I'm looking to get two new tattoos, both phrases which I would like in Irish Gaelic to go on either side of the Celtic cross I currently have on my back. I've come to find that these two phrases have described events that my family and I have gone through in recent years. The phrases I'm interested in are:

"Find strength in pain"

and

"Expect the unexpected"

All help is greatly appreciated and thank you for your time.

-Chris

It's been up a while so I'm going to take a stab at it just to get things started. Please wait for more experience opinions/corrections Strength in pain: Neart á fháil trí pian and Expect the unexpected: Ag súil gan súil leis. Neither one look good to me but others will weigh in soon.

Thanks, kanailan. You mostly have the right words but the tenses are somewhat different (not necessarily wrong, just different ):

Neart á fháil trí phian (trí lenites) "Strength being found through pain."

Perhaps:

Faigh neart as pian "Find/get strength out of/from pain."

Prepositions work differently in English and Irish, though, so this may need further tweaking.


Ag súil gan súil leis. "Expecting without expecting it"


For a literal translation, perhaps:

Bíodh súil agat leis an rud nach mbíonn súil leis. "Expect what is not usually expected."

But there are also proverbs with this meaning such as:

Is iomaí cor sa saol "There is many a twist in life." (You may also encounter versions with a t on saol.)

Await further input ...

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Thank you both for the help so far.

Curious, however, on which one of each these two actually makes more sense when spoken/written. Between:

Neart á fháil trí phian (trí lenites) "Strength being found through pain."
^(pian?)
Faigh neart as pian "Find/get strength out of/from pain."

Ag súil gan súil leis. "Expecting without expecting it"
Bíodh súil agat leis an rud nach mbíonn súil leis. "Expect what is not usually expected."

I know that grammar, prepositions, etc. are different when translated for all languages, but I'm looking for what is said or written when used in the first place, not a word for word translation. I tried myself before to translate "find strength in pain" and came up with "faigh neart i pian", but again that's me knowing nothing but word for word translation.

I think Breandán's is fine


Bíodh súil agat leis an rud nach mbíonn súil leis.

Id go for
Faigh neart trí phian

for the first

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Nuair a shuíonn an coileach péacoige ar a thóin, níl ann ach turcaí
Chief Buffalo Breath
===========================


Wisdom is never on the menu, you have to own the restaurant.

This works fine. But while it’s grammatically a bit odd, I actually really like kenailan’s ag súil gan súil leis ‘hoping without hope for it’, or something like that. It’s hard to translate, but it’s very pithy and is somehow very filled with meaning … even if it’s grammatically confusing.


I’d prefer the pain to be defined:

Faigh neart tríd an phian (or tríd an phéin, if you prefer; or tríd an bpian/bpéin, if you’re such inclined).

_________________
Not a native speaker.

Always wait for at least three people to agree on a translation, especially if it’s for something permanent.

My translations are usually GU (Ulster Irish), unless CO (Standard Orthography) is requested.

Thank you for the help everyone. I'm going to look more into the "expect the unexpected" phrase I'm interested in and see if there are proverbs similar to the meaning I am looking for so the grammar isn't as confusing when translated. If anyone has suggestions I'd be more than happy to listen.

Again, thanks for the help, greatly appreciated.