New Zealand Ghosts & Other Haunts

HI One and All
This lesson was difficult to get right. but i hope you like this lesson, because its a long one i`ve had to split in two different parts

This is a continuation of the last lesson:

Heres a reminder of the pronounces:
Pronouns

mi(se) = I (me(-suh))
thu(usa) = you (sing & inform) (oo(-suh))
e(san) = he (eh(-san))
i(se) = she (ee(-suh))
sinn(e) = we (shinn(-eh)
sibh(se) = you (plur & form) (sheev(-suh))
iad(san) = them (ee-ad(-san))

If we want to make a sentence negitive, we simply replace tha with chan eil.

Chan eil Iain toilichte Iain is not happy
Chan eil Mairi sgìth Mary is not tired

For the verb is, we still use cha or chan. Instead of eil, you use the pronoun we learnt last time:

cha mhise Iain I am not Iain
Cha tusa Anna You aren't Ann
Chan esan Seumas He isn't James
Chan ise Peigi She isn't Peggy
Cha sinne an clas Gàidhlig We aren't the Gaelic class

Cha becomes chan before a vowel and when using mise with cha creates cha mhise for grammatical reasons that i'll cover in later lessons.

Moving a bit away from 'to be'. A another verb is 'to have'. The difficult part is that it doesn't exist in Gaelic. Instead of simply constructing sentences like ' I have a book', in gaelic it is slightly different. We still use the verb tha and use a word aig which means 'at'. Instead of saying 'John has a book', in gaelic, you literally say, 'A book is at John'. Here's some examples:

Tha leabhar aig Iain John has a book
Tha taigh aig Anna Ann has a house

If you want to refer to someone whithout a name (e.g he,she, I, it , we) we use a slightly different construction by merging aig and a pronoun:
aig + mi = agam (at me)
aig + thu = agad (at you)
aig + e = aige (at him/it)
aig + i = aice (at her/it)
aig + sinn = againn (at use)
aig + sibh = agaibh (at you)
aig + iad = aca ( at them)

In practice:
Tha càr agam I have a car
Tha leabhar agad You have a book
Tha taigh aige He has a house
Tha airgead They have money

That's it for now. It seems a lot now, but with practice, you will master something very important in the Gaelic Language.


And if you do find it difficult and need some help dont forget to post me

Mar sin leibh
Taye