# Irish: Yes and no



## olives

Hi,

In England, I met a bunch of Irish guys and they taught me how to say "yes" and "no". They told me that I have to say "cha" as in "chat" in french in order to say "yes" in Irish. 
I don't remember "no".

Can someone put me in the picture about the pronounciation and the writting please?


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## Brioche

Stictly speaking, Irish does not have words for Yes and No.

The verb of the question is repeated, either in the affirmative or negative form.
For example:

_Ar mhaith leat capán te = Would you like a cup of tea?_

The answer is either: 
_Ba mhaith liom_ = _I would like [this is not a word for word translation!]_
or
_Níor mhaith liom = I wouldn't like._

Very frequently it seems that _Tá [is]_ is the equivalent of Yes_,_ and that_ Níl [is not]_ is the equivalent of No, but that is not correct.
That only works if the verb in the question is the verb to be.


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## olives

They told me that I have to say "cha" as in "chat" in french in order to say "yes" in Irish. 

How come?


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## sarcie

olives said:


> They told me that I have to say "cha" as in "chat" in french in order to say "yes" in Irish.
> 
> How come?


 
This is how you pronounce "Sea" in Irish - if my rusty school Irish serves me correctly, this is a contraction of "Is ea" meaning "It is". However, as Brioche said, there is no direct words for Yes and No in Irish, it really does depend on the verb used in the question. 
To use Sea, I think the question would have to be "An bhfuil...?". The negative would then be "Níl".

Can anyone confirm this or am I completely off base?


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## olives

oh yesssssssssssssss "nil", that's it! you're right and you pronounce it like "Neil" the name ^^ I remember now 

Thanks then, that's what I wanted to do

Moderator note :
Please don't ask about more than one thing per thread. Your other questions where moved here.


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## Brioche

The word they were using is *sea*, which is used for yes, as is *tá*.

*Ní hea* = _it is not _and *Níl =* _is not_ are used for no.

Irish has two forms of the verb to be. One used for identity, and one for definition.
And the "it is" [yes] and "it isn't"  [no] are different for those two classes of being.


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## CatStar

sarcie said:


> To use Sea, I think the question would have to be "An bhfuil...?". The negative would then be "Níl".
> 
> Can anyone confirm this or am I completely off base?


 
You´re just slightly off base but I blame our primary school teachers! 

In order to answer *Sea* in Irish, the question being asked must end with *An ea?*

e.g. Tá sé ag dul go dtí an cluiche, an ea? _He´s going to the match, is he?_

The answer then can either be *Sea* (pronounced indeed like the French chat) or *Ní hea *(pronounced like knee ha) so that roughly translates to either *He is* or *He isn´t*

Although grammatically speaking the verb in the question should be repeated in the answer, you will hear people using Sea and Ní hea all the time no matter what verb was used in the question so don´t worry about it!

Cat


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## Setwale_Charm

You can also say: *Tá sin ceart* - That`s right.
 or use similar expressions to substitute for "yes".


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## cherine

*Moderator Note :*
*The discussion about the importance of stresses was moved **here**.*

*Please, Olives, remember to give each new question its own thread *
*Thanks.*


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## Outsider

Setwale_Charm said:


> You can also say: *Tá sin ceart* - That`s right.
> or use similar expressions to substitute for "yes".


This is probably just a coincidence, but it's funny how Irish can occasionally look similar to Romance languages. That sentence vaguely reminds me of *'Tá (is)so cert(o)*, a literal translation of the English sentence, which would sound clumsy and colloquial, but nonetheless intelligible, in Portuguese.


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## purplebroccoli

Hi, how do you say "yes" and "no" in Irish? No = Níl?
Thanks in advance!


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## purplebroccoli

Go raibh maith míle agaibh!


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