I want to make sure i get the sentence structure correct for an irish tattoo i am thinking of getting. I havent spoken irish in a long time to i am unsure.


" I aim to misbehave "

I'm thinking its " mar aidhm agam a dalba " or " mé aidhm agam a dalba " in irish but i'm not sure, any help would be greatly appreciated.

'Fraid not. This is more complicated than it might seem at first glance (for folks who don't know, it's a quote from Firefly).

"Aim" in this case means "plan."

Perhaps...

Tá rún agam bheith dána

You probably could use "dalba" in place of "dána"

Wait for more input, please

Redwolf

Thank you for your input :-) I do plan to hang around hoping for more inputs.

What about "aidhm agam a dalba"

= aim at me her bold.

Doesn't make much sense.


There are probably many ways to say something like "I aim to misbehave"
e.g.
Tá fúm mé féin a mhí-iompar

I aim ...
Tá fúm ...
Tá mé le ...
Tá mé chun ...
Tá rún agam ...
Tá brath agam ...
Tá sé ar aigne agam ...
and many more

... to misbehave
mé féin a mhí-iompar
mé féin a iompar go dona
bheith dalba
bheith dána

"Tá sé ar aigne agam bheith dalba" ?

Sure, if you want it to be that long. All of the things Labhrás and I gave you mean pretty much the same thing. Personally, if I were going to be inked, I'd choose one of the shorter ones, but it's your skin!

When I said "wait for more input," I meant to wait for more people here, on this forum, to give you feedback. We recommend getting at least three people on this forum in agreement for anything permanent (tattoos, engravings, etc.) unless you plan to take your translation to a paid translator. Even fluent speakers can make a mistake...that's your assurance that a mistake won't end up on your skin.

Redwolf

;-) that is what I thought you meant when you said wait. Your right about a shorter choice, I just want to make sure the wording is correct when translating between Irish and English. Not just because of tattooing, it is important to me too get back to my Irish roots that I've lost over the years. I appreciate all and any feed back ;-)

But doesn't "aidhm" mean "aim"? Or is that more writing then speaking? :-) times like this I miss my grandmother.

It does, but it doesn't quite have the meaning it can take in colloquial English. It's also a noun, not a verb, so you'd have to say something along the lines of "It is my intention to misbehave" ('Sí m'aidhm bheith dána (or dalba"), which is almost as clunky in Irish as it would be in English.

The trouble is that "I aim to misbehave" is an English idiom that doesn't work well in Irish when translated literally. In Firefly, Mal speaks a regional, mostly rural, dialect of U.S. English in which "aim" is a verb. To translate that well you want something equally idiomatic in Irish (in other words, you want to think as though Mal were a native Irish speaker, rather than translate his words directly). That's what we've been giving you here.

Redwolf

If you want to use the word "aim" then Redwolf's is good.


Just a question for the others -
Can that first apostrophe be dropped, or is it encential to leave it in? It would look tidier.
AND
Isn't there an a there? I know it's often not pronounced. But maybe necessary when written.