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Structure: Where do you live?

Structair: Càit a bheil thu a’ fuireach?

Find out from Joy how to say where you live.

We have enough names or pronouns to fill in the blanks to complete the full structure.

Càit a bheil …?

Where is…?

Càit a bheil … a’ fuireach?

Where is … living?

Càit a bheil thu a’ fuireach?

Where are you living?

Càit a bheil sibh a’ fuireach?

Where do you live?

Càit a bheil Calum a’ fuireach?

Where does Malcolm live?

We know how to ask the question but how do we answer it? We need new vocabulary.

ann an

in

Use ann an for place names without the definite article .

ann an Dùn Dè

in Dundee

ann an Inbhir Nis

in Inverness

ann an Dùn Èideann

in Edinburgh

ann an Alba

in Scotland

Tha mi a’ fuireach ann an Alba

I live in Scotland

Use ann am for place names without the definite article which begin with B, M, F or P.

ann am

in

ann am Peairt

in Perth

ann am Port Rìgh

in Portree

ann am Baile a' Mhanaich

in Balivanich

We’ve learnt lots of countries which take the definite article An | A’.

They take anns instead of ann.

anns a’

in the

anns an

in the

anns an Spàinn

in Spain

anns an Ostair

in Austria

anns a’ Chuimrigh

in Wales

anns a’ Phòlainn

in Poland

Tha Calum a’ fuireach anns a’ Phòlainn

Malcolm lives in Poland

Remember that Gaelic nouns take a gender, and this is true of places too. Countries are generally feminine, so lenite with the definite article , but let’s look at a couple of masculine place names with the article.

We’ve already met some changes in place names when we learnt how to say where we are from.

An t-Òban 

Oban

anns an Òban

in Oban

lose the t-

An Gearastan

Fort William

anns a’ Ghearastan

in Fort William

The An changes to a’ and the word lenites its first consonant (you see an h in the spelling).

The fancy title for when a noun follows a preposition is the dative case.