Irish

Carbonated

I'm getting my boyfriend a ring with an engraving in it, he is Irish, and I would like it to read "I Love You" in Irish. If anyone could help me translate this, it would be much appreciated. Thank you very much.

MrJoeSoap

5.3.. How do you say "I love you"?
There are many ways, but "Is tú mo stór" should work
in nearly all situations

http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/liosta/gaeilge-b/FAQ.html#5.3

Don't know if you are familiar with the language, if you aren't it might sound alright (Pronounced 'Iss too muh store'). But to myself, who has studied the language a bit, it sounds horrible!

generalmiaow

You might also say "Tá mé i ngrá leat" (I'm in love with you), "Is tú mo grá" (You are my love), "Tá grá agam duit" (I have love for you) or even "Gráim thú" (I love you - but despite being correct this is never used)

Carbonated

Thank you both very much!

NoDayBut2Day

generalmiaow wrote:

You might also say "Tá mé i ngrá leat" (I'm in love with you), "Is tú mo grá" (You are my love), "Tá grá agam duit" (I have love for you) or even "Gráim thú" (I love you - but despite being correct this is never used)

That is so cool; can you post the pronounciations for those? I love the Irish language; I so want to learn how to speak it!

Beruthiel

My favourite one is: a ghrá mo chroí - love of my heart,
it's a lovely phrase.

Beruthiel

NoDayBut2Day wrote:

That is so cool; can you post the pronounciations for those? I love the Irish language; I so want to learn how to speak it!

http://www.ireland-information.com/irishphrases.htm

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=53063

This thread should really be in the Gaeilge forum

Sgt. Sensible

NoDayBut2Day wrote:

That is so cool; can you post the pronounciations for those? I love the Irish language; I so want to learn how to speak it!

Roughly:

Tá mé i ngrá leat - Taw may in raw latt
Is tú mo grá - Iss 2 muh graw

Irish stuff here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/irish/blas/learners/index.shtml

Sgt. Sensible

Dunno about anyone else, but it's not a phrase that cropped out a lot when the christian brothers were beating the language into us, hence the bit of confusion.

luckat

I don't know how this qualifies as literature - moderator, maybe it should be moved to the Gaeilge board?

I'd put 'Mo cheol thú' - literally 'You are my music', meaning 'I love you'.

r3nu4l

Great idea OP, might just steal it for our wedding rings when I get married next year!

Don't know if Beruthial and luckat have reported this for moving yet, so I have.

GaryOR

luckat wrote:

I don't know how this qualifies as literature - moderator, maybe it should be moved to the Gaeilge board?

I'd put 'Mo cheol thú' - literally 'You are my music', meaning 'I love you'.

"Mo cheol thú" would be more like "Bravo"

"Mo ghrá thú" would be "I love you"

NoDayBut2Day

Thanks for the links and the pronounciation guides!! Such a lovely language.

MrJoeSoap

NoDayBut2Day wrote:

Such a lovely language.

That it ain't! Try learning it!!! Half of it is just English words made to sound Irish!

GaryOR

MrJoeSoap wrote:

That it ain't! Try learning it!!! Half of it is just English words made to sound Irish!

give us an example so...

DublinWriter

Sgt. Sensible wrote:

Dunno about anyone else, but it's not a phrase that cropped out a lot when the christian brothers were beating the language into us, hence the bit of confusion.

Maybe not at your particular CBS, ducky.

NoDayBut2Day

MrJoeSoap wrote:

That it ain't! Try learning it!!! Half of it is just English words made to sound Irish!

Every language is hard to perfect when learning.
But to me, Irish sounds nothing like English. I could very well be mistaken; I don't know many Irish phrases, but the ones I do know don't sound anything at all like they do in English... the phonetics all sound almost completely different.. to me, anyway.

BossArky

Irish, agh - the debate rages on... love it or loath it, a part of every Irish person. When I lived in France I used to tell people that English was my second language just to piss them off with such great fluency, as they would harp on about how great their English was

r3nu4l

GaryOR wrote:

give us an example so...

Well when I was in school it was "carr" for car and "an mbus" for the bus. Terrible!! :mad:

I prefer to use "gluaistáin" for car, anyone know what I should use for bus...."gluaistáin mór leis staighre" perhaps?

I love Irish but am pretty useless at speaking it, I'm trying to improve but it's tough going with everything else in my life at the moment.

Rosita

generalmiaow wrote:

or even "Gráim thú" (I love you - but despite being correct this is never used)

That's a real limitation in the way Irish is taught - the lack of verbs that are used. This is a classic example where the noun 'grá' tends to be used with another verb. Similarly there seems to be a great tendency to say 'Rinne mé dermad' rather than 'Dhearmadaigh mé'. I suppose this richness of verbs is one of the inevitable losses when a language is more taught than spoken.

luckat

So all those guys were saying "Bravo!" to me? Well, maybe in the circumstances...

Rosita

r3nu4l wrote:

Well when I was in school it was "carr" for car and "an mbus" for the bus. Terrible!! :mad:

I prefer to use "gluaistáin" for car, anyone know what I should use for bus...."gluaistáin mór leis staighre" perhaps?

I love Irish but am pretty useless at speaking it, I'm trying to improve but it's tough going with everything else in my life at the moment.

It's funny how some people have an aversion to the use of loan words in Irish yet see nothing wrong with the fact that 60% of words in the English language come from Latin, and it is also littered with French, Scandanavian, and Dutch loan words. I remember Kevin Myers nearly having a seizure about this in the Irish Times (is there any topic that Kevin doesn't "feel strongly about?) on a good number of occasions and badly exposing his own ignorance of languages and how they work. Since Irish is surrounded by English-speaking culture it'd buck all linguistic history for it to be without a significant influence from that language. Funny thing is that if the gaelgoirí resisted this influence they'd be called "nazi-gaelgeoirs", yet when it is embraced it is also wrong!

Just for the record the French use the word "bus" and also "autobus" to describe a bus. The word orginially came to English from a mixture of Latin and French words.

As for "car" - there are words in old French "carre" and Latin "carra" referring to vehicles. There is also a word in old Irish "carr" denoting a wagon or chariot. So despite Mr.Myers and his likes denouncing the Irish language for "sticking a cap on a English word and a pipe in its mouth" to make it sound Irish, the reality is far more complicated and interesting. Despite what these people would like to think the English language has not been the most significant influence on Irish. So people should not feel awkward about using loan words as every language has them in abundance.