Bilingual transcription: That is/that isn’t

Bilingual transcription: Gur e/Nach e

Watch this clip where Joy gives us some of her favourite useful phrases.

This time it's a language byte featuring: GUR E/NACH E; GUR ANN/NACH ANN .

JOY

We’ve looked before at extended sentences for expressing an opinion or reporting something seen or heard, using gun, that, like ‘I think that...’ or ‘I heard that...’. For example:

Saoilidh mi gu bheil iad gòrach, ‘I think that they’re silly.’

Chuala mi gun robh an trèana fadalach. ‘I heard [that] the train was late.’

In both these sentences we’re using the dependent form of the verb after gun: tha becomes bheil, gu bheil; bha becomes robh, gun robh.

But look out for verbal phrases that use the verb Is. As well as Is e (’S e), and Is ann (’S ann), we’ve met: Is toil leam, I like.

When these are used with gun, it changes to GUR, and the IS is dropped. So: ’S e balach mòr a th’ ann, but Saoilidh mi gur e balach mòr a th’ ann.

Or: ‘S ann às a’ Ghearmailt a tha i. Ach: Chuala mi gur ann às a’ Ghearmailt a tha i.