Question for you Irish speakers

[ardmhachaabu]

Le comh-bhrón

[ardmhachaabu]

Tá a fhios agat cad é tá i gcéist agam cibé

[Oraisteach]

Over someone getting bad news

[IolarCoisCuain]

The tricky thing here is to do with idiom. "With great sorrow" is comfortable as an idiom in English, but it doesn't really have an Irish equivalent. You need to use different words to express the same sentiment.

For instance, say you want to say "he's able to read" in Irish.

Your first go is "Tá sé ábalta léamh." That gets the meaning across, but as Irish it's Borat level. Poor.

Then you try "Is féidir leis léamh." That's better, but you're still making the mistake of directly mapping from one language to another. The translated expression sounds English in Irish. Like Hercule Poirot using all those French constructions when he's explaining who killed Colonel Mustard. The killer, it was his niece, no?

"Tá léamh aige." Now you've hit it. The idiomatically correct expression - he has reading. You hear it - or you used to, anyway - in some old people's expressions. The Synge language was English expressed in an Irish idiom. Now, God help us, we seem to have Irish expressed in an English idiom and the Gaelscoileanna are not helping. But I feel a rant coming on so I'd better go off and do some work.

Oráisteach, you might check your DMs when you get a chance.

[Canalman]

Le íseal chroí........................... "with a heavy heart "is another altternative if you want. No séimhiú issue here.

[Denn Forever]

Le íseal chroí........................... "with a heavy heart "is another altternative if you want. No séimhiú issue here.

Is that not a low heart rather than heavy?