I recently found myself a pen pal in Dublin who is willing to help me with my Irish.

What we have been doing is that I recently bought some short Irish novels and I am sending her my translations of them paragraph by paragraph.

The opening paragraph of the latest novel caused a little trouble for me. I sent her my translation, but she left for vacation and won't respond for a few days. I was wondering if I was on the righ track...

"Nuair a tháinig na bóscaí móra ón Ollain iarradh ar Shorcha déileáil leo. Bhí sé i gceist ag stiúrthóir an ghailearaí taispeántas Picasso a chur ar siúl ag tús mhí an Mheithimh. Bhí pictiúir an ealaíontóra cháiliúil sna boscaí."

When the big boxes came from Holland Sorcha attempted to deal with them. It was the job of the director of the Picasso gallery exhibit to get it under way at the beginning of the month of May. The paintings/pictures of the famous artist were in the box.

I am not certain about that second sentence?

Just incase there are any copywrite lawyers here ;0)

Foley, Catherine. Sorcha sa Ghaileraí: Úrscéal don Fhoghlaimeoir Fásta. Dublin: Comhar Teoranta. 2003

iarradh ar Shorcha	Sorcha was asked
Bhí sé i gceist ag	It was the intention of
taispeántas Picasso	a Picasso exhibition
a chur ar siúl	to hold
ag tús mhí an Mheithimh	at the beginning of May

Pretty good, but you need to work on parsing! There are several stock phrases here, which, to borrow a term from my fields jargon, are lexical units. They threw you off.

Thanks Aonghus,

Actually this author uses a lot of these "stock phrases" in all her works. If it weren't for my friend in Dublin, I would be completely lost with her work.

But looking at the first couple of paragraphs of the novel...I think this one is going to be more of a pain for me LOL...

(Message edited by do_chinniúint on November 21, 2007)

Gnás na Gaeilge!

You night consider adding the following to your armoury:

http://www.litriocht.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=4862


http://www.litriocht.com/shop/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=&products_id=407 7

I am interested...is one better than the other?

If price is an indicator of content, would it be wiser to go with the one for 10.00 instead of 6.00? I wouldn't want to buy two books if the same info in both...

They are different books, with different content.
I have neither, although I have Bannisters book the other way round. It is quite good.

If you have Ó Donaill, you may not need the "Díolaim d’Abairtí Dúchasacha" which is collated from the dictionary.

Faigh dha cheann! nil a lan speis agam (i mo mhala) ach thog me iad'n Chorea