garda : ngarda
peann : bpeann
titim : dtitim

In the above, you simply pronounce the consonant which has been prepended to the word, eg.

ngarda : narda

Finally, the other sound alteration:

an tsráid
an tsubh

Here, you've got:

an tsráid : an tráid

The "t" sound replaces the "s" sound.

Note also, there's only 11 irregular verbs in Irish, so you've very little to memorize (compared to English or German for example, which each have 100's of irregulars)