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Irish pronunciation

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CommanderK
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 Message 1 of 23
14 August 2011 at 7:44pm | IP Logged 
Hi, can anyone tell what's his opninion on these 2 guides?
http://www.mustrad.org.uk/reviews/irish.htm
http://www.standingstones.com/gaelpron.html

Thanks :)
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Марк
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 Message 2 of 23
14 August 2011 at 8:20pm | IP Logged 
The first guide is about nothing. The second is more correct, but Irish and English have
very different phonology, so you are not likely to be understood by a native Irish
speaker without special training.
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Марк
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 Message 3 of 23
14 August 2011 at 8:21pm | IP Logged 
I can add that slender consonants are like Russian soft and broad are like Russian hard.
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Cabaire
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 Message 4 of 23
14 August 2011 at 11:50pm | IP Logged 
There are many things, which are wrong ("slender ch is pronounced the same as broad ch") and some descriptions, which are hard to understand, if you have never heard the sound ("gh like "ch" but based on a "g" sound).
You cannot base the pronunciation of Irish on English phonology (Irish x = English y), they are too different.




Edited by Cabaire on 14 August 2011 at 11:51pm

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The Stephen
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 Message 5 of 23
15 August 2011 at 4:11am | IP Logged 
Cabaire wrote:
There are many things, which are wrong ("slender ch is pronounced the same as broad ch") and some descriptions, which are hard to understand, if you have never heard the sound ("gh like "ch" but based on a "g" sound).
You cannot base the pronunciation of Irish on English phonology (Irish x = English y), they are too different.


Wouldn't some of that depend quite a bit on the dialect? I've heard that the three dialects differ quite significantly in pronunciation.

In any case, I believe a learner would be much better off just listening to audio at first. Ideally learn a dialect audio-only pretty well before even looking at the written language, although I'm not aware of any extensive audio-only courses for Irish unfortunately.

I'm just warning you that reading about Irish pronunciation can become pretty overwhelming. There are rules, but there are many, many rules. Take it slow and listen a lot.
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CommanderK
Bilingual Triglot
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Israel
melearninglanguages.
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Speaks: Modern Hebrew*, Russian*, English
Studies: German

 
 Message 6 of 23
15 August 2011 at 7:22am | IP Logged 
Thank you all for the answers, can you recommend a good Irish pronunciation guide? I have
Colloquial Irish but I don't know how much material on pronunciation there is, because
for me one of the most important things in any language I learn is mastering the
pronunciation.
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Cabaire
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 Message 7 of 23
15 August 2011 at 12:08pm | IP Logged 
If you have chosen a specific dialect, there is a whole series of detailed phonetic descriptions called "The Irish of ..."

As I intend to emulate the Irish of Munster, I follow the rules given in "The Irish of West Muskerry" written by Brian Ó Cuív, published by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.

Quote:
Wouldn't some of that depend quite a bit on the dialect?

Some things do, some do not. E.g. slender ch is in no dialect like broad ch.

Edited by Cabaire on 15 August 2011 at 12:08pm

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Iversen
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 Message 8 of 23
15 August 2011 at 12:28pm | IP Logged 
You can listen to short passages at www.abair.tcd.ie - the kind of Irish they use is called "Gaoth Dobhair" and I have no idea where or what it is (it is translated as "gweedore" by Google translate which doesn't help me much). But the synthesizer functions well.

However I have personally suspended my study of Irish temporarily until I somehow can find a lot of spoken Irish with both transcription and translations (essentially to do some L-R). With a language whose spelling is as quaint as the Irish one and with phonological rules that are complicated (to say put it mildly) you NEED to hear a lot of it. I had to conclude that just learning Irish from books would be possible, but leave me with a language that only existed in its written form.

Btw. I think it would be positively dangerous to use the slender/broad consonants of Russian as a guide to Irish pronunciation.

EDIT: in FAQ I found this: "The Cabóigín voice speaks Ulster Irish, and there will be new Cabógaí that will speak the other main dialects. We are currently working on a speech synthesiser for Connaught Irish, and then we will turn to Munster Irish. "

and also this:

Why is the Gaoth Dobhair voice called "Cabóigín"?
In Gaoth Dobhair Irish, someone who is always talking is called a "cabóg" ("clabaire" in other varieties of Irish, 'chatterbox'). In primary school in Gaoth Dobhair, "cabóg" was the nickname of of Ailbhe Ní Chasaide, director of the project


Edited by Iversen on 15 August 2011 at 1:00pm



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