If you were talking about a piece of technology and wondered if it is working (as in not broken), how do you say that? I am thinking that 'ag obair' is not correct, but don't know what is. Any suggestions?

One of Bríd's 'Focal an Lae' recently was 'cliste' and she gave an example: "Tá an raidió cliste" - "The radio is broken/not working". Therefore, it seems logical that 'níl an raidió cliste' means that the radio is not broken/working. There must be a way of not using the negative (if you know what I mean!) and I am wondering what it is!

Go raibh maith agaibh roimh ré.

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I think it's right though: chan oibreann a' raidió, the radio doesn't work.
I think you can also use "as gléas" (out of order). There's something else I learnt long ago but I can't remember it right now.

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I don't see anything wrong with "ag obair"/ "ag oibriú" or maybe " 'bhfuil an radió ag feidhmiú?"- Is the radio functioning?.



I have never heard of "cliste" being used for broken. That must be a Conamara thing , I love expressions like these . I have only ever heard just regular "briste" being used for broken in Munster.

Is "briste" only used in Conamara then for something that is physically broken?

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cliste - comes from the verb "clis".

Chlis an carr air. - His car broke down.
Chlis air sa scrúdú. - he failed his exam.

I don't think it's a particular Conamara word.

You can say "briste" too.
Although we say "briste síos" for "broken down" it is possibly Béarlachas, although I'm not sure.

You can say -
Tá an raidió briste.
Tá an raidió as ord.
Níl an raidió ag obair [ceart].

Alright, I have heard of cliseadh eacnamaíochta but that was in a text book, that was the only example, I think, where I heard clis used like that.

I think we would use "teip"- "do theip an carr air" or "do theip air ins an scrúdú"



I have heard of all of these though.

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Teip - I've often heard that word too. Although I wouldn't use it myself.

Another word for "to fail" is "cinn" (That might be spelled wrong )
Chinn air ... He failed... He wasn't able to...

Another word for "to fail" is "cinn" (That might be spelled wrong )
Chinn air ... He failed... He wasn't able to...[/quote]

Never heard of cinn either

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makes me think of another word that can mean something else in Ulster Irish: sásta can mean "handy" in Donegal (if I remember well)

Btw, I think "briste síos" is a Béarlachas. I'd say that most of the time, when an idiom is identical in English (even outside Ireland, because if it only exists in Hiberno-English, it may be an Irish-Gaelic expression that has been borrowed by Hiberno-English) and in Irish, and especially when some adverb is used after the verb, it's a Béarlachas.
Most of the time, "síos" "suas" etc have a motion meaning (downwards, upwards) in Irish, but in English, "down" and "up" etc very often have no motion meaning at all (when something is broken down, tell me why it goes "down"? -- it's the kind of things that non-native-English-speakers like me immediately notice because they are very strange, we don't see the link between being broken and going down, except maybe if the object falls on the floor )

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A good way to remember it

Like: Dúisigh suas.
I haven't heard éist suas (listen up) yet, but it's only a matter of time!

But we do say suigh síos and seas suas - was this always the case, I wonder, as síos and suas are redundant here really.

In English it is different as you can say sit down, sit up, stand up, stand down - in quite different contexts.