Hey dudes, hope somebody out there can help with this. Was writing an email this morning and wanted to say something along the lines of 'I hope you won't mind my writing to you'... and I had to just change the sentence in the end as I couldn't get a natural way to say this in Irish.

Is there a way of saying this in Irish that is natural and that translates to "my writing to you" instead of changing it altogether to something like "that I'm writing to you". I'd really like to keep the sense of the "my" in there if possible.

Cheers!

Ceist mhaith. Níl mé cinnte. (Ach ní bheadh an nath sin agam as Béarla ach oiread)

"Tá súil agam nár miste leat mo scríbhneoireacht(nó scríbhinn) duitse."

Féach ar na freagraí a bheidh ar na daoine eile anseo a Shinéad,mar is dócha go mbeidh siad níos fearr ná an freagairt seo.

Is dócha go bhfeadfá "mise" a úsáid más mian leat béim a chuir ortsa.

Tá súil agam nach miste leat mise a bheith ag scríobh chugat.

Ní minic a bhíonn sé á úsáid agamsa chomh maith ach amháin anois is arís! Tá sé rud beag foirmeálta ach bheadh sé áisiúil an leagan Gaeilge a bheith ar eolas agam.

Ahha, dearna leat a Aonghus! Is maith liom é sin.

Tá an ceart ag Aonghus dar liom. A distinction could possibly be made between writing often or just this once.

Just this once could be "Tá súil agam nach miste leat mé (an ríomhphost seo a) scríobh chugat." I'm sure someone will tell me it is béarlachas but I don't think so. There's a lot of stuff at the back of the book that learners like me have only glanced at.

Perhaps someone knows where to find constructions like these in GGBC -- perhaps under "ainm briathartha". I know I'm on thin ice.

I hope you won't mind my (possessive adjective) writing (nominal function) to you =
I hope you won't mind me (personal pronoun) writing (verbal function) to you

These are two ways to view the same expression.

If you use a gerund, technically the possessive should be used. Most people see this as formal, but mostly because so few people follow this grammarical rule now. In fact, they've switched the rule to the second one above. It is now a matter of emphasis and register.

http://www.dianahacker.com/bedhandbook6e/subpages/posgerund.html

Now as for Irish, I assume that the same rule breaking didn't occur in Irish. I am pretty sure such a sentence as Tá súil agam nach miste leat mo scríobh chugat would be more affected by English than the one given by Aonghus. Some who speak fluently can judge if it would be considered a natural expression. Even in English, though, it is considered rare, so maybe you can go with it and impress (or depress?) your fellows!

Hi Sinéad, this part of speech is known as a gerund where the continuous form of a verb is used as a noun preceeded by a possesive pronoun. e.g. "my writing to you" where "writing" is the gerund.

I am not Irish and have only a limited reading knowledge of the language but I think it would be quite tricky to render this phrase directly into Irish given that this particular grammatical form is, as far as I know, unique to English.

Ádh mór,

Peter

quote:

Tá súil agam nach miste leat mo scríobh chugat

To me it sounds like "I hope you don't mind if someone writes me to you", which doesn't make sense.
Same pattern with another verb :
Tá súil agam nach miste leat mo thabhairt 'na bhaile = I hope you don't mind taking me home.

Normally the possessives are subjects of the verbal nouns when these are intransitive verbs (ie. when they can have a direct object) and objects of the verbal nouns when they are transitive verbs.

Taidhgin's translation is ok and it isn't an Anglicism :

Tá súil agam nach miste leat mé scríobh chugat.

Cf in Ó Siadhail's Modern Irish, p. 258, the same pattern :

B'fhearr liom tú fanacht sa bhaile inniu. = I would rather you remain at home today.
Níor mhaith leo na mic pósadh ró-óg. = They wouldn't like the sons to marry too young.
Ba mhaith liom tú cóiriú go deas. = I would like you to dress nicely.

See the difference:

Ba mhaith liom tú pósadh. = I would like you to marry.
Ba mhaith liom tú a phósadh. = I would like to marry you.

So the two agreed renditions are:


Tá súil agam nach miste leat mise a bheith ag scríobh chugat

Tá súil agam nach miste leat mé (an ríomhphost seo a) scríobh chugat *

*Thanks Lughaidh I can see now how if "mé a scríobh" were to be written instead of just "mé scríobh" it would change the meaning*

....Will look now in the encyclopedia that is GGBC as Taidhgín suggested on the off chance of my managing to find it :) :)

Thanks all for all the helpful contributions

Tá súil agam nach miste leat mise a bheith ag scríobh chugat
=
I hope you don't mind if I'm writing to you

Well after a good search I couldn't find anything specific to this in GGBC apart from a reference to "ar tí mo mharaithe" in a passage in 17.8 (pg. 224) about use of the genitive of verbal noun when you have an object such as possessive adjective going with the verbal noun such as in "ar tí mo mharaithe".

Also,,, I should mention that there is an entry on this on the corkirish website with another possibility offered by David there:

"tá súil agam nach miste leat mo bheith ag scríobh chugat"

quote:

"tá súil agam nach miste leat mo bheith ag scríobh chugat"

Ní bheadh tada agam i gcoinne an leagan sin.

Teanga atá sa Ghaeilge:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ThereIsMoreThanOneWayToDoIt

For sure :) Sometimes I'm happy if I have even one way to say something in Irish though! Having three ways for this is a novelty now :) Nice to see the different suggestions and I guess it's up to the person and how they speak what way they want to say things.

But I think "mo bheith ag scriobh" would sound odd to every Irish speaker of nowadays.

Well I don't mind if it does sound a little odd.. it doesn't sound 'wrong' to my developing ear.

quote:

of nowadays

Is iomaí leagan blasta atá imithe as caint an lae, faraor. Sílim go bhfuil spás ann chun iad a bhreith thar nais, ach iad a bheith múnlaithe ar deá chaint Gaeltachta.

Cgl ach nuair a bíos leagan inteacht róshean agus nuair a bheadh sé aisteach ag achan chainteoir Ghaeltachta, b'fhéidir gur chóir gan é a dh'úsáid ach ins an teangaidh liteartha (scríofaí). - Rud céarna i mBéarla, mar shompla. Dá ndéarfá "doest thou know?" nó rud inteacht mar sin, bheadh fonn gáire ar na daoiní eile, dar liom.

http://www.corkirish.com/wordpress/archives/1172

(Message edited by seánw on July 28, 2010)

quote:

Cgl ach nuair a bíos leagan inteacht róshean agus nuair a bheadh sé aisteach ag achan chainteoir Ghaeltachta, b'fhéidir gur chóir gan é a dh'úsáid ach ins an teangaidh liteartha (scríofaí)

Thou knowest well that I am with thee in this!

I read "lem dhul" in Séadna and had an email conversation with Sinéadw about it. On that basis I suggested in an email that "I am thinking you could also say "tá súil agam nár mhiste leat mo bheith ag scríobh chughat". But even if theoretically possible, this [lem dhul] is the only sentence I have seen like this, and so it may be rare, and therefore to be avoided as not the most idiomatic choice???"

By the time I wrote my blog on the subject (http://www.corkirish.com/wordpress/archives/1172), I had decided that this could not really be said.

It seems to me that "lem dhul" - the only example of its type in the Irish I have read (I have read the whole of Peadar Ua Laoghaire's Mo Sgéal Féin and the first 17 chapters of Séadna) - is a very rare and special construction, and in particular he only uses this construction because he has started off with "le".

You can't run "le" into "mé ag dul", and so PUL had to come up with "lem dhul". Cad déarfá lem’ dhul chun cainte le Séadna féin ar dtúis? What would you say to me going to talk to Séadna himself first?

Having thought about it, I do not think you should do this unless it is required by the preposition. It might be technically possible to do so, but the fact that i only have one example "lem dhul" in 300+ pages of Irish shows it is really a marginal construction.

This is mad. I didn't know what a gerund was until I asked this question and Albanach and Seanw explained it and yesterday evening I was reading an essay by George Orwell- 'Politics and the English language' - which is just crazy brilliant and in it he laments the trend that has the gerund falling more and more out of use. It's not a 'save the gerund' essay or anything, it gets a mention.

http://mla.stanford.edu/Politics_&_English_language.pdf

I accept that it's marginal in English and that it would be even more so in Irish, especually the gerund and the poss., but I like it.. for the odd time that it can be used it is beautiful, is it not? :)

Yes I would love to be a native speaker but I've no chip on my shoulder about it, and I'm going to have a few odder turns of phrases either by mistake or intention. Like 'roimh mé fein'. I can't stand the word 'romham' and when the féin can be there to me 'roimh mé féin' sounds much nicer, so I'm using that by choice. Yes it's not technically perfect but there was one person (native speaker) interviewed in the Iorras Aithneach research that used it and so that gives me the extra encouragement to use it.

I just think there has to be a bit of freedom to put in your own perceived flourishes and nuances, so that you can make something of the language your own.

Quote 'I just think there has to be a bit of freedom to put in your own perceived flourishes and nuances, so that you can make something of the language your own'.

Tá an ceart agat Sineadw!

Orwell's writings have a lot of good observations and critiques in them. Keep in mind that he had some definite ideas about correct language that are exhibited by his rules and critiques. The idea I agree with the most is that muddled thought will show through in language. In 1984 the state muddles thought by paring down language -- if you don't have the words to express your thoughts, then is that thought changed or adapted to the lower linguistic level. Most people I've heard call this "dumbing down" now. I think that clear thought and conception have direct impact on the state of Irish. No only do we need clear conceptions of what we wish to express, but also know the meaning of the words we wish to connect to the concept. In addition, I think there needs to be a great renewal of the art of learning. Schools don't nearly train wee ones in learning how to learn, in developing their innate abilities to learn. If they had that they could theoretically "train themselves" in Irish with much less exterior support. And from that would be great creativity in the way of self-expression.

Those of us who remember that an isosceles triangle was a triantán comhchosach in Irish were not surprised that the translation of some of the semi-state bodies' annual reports clarified the meaning considerably. Many people who could not understand the opaque English checked out the Irish version to find the meaning and found it expressed clearly.

"Quote seanw: In addition, I think there needs to be a great renewal of the art of learning. Schools don't nearly train wee ones in learning how to learn, in developing their innate abilities to learn. If they had that they could theoretically "train themselves" in Irish with much less exterior support. And from that would be great creativity in the way of self-expression"

We'll be "expressing" ourselves in electric cars long before any government will overwork themselves with education reform :(

quote:

See the difference:

Ba mhaith liom tú pósadh. = I would like you to marry.
Ba mhaith liom tú a phósadh. = I would like to marry you.

Seans nár mhiste dom a chur i bhfios gur féidir don dara ráiteas thuas ceachtar den dá bhrí a thabhairt leis:

Ba mhaith liom tú a phósadh = I would like to marry you OR I would like you to marry.

(Scaipeann comhthéacs ceo, mar is gnách!)

Ní sin atá scríofa i leabhar an tSiadhalaigh, áfach.

Nuair a bíos "AINM/FORAIM + a (+séimhiú) + ainm briathartha", go bhfios domh ciallann sé gurb é an t-ainm nó an forainm cuspóir an ainm bhriathartha... Chan an t-ainmní, dar liom.

Sé a deirtear mar sin féin. Ní ag caitheamh anuas ar shárobair an tSiadhalaigh chéanna atáim, ach is leithne caint phobail ná a bhfuil i leabhar dá mhéad é.

Tá sé le brath i ngráiméar na mBráithre chomh maith, mura mbeadh ró-leisce ar fad orm ar maidin le dul a thochailt. (Agus mo suitcase le unpackáil agam go fóill freisin. Αύριο...)

(Message edited by Abigail on August 07, 2010)