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it seemed to be the nose of an acquaintance
an bhfuil an t-aistriúchán seo ceart?
‘ba léir go raibh an srón ag duine a bhí aithne aige’No, I’m afraid not. The first problem is grammatical, you’d have to say “duine a raibh aithne aige air” (person that he knew). Also, in Irish it is more common to say that body parts are “on” a person, e.g. tá srón mhór air (he has a big nose). Perhaps you could give more context for your sentence? In that case, it would be easier to suggest alternatives.
Yes thanks, its a few paragraphs down from the start of that short story:
[url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Nose_(Gogol/Field)]https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Nose_(Gogol/Field)[/url]
probably better just to paste that link, clickable link leaves the brackets out for some reason.
‘ba léir go raibh an srón ar duine a bhí aithne aige air’
How does that sound?Oh, sorry! I didn’t click on the link. 🙂 Okay. “Ba léir” actually means “it was clear”. If you want to say “it seemed” or “he had the impression”, you could use the impersonal form of “feic” (see). “B’fhacthas dó go raibh aithne aige ar a húinéir” (It seemed to him that he knew its (i.e. the nose’s) owner) or “B’fhacthas dó go raibh aithne aige ar an duine ar leis í” (It seemed to him that he knew the person it (the nose) belonged to).
I quite like “B’fhacthas dó go raibh aithne aige ar a húinéir”, sounds like something someone would actually say.
Would ‘Ba cosúil…’ be an acceptable alternative here, meaning ‘it was apparent, it seemed’. Always been a bit unsure of the nuances between Is cosúil and Is léir.Yes, grammatically speaking, it would be quite correct. Except that “ba” causes lenition, so you would have to say “ba chosúil”. As regards meaning, I have a feeling “ba chosúil” would sound somehow odd here, as the observation in a way concerns the character himself (“It was apparent/probable that I knew the owner of the nose” would also sound strange in English). But I could be wrong…
Yes, I know what you mean. Probably one of those cases where something is not necessarily grammatically incorrect but not very idiomatic. ‘Ba chosúil..’ is not something I’ve seen much in print. GRMA as do chabhair 🙂
Tá fáilte romhat! Níl “ba chosúil” mícheart. D’fhéadfá a rá “Ba chosúil go raibh eolas maith aige ar rialacha na teanga, mar ní dhearna sé aon bhotún” srl. Ach feictear domsa nach bhfeileann an leagan seo san abairt a bhí faoi chaibidil againn.
Keep in mind that “srón” is feminine and it would be “an tsrón” if you use a version that includes the article. Re: “it seems”, there’s also “shílfeá” which means literally “you would think” but idiomatically seems to mean something similar to “it would seem”, so you might consider that too. Beyond that, I’m not sure about “úinéir” in the context of a body part. It could be that it’s correct, but it seems like Béarlachas to me. I would stick with a version where this part is “on” the person. “Shílfeá go raibh an tsrón ar dhuine a raibh aithne aige air”. Feel free to correct if I’m making mistakes of my own 🙂
I agree with Héilics about “shílfeá”. It’s a great alternative, as are other “reflection” verbs “cheapfá” and “smaoineofá”. But I’m not so sure about the “go raibh an tsrón ar dhuine” bit of the sentence. This somehow gives the impression that the nose was flying around of its own accord and ended up on that person, not that it belonged to him all along… Ach cinnte, níl ann ach tuairim.
B’fhéidir go bhfuil an ceart agat. Ní raibh mé féin róchinnte faoi sin. Chuimhnigh mé ar rud eicint ar nós “gurb í srón duine a raibh aithe aige air” ar dtús. Níl a fhios agam an bhfuil sé sin pioc níos fearr, ach tá sé níos soiléire nach bhfuil an tsrón th’éis a bheith ar eitilt agus tagtha anuas ar dhuine 😉
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