Bilingual transcription: Numbers
Bilingual transcription: Àireamhan
Watch this clip where Joy gives us some of her useful tips and favourite phrases.
Here’s a reminder of some of the things to look out forwhen discussing numbers in Gaelic.
An toiseach, àireamh a dhà. Remember that with a noun, a dhà becomes dà, it lenites, and it takes the singular noun: dà chù, dà thaigh, ‘two dog, two house’.
The lenition also runs through to the adjective if there is one: dà chù bheag, dà thaigh mhòr.
Larger numbers also take the singular: fichead cat, leth-cheud bàta, ceud duine, ceud mile fàilte.
Measured amounts tend to stay in the singular, and that includes bliadhna when talking about age, so: sia bliadhna dh’aois, ochd bliadhna deug, trì bliadhna air fhichead.
And in the teen numbers the noun usually comes before deug: ochd bàtaichean deug.
This is the word order we hear in dates: an siathamh latha deug dhen Mhàrt, the 16th day of March; naoi ceud deug, 1900; an naoidheamh linn deug, the 19th century.