Buntús na Gaeilge - People Fas Harvard - Harvard University

CEACHT A CEATHAIR / LESSON FOUR
The same construction is used to express a variety of feelings, states of being and physical
conditions, particularly of the unpleasant sort, such as diseases:
Tá ... orm: Idioms
Tá fearg orm. I am angry.
Tá brón orm. I am sorry/sad.
Tá eagla orm. I am afraid.
Tá imní orm. I am worried/anxious.
Tá náire orm. I am ashamed.
Tá deifir orm. I am in a hurry.
Tá áthas orm. I am glad.
Tá díomá orm. I am disappointed.
Tá tart orm. I am thirsty.
Tá ocras orm. I am hungry.
Tá tuirse orm. I am tired.
Tá tinneas cinn orm. I have a headache.
Tá slaghdán orm. I have a cold.
If you want to say that you are very angry etc., you add mór after the noun:
Tá fearg mhór orm. I am very angry.
Tá brón mór orm. I am very sorry.
§3. The Intensifying Prefixes an-, fíor-, ró-, and iontach
The intensifiers an `very', fíor `truly, really' and ró `too, excessively' are prefixed to adjectives (and
occasionally to nouns), leniting the word they modify (an- is always followed by a hyphen; fíor and
ró only if homorganic letters need to be separated, e.g. fíor-réasunta; ró-olc):
an-mhaith very good
fíormhaith truly good, really good
rófhuar too cold
Occasionally they are also prefixed to a noun, particularly in the case of an:
Tá an-ocras orm. I am very hungry.
Tá an-obair déanta ansin. Great work has been done there.
In Ulster Irish, the adjective iontach `wonderful' is often used before adjectives to mean `very'.
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