Tá / is é

Jay Pentatonic

Hi everyone
When I was in school I was exempt from Irish, but now I've recently taken it up (& loving every minute of it!!!)

Anyway, I just have a basic question,
How come you can't say things like,
"Tá Brian Cowen an Taoiseach" it's got to be "Is é Brian Cowen an Taoiseach"??? but you can say "tá mé cairdiúil" & how do you know when to use which one?

I'm just having a little trouble with this verb "to be"

it'll be great if anyone of you could give me a few sample sentences as well;)

BTW, this is definitely going to be one of MANY questions :eek:

Go raibh maith agat!

Múinteoir

It's simple enough actually. The rule is that you can use the Tá mé construction when it's followed by an adjective or an action, but never when it's followed by a noun.

Tá mé go maith/mór (adjective) - Correct
Tá mé ag obair (verb/action) - Correct
Tá mé fear (noun) - Incorrect

Is must be used in the case of nouns of all types.

As to why this is the case, it just is; Irish is a different language from English and so has its own distinct grammar and syntax.

pog it

Muinteoir just explained that perfectly, but an extra thing to look out for that I learned recently is that often the is at the start of the sentence can be silent in speech (you'd get it in the written though)- that is the is is not spoken, but is understood (it's still there).

Mar shampla:

'Mise Micheál' is sometimes said, instead of 'is mise Micheál'.


Sampla eile:

'Beatha teanga i a labhairt' = Is beatha teanga i a labhairt

conchubhar1

is duine cairdiúl mé nó tá mé cairdiúl???

Micilin Muc

conchubhar1 wrote: »

is duine cairdiúl mé nó tá mé cairdiúl???

is duine cairdiúil mé: I'm a friendly person.

Tá mé cairdiúil: I am friendly.

conchubhar1

cool

so both are perfectly right?

Múinteoir

conchubhar1 wrote: »

cool

so both are perfectly right?

Yes, they are. But they're not the exact same sentence. One gives more information than the other.

Jay Pentatonic

Ok. well, the Tá mé structure is pretty easy, it's just the "is..." thing I'm now finding a bit hard.

Just correct me if I'm wrong...

When talking about yourself or someone else the pronoun is pushed to the end,

is duine cairdiúil mé
is duine cairdiúil sé/sí

but when you give a name in the sentence the structure is a little different, as I had earlier,

Is é Brian Cowen an Taoiseach
Is í Mary Mac Léinn

during this structure the pronoun is just one letter & that's it...yeah?
a few more sample sentences would go a long way.;)

Sorry if all of these embarrassingly basic questions annoys anyone, but I'd just really like to do well in this.

pog it

Jay1989 wrote: »

Ok. well, the Tá mé structure is pretty easy, it's just the "is..." thing I'm now finding a bit hard.

Just correct me if I'm wrong...

When talking about yourself or someone else the pronoun is pushed to the end,

is duine cairdiúil mé
is duine cairdiúil sé/sí

but when you give a name in the sentence the structure is a little different, as I had earlier,

Is é Brian Cowen an Taoiseach
Is í Mary Mac Léinn

during this structure the pronoun is just one letter & that's it...yeah?
a few more sample sentences would go a long way.;)

Sorry if all of these embarrassingly basic questions annoys anyone, but I'd just really like to do well in this.

Jay you have to keep asking In fairness to ya you've fairly copped on to it!

The 'is' construction is known as the 'copula' or 'an chopail' and is different to 'tá' in that 'tá' comes from the verb bi- to be. If you can get (or have) a grammar book, there'll be a dedicated chapter just on the chopail with all the various forms and tenses- positive, negative, past tense, present tense, etc.

The only thing wrong with your example above, is (and you got it right in the second set of examples), is duine cairdiuil i/é (the si/sé changes to the pronouns i and é).

The copula structure and word order controls where the emphasis falls.

So, if you were to change your sentence to :

Is mac léinn i Mary you are saying 'Mary is a student' whereas
Is i Mary mac léinn means 'Mary is a student' and so the latter would be less commonly used in that context.

Jay Pentatonic

Cool! that's great to hear!, but can you recommend a good book? I've only got that "teach yourself Irish" thing, but it's not great.

BTW, I can't really afford lessons at the moment (for obvious reasons) so that's why I'm using boards , since I have no teacher to ask when I'm stuck, & everyone I know who did Irish when they were in school are...well...a certain Carlsberg ad comes to mind...

pog it

HaHA Totally get ya there. Well I have a few grammar books- the two I'd recommend to ya is the Christian Brothers 'New Irish Grammar'- they fit a lot into it, and the bonus is that it's completely in English (the other 'Bible' Grammar book by the Christian Brothers is in Irish and very very detailed but brilliant- but you don't need it straight away at the same time if you are starting out).
The second grammar book you could get is the Irish Grammar Book by Nollaig Mac Congail, which is very easy to follow and has more examples than Irish christian Brothers- I've found it useful to use Nollaig after I've learned what is in the Irish Christian Brothers..
The other good Grammar books I have are 'Cruinnscriobh na Gaeilge' by Ciaran Mac Murchaidh which is fantastic but completely in Irish and again you may be better off waiting for a month or so before using it.
So yeah see what others recommend also!

staryplough

Jay1989Cool! that's great to hear!, but can you recommend a good book? I've only got that "teach yourself Irish" thing, but it's not great.

buntús na Gaeilge is available online with a good explaination of how the copula works.

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~hillers/BUNTUS-1.pdf

luckat

Strictly speaking, is fear é Brian Cowen, but tá Brian Cowan ina Thaoiseach, surely - because the 'tá mé i mo....' phrasing is for something that's a temporary state, whereas the 'is é' phrasing is for a permanent state.

pog it

luckat wrote: »

Strictly speaking, is fear é Brian Cowen, but tá Brian Cowan ina Thaoiseach, surely - because the 'tá mé i mo....' phrasing is for something that's a temporary state, whereas the 'is é' phrasing is for a permanent state.

True true, that's the rule of thumb alright but you use the copula to emphasise as well.

So if you are saying 'Is é Brian Cowen an Taoiseach' you could take that to mean 'Brian Cowen (as opposed to someone else) is the Taoiseach'.

But otherwise 'tá Brian C ina thaoiseach' to show what he does that earns him 300k a year + !! Yep.. temporary alright

Beer Werewolf

Hmmm Carlsberg, been drinking that all night...my breath stinks of it...

This stuff is useful, don't be embarrassed asking questions. I've asked way more basic questions, trust me. This thread is useful to me and probably plenty of others as well.

Samildánach

D'fhéadfaí a rá:

"Beidh Brian Ó Comhain in a Thaoiseach go dtí an toghcháin"

Sílim.(?)