Transcript of media clip Giota Chun Cinn Lesson 17: Prepositional Pronouns

Anyone learning a language usually finds that they’ve got long lists of tables to learn off and many of these are verbs, pronouns, cases, declensions. I personally believe that one of the most useful things that you can learn and believe it or not enjoy is the preposition.

Prepositions are words in a language which tell you more about where something is e.g. under, with, on, at, to. They can be used on their own or in phrases with nouns i.e. on the table, at the beach, under my skin. They can also be used with pronouns (words which represent words or names i.e. me, you, it, them). In Irish when a preposition and a pronoun come together they are combined in what is called a ‘prepositional pronoun’ e.g. le means ‘with,’ mé means ‘me.’ When they are combined they become liom.
Examples:

liom ‘with me’
leat ‘with you’
leis ‘with him’
léi ‘with her’
linn ‘with us’
libh ‘with you’ (plural)
leo ‘with them’

orm ‘on me’
ort ‘on you’
air ‘on him’
uirthi ‘on her’
orainn ‘on us’
oraibh ‘on you’ (plural)
orthu ‘on them’

Those lists will probably be very familiar to people who have been learning Irish recently. They are a pain to learn but they are very useful on a number of levels. I don’t believe that one language is more useful/ beautiful/ functional than another but I enjoy what makes Irish different and what gives it its sophistication, complexity and richness and for the most part what does that is the preposition.

In Irish the prepositions mean the normal things on, in, at, under but they also mean so much more. As an example we’ll take the verb tá (to be) and the noun cóta (a coat) if we add a preposition to make a sentence, we can change the whole meaning of the sentence by only changing the preposition.
Examples:

ar - Tá cóta orm ‘I’m wearing a coat’ (literally ‘There is a coat on me’)
le - Tá cóta liom ‘I have a coat with me’ (literally ‘I have brought a coat with me’)
ó - Tá cóta uaim ‘I need a coat’ (literally ‘There is a coat from me’)
ag - Tá cóta agam ‘I have a coat’ (literally ‘I own a coat’)
faoi - Tá cóta fúm ‘There is a coat under me’ / ‘I am sitting on a coat’
i - Tá cóta ionam ‘There is a coat in me/ I have the ability to make a coat’

If you look at very good idiomatic language as spoken by good speakers and as can be found in the books of Seamus Ó Grianna you will find lovely simple Irish, short sentence with very few words but a deep and expressive language such as:
Tá punt agam ort ‘You owe me a pound’ (literally ‘There is a pound at me on you’)
Cad é atá ort? ‘What is wrong with you?’ (literally ‘What is on you?’)
Bí i do thost liom leo ‘Stop talking to me about them’ (literally ‘Be in your silence with me with them’)
Bhí léim an dorais agam ‘I escaped before anyone could catch me’ (literally ‘I had the jump of the door’)

This shows how the prepositions will help you, so when you’re trying to learn the lists of prepositions don’t feel down about it but look forward to the freedom they will give you because with very few verbs and limited vocabulary but the help of a few prepositions you’ll be able to say quite a lot in Irish.