To Be or Not To Be...

....or rather, some other kind of To Be.

UPDATED: see is below....

I've been doing some study on the use of is and tha. And oh my, it seems so very complicated! :-(

Having never had the pleasure to learn Spanish formally, I was never instructed on the differences between estar and ser. But I'm not sure that would have helped anyway. I just mentioned it because the beginner learner course on LearnGaelic.net seems to mention it, somewhat gratuitously too.

Anyway, here are some of the rules that I've learned concerning the uses of tha and is.

Is is used:
-to say I am George, he is Norman, etc.: Is mise Seòras, is esan Tormod
Here we have a pronoun and a noun being linked, so is is used (also tusa is used rather than thusa)

- to say James is the teacher, they are the Gaelic class, etc.: 'S e Seumas an tidsear, 's e iad na poileasmain
Here we have a noun linked to a definite noun, so is is used
See note below*


- to say James is a teacher, they are a Gaelic class, etc.: 'S e tidsear a th'ann an Seumas, 'S e poileasmain a th'annta
Here we have a noun linked to an indefinite noun, so is is used in the 's e [indefinite predicate] a th'ann an [subject] construction.


Tha is used:
- to say I am tired, we are ill, etc.: Tha mi sgìth, tha sinn tinn

- in various combinations with prepositions to give different meanings, e.g. with aig 'at' to mean 'to have': Tha taigh aig Dòmhnall 'Donald has a house'. 

No doubt there are many more ways both are used. Writing this post has actually helped me to organise the uses I've learnt so far in my head, so woohoo! Hopefully I can remember them and show off to Tormod (in texts anyway - I'm still pretty silent when it comes to speaking out loud :-/ which is a pity as I love how Gaelic feels in my mouth (that sounds weird but it is a thing. Believe me)).

Anyway, air ais aig obair I guess... Meanwhile, here's something for Là Chalum Cille (9th June):

 * A helpful reader contacted me on Twitter to let me know that "is e" is not used, but rather it is contracted to form " 'S e ". Many thanks to him. He also pointed out some great resources to which I've linked at the side.