Are you joking?
A bheil thu a' tarraing asam?
We're familiar with the simple preposition à (from, out of) already. We saw this in questions like Cò às a tha thu? (Where are you from?) and we saw in Cuspair 3 that we can use this preposition with cinnteach in the idiomatic phrase: tha mi cinnteach às (I am certain of it).
Like cinnteach às another idiomatic phrase which uses the preposition à is a' tarraing asam , which means 'kidding me on', similar to the English phrase 'pulling my leg'.
Just like other simple prepositions, if we want to use à with the pronouns mi, thu, e, i, sinn, sibh and iad , we need to combine these into prepositional pronouns.
| à + mi | asam | out of me |
| à + thu | asad | out of you (singular) |
| à + e | às | out of him |
| à + i | aiste | out of her |
| à + sinn | asainn | out of us |
| à + sibh | asaibh | out of you (polite/plural) |
| à + iad | asta | out of them |
| A bheil | thu | a' tarraing | asam? |
| Are | you | pulling | out of me? |
| Chan eil | mi | a' tarraing | asad | idir. |
| Isn't | I | pulling | out of you | at all. |
Thug sin mo lùths asam
That took my strength out of me
Thug mi leum asam thairis air an fheansa
I jumped over the fence
Thug mi grèim às
I took a bite of it
Thug mi an car aiste
I tricked her (I took the twist out of her)
Leig mi sgreuch asam
I let out a scream