Bíonn an dea-Ghaeilge deacair

[muckefuck]

The other night, I found myself wondering what the Irish would be for "wait for". I knew the verb would be fan, but to my surprise none of my learning materials--not even my dictionary--told me which preposition to use. One possibility, I thought, might be do which sometimes translates "for" even though its core meaning it really "to". But we also say "wait on" and the usual translations of "on" is ar.

So I did what I habitually do in such cases--I googled the possibilities and compared the results. Almost immediately I found this helpful advisory:

A very common error made by learners and L2 speakers in general is to use a calque of the English and say "Táimid ag fanacht ort". In fact, "ag fanacht ar" means "sticking to, adhering to, abiding by (one's word, a promise, your version of events etc.) So, "táimid ag fanacht ort" actually means "we are sticking with you".

So if it's not "to" and not "on", what preposition do you use?

Le. That's right--"with"! This is doubly confusing because the core meaning of fan is actually "stay" so táim ag fanúint leis looks like it should mean "I'm waiting with him" rather that "for him". (I tried googling the phrase with leis expanded to in éineacht leis "together with", but from what I can tell the meaning is still "wait for" rather than "wait along with".)

So then what do you when you want to express "I stayed with him for a few days"? Naturally you use ag "at", i.e. D'fhanas aige ar feadh roinnt laethanta. And here I thought learning the German distinction between Ich warte auf ihn "I'm waiting for him" and Ich warte auf ihm "I'm waiting on top of him" was challenging!