Good Afternoon to all who are so kind to help.

I am working on a tattoo design that among other things should have the phrase "I am Flawed" or "I am not Perfect" in Irish.

The idea behind the phrase is that "I'm not a perfect person, I have flaws and life has beat me up, but I have accepted my flaws as a part of me, and everyone else should too"

Like many, I've used google to start with a translation and I get "Tá mé lochtach" for "I am flawed". Searching through a lot more than google, I realize that this is probably a very literal translation, but is probably not the best translation for the meaning. In my searches, I found your forum, and thought I'd ask for help.

I look forward to having the perfect phrase it show what is really meant by this. I would also like to know the correct pronunciation of what ever is settled on.

Thank you so much, in advance, for all your assistance.

G

If you wanted to go the seanfhocal route there's Ní bhíonn saoi gan locht "There is no sage without flaw".

Otherwise I'd be inclined to go with Nílim saor ó locht "I am not free of flaw[s]".

I'd go with the seanfocal, myself.

BTW, to the OP...please, don't EVER use Google for Irish. It's almost always wrong. I'm glad you came here to verify it...many don't.

Redwolf

Could you say - Tá cáim agam ?

What would this translate to?

Thank you all so far for your input. I appreciate it very much.

"I have a fault/blemish". I don't think that's very close to what you asked for.

Traditional Irish is heavy on the use of litotes. (Even the sense of "only" is expressed as "not...but".) So something of the form "I am not without" sounds much better to me than a positive statement.

I think I like Nílim saor ó locht Thank you for the suggestion.

Is there an easy way for you to help me with the pronunciation? When someone asks me about it, I'd like to be able to pronounce it correctly (or at least as correctly as possible)

Perhaps one of our fluent speakers would be willing to record themselves saying it? Frankly I think that's going to be of more help to you than trying to transcribe it "foe-NET-ick-lee". (I'd volunteer, but my pronunciation isn't very good.)

The requested soundfile:
https://app.box.com/s/2a6tpajoo1kcsckelp952n9ackjg8aba

Wow! Thank you so much! Very helpful!

This group is awesome.