how to say I’m tired in irish

Here we go..

Tá tuirse orm /Thaw thir-sheh ur-um/.

A literal translation is ‘there is tiredness on me’. In Irish we often say that feelings, ailments and other transient states are on us.

Here orm /ur-um/ is the first person-singular prepositional pronoun of the preposition ar /air/, meaning ‘on’ in English.

Tá /thaw/ is the verb bí /be/ (‘to be’ in English) in the present tense, so it can mean ‘is’, am’ or ‘are’ depending on the personal pronoun that follows it.

The noun tuirse (fem.) /thur-sheh/ means tiredness or weariness.

We can use this simple sentence structure tá + noun + prepositional pronoun to express many other feelings.

You might say..

‘I’m happy’: tá áthas orm /thaw aw-huss ur-um/

or..

‘I’m hungry: tá ocras orm /thaw uh-crus ur-um/

or even use it to talk about external physical features.

For instance, to say ‘I have curly hair’ you would say tá gruaig chatach orm /thaw groo-ah-igg khaw-tukh ur-um/.

Another common way to say that you are tired is tá mé tuirseach /thaw may thur-shokh/.

This translates directly as ‘I am tired’. Here tuirseach /thur-shokh/ is an adjective that means tired or weary.

If you are exhausted you’ll need to say tá mé traochta /thaw may tray-ukh-tha/ (‘I am exhausted’).

Traochta is the is the verbal adjective of the verb traoch, meaning to exhaust, wear out or subdue.

I hope that you enjoyed today’s little lesson.

I’m off for a nap (or as we say in Irish, néal codlata /nayl cud-la-thuh/)!

‘Z‘ is a letter in the Irish alphabet that is seldom used, but here it goes. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…