Gaelic guide for learners

Tha mi ga fhaicinn

Over the last few weeks we have looked at the verb bi ‘to be’ in different tenses and how to say what someone is doing: tha mi a’ faicinn Mairead ‘I can see (literally I’m seeing) Margaret’, cha robh mi a’ cluinntinn an rèidio ‘I couldn’t hear (literally I wasn’t hearing) the radio’.

To say ‘it’ instead of Mairead or an rèidio, you say tha mi ga faicinn ‘I can see her’ and tha mi ga chluinntinn ‘I can hear it’. Ga is derived from ag ,aswe find it in a’ cluinntinn and ag òl ‘drinking’, amalgamated with a, the possessive pronoun, and means ‘at her/him/it’. It is important to know the gender of the noun being referred to: if it is masculine, like rèidio, the verbal noun is lenited, if possible, after ga: tha mi ga chluinntinn. If it is feminine, like Mairead, the verbal noun is not lenited: tha mi ga faicinn. If the noun is feminine and the verbal noun begins with a vowel, ‘h-’ is added: tha mi ga h-iarraidh ‘I want her/it’.

For other persons, the structure works like this: gam fhaicinn ‘seeing me’; gad fhaicinn ‘seeing you’; gar faicinn ‘seeing us’; gur faicinn ‘seeing you’ (plural); gam faicinn ‘seeing them’. lsabhal Mòr Ostaig offers Gaelic learning opportunities on site and by distance learning www.smo.uhi.ac.uk