quote:I think you've mistranslated coibhneasta there. It means "relative", as in the form of a verb used in a relative clause.
You're right. In future, I'll pay more attention to
all the dictionary definitions.
Now that we've established that, and since
atá seems to show up in every second sentence (OK, that's an exaggeration), I have to start learning where the relative form is needed and where it's not. Let's start with our earlier sentence: How many words for rain do we have?
If I translated that as
Cá mhéad focal ar bháisteach againn?, would that cover all the words in the English sentence, but just not sound Irish? To put it another way, do you need
atá in order to make the sentence mean 'do we have'? Does the answer apply to all instances of 'do we have'? Can you think of examples of 'do we have' where
atá is not required, so that I might get a sense of how they differ?
PS: I'm not trying to find ways to avoid the present relative because it's just too much trouble. If it is always required, I'll just memorize that and be done with it. But if it's not, I've got to understand when to put it in -- when I'm going from English to Irish -- and when not to.
Thanks for understanding.