Lá Gréine / A Sunny Day

Slow the speed of the video above down if you need to! It's not always windy and raining in Ireland...sometimes we get sunny spells. Read on to find out about these rare and fleeting moments, and to have the vocabulary you will need when you are caught unawares by the sun in Ireland.

The sun

The Irish for sun is 'grian'; a feminine noun so when preceded by 'an' (the) it becomes 'an ghrian'. 

Grian / sun

An ghrian / the sun

Grianmhar / sunny

Sunny Spells

'Tréimhse' is a period of time, and is often used when talking about a sunny spell.

Tréimhse, tréimhsí / spell, spells

Tréimhsí gréine / sunny spells (lit. spells of sun)

('gréine' is the genitive form of the word 'grian' and means 'of sun')

Heatwave

It doesn't happen often, but it can!

Teas / heat

Tonn / a wave

Tonn teasa / a heatwave (lit. a wave of heat)

Humid

A word that is often associated with tréimhsí maithe gréine (good sunny spells) is 'meirbh'. When the aimsir is meirbh the air is heavy and humid

Beidh grian ann amárach agus beidh sé meirbh

There will be sun tomorrow and it will be humid

Sunbathing

If the opportunity arises seize it / tapaigh an deis (seize the opportunity). The phrase you will need to talk about 'sunbathing' in Irish is 'ag déanamh bolg le gréin'.

ag déanamh bolg le gréin / sunbathing (lit. doing belly to the sun)

Chaith siad an tráthnóna ar an trá ag déanamh bolg le gréin agus tá siad ar nós péire gliomach anois

They spent the afternoon on the beach sunbathing and they are like a pair of lobsters now

(*gréin is an old form of the word 'grian' used after prepositions in certain phrases)

Repetition

There is no substitution for repetition when learning a language. If you find the short clip above difficult to understand slow it down. Then try listening to this short clip every day for a week or so, and see how much easier it becomes. Doing this for one week should prove the importance of repetition when learning a language! Listening to something once is fine, but listening many many times is what really makes a difference!

And once you're done with this short weather forecast you can watch this video about windy weather and this one about storms.

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