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Roimhearan agus a’ bhodhaig

Prepositions and the body

Which preposition do I use to talk about body parts, hair, eye colour, and the body?

This is just a quick recap. You use different pronouns and prepositional pronouns for eyes, and you can use several to describe any body part, including hair. This looks like a big chunk of information, but relax – you already know this.

Preposition: Eye colour

In English we say we have blue eyes, brown hair, big ears, a long nose or whatever, and in Gaelic we can use aig for this too. Gaelic also uses other prepositions for body descriptions. Eyes can be ‘in you’, and hair is usually ‘on you’.” So for eyes we need the list of ann an prep pronouns:

tha sùilean gorma innte

she has blue eyes

tha sùilean uaine annam

I have green eyes

Here’s the ann an table again.

annam

in me

annad

in you

ann

in him/it

innte

in her/it

annainn

in us

annaibh

in you

annta

in them

Preposition: Hair and body parts

For hair, ears and nose, we’ll need the list of air prep pronouns:

tha falt, fada liath orm

I have long grey hair

tha falt goirid, bàn, air Sìne

Jane has short blonde hair

tha sròn fhada, bhiorach air Ruairidh

Derek has a long pointy nose

Here is the air table again:

orm

on me

ort

on you

air

on him/it

oirre

on her/it

oirnn

on us

oirbh

on you

orra

on them

Preposition: everything 

You can use aig (have) to talk about eyes, hair and body parts. Particularly if they are on other people. 

agam

have/at me

agad

have/at you

aige

have/at him/it

aice

have/at her/it

againn

have/at us

agaibh

have/at you

aca

have/at them

This is generally used to express items which are not physically close to you. There is another way of expressing possession usually used if you are talking about the following:  

People close to your heart 

Food 

Body parts 

The home 

Clothing 

mo*

my

do*

your

a*

his

a

hers

ar

our

bhur

your

an

their

am

their

We already met this when we were discussing body parts! 

The official name for this is the possessive article. If the article has * beside it, the following noun lenites. 

Tha mo shùilean gorm

My eyes are blue

Tha d’ fhalt àlainn

Your hair is beautiful