Unit 21 - Talking about our pets
"Na Peataichean Againn "
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You will see some use of emphatic suffixes in this unit. These are special word endings, sometimes joined to a word with a hyphen, sometimes without a hyphen, which give emphasis to that word. Here is an example:
- does he bite you?
- does he bite you (with emphasis) ?
In the second example, the –s suffix gives the emphasis to you. In English the you is emphasised in speech. In Gaelic, however, neither the ì or the –s are emphasised in speech. There are different emphatic suffixes for the different persons in speech, as you will see below:
Singular:
- he doesn’t bite me
- he doesn’t bite me
- does he bite you?
- does he bite you (emphasis)?
- he doesn’t bite him
- he doesn’t bite him
- does he bite her?
- does he bite her?
Plural:
- he doesn’t bite us
- he doesn’t bite us
- does he bite you?
- does he bite you? (with emphasis)
- he doesn’t bite them
- he doesn’t bite them (with emphasis)
Note the use of the future/present habitual tense in the above examples. A bheil e gad ì? means “is he currently biting you?”, whereas am bi e gad ì? means “does he [ever] bite you?”.
Now listen to Cèitidh telling Seònaid about the behaviour of her pet hamsters.
