The Gaels seem to have so many different words for "time" that I am feeling overwhelmed by it.

The only word I can easily tell apart from others so far is "uair".

But what about tráth, am, aimsear, tamall?

especially confusing I find tráth vs am distinction (actually I see no distinction, as examples are absolutely the same - tráth tae ~ am tae, tráth bídh ~ am bídh).

The same applies to aimsear vs tamall.

Someone could help?

Other question is about domhan vs sao(gha)l.

The dictionary gives such examples: an saol eile - the other world, an saol mór - the entire world. Very very confusing!

Could you explain how YOU see distinction of these worlds? I don't need copypaste from dictionary as I looked to those but still don't understand the distinction.

Thank you in advance.

p.s. with all respect explanation in Irish will be not helpful. It is of no use to read about shades of meaning of words in a language that you don't master.

I would say they differ in precision for time:

am	a point in time
tráth	a very short period: a "fuzzy" point
tamall	a shorter period
aimsear	a longer period/season

domhan - the physical world, the planet
saol - more than just the physical world, life in general

an saol eile - the next life, the supernatural world

I always imagine that this is how the concepts are related:

1. world (the physical world) = domhan

2. world (the buzz of civilisation) = saol

The main difference is that mountains are part of "an domhan" but newspaper publishing, for example, is part of "an saol".

And moving swiftly on:

4. life (being biologically alive) = beatha

5. life (your entire life story up till now) = saol

The difference here is that vegetables only have beatha, but a human person generally has a saol as well.

That's how I picture it, anyway.

Go raibh maith agaibh, it seems clearer now...

Le meas,
is mise
Liotuánach